 Hi there! It's DJB and in this video I'm going to be talking about what to purchase as your first airbrush. So I always wanted to purchase an airbrush and there really wasn't any information on what to get as your first airbrush and a straightforward beginner's guide into airbrushing. So that's what this video is going to be. I personally use my airbrush for model courses and that is what this channel is dedicated to. I paint models both big and small. I love the airbrush and using it as a tool. That is the first question you must ask yourself when purchasing an airbrush. What are you going to be using the airbrush for? I know some artists do their work primarily on paper. War figurines, video game figurines, model horses is a big community. There's a variety of things that you can use the airbrush for but generally speaking it's used for models and it's really good for models because you can get into all of the weird areas that you wouldn't be able to with a paintbrush and it's the same acrylic paint that dries quickly and doesn't smell bad but you're able to apply it in a really smooth way that gives an awesome appeal to your finished model. Depending how much you're going to use the airbrush contributes into what airbrush you should get. If you're going to use the airbrush just a few times then maybe you don't need something as high quality. If you're going to plan on using the airbrush to sell artwork I recommend getting a higher model. It depends what your use is going to be for. There's also a variation in whether or not you're going to be painting really small items or really large items. There's different spray levels for certain airbrushes. I personally have this Iwata Eclipse HPCS and this is a pretty general airbrush for most artists and there will be a link in the description to purchase this airbrush. It runs a 35 millimeter needle and this particular one I have is gravity fed and it has the large cup. This brush will last me a lifetime. I will never grow out of this brush. I will only add brushes to my collection so when you go with a good quality middle of the road brush you can have the potential to upgrade but you won't feel like you need to upgrade. You feel like this brush will do what you needed to do and I would highly recommend this as your first airbrush for the price point and what it can do. Now Iwata is industry standard so Iwata is the name of the airbrush. They've been doing it for years. They figured it out. They know what's what. These brushes are built to last. They come with a warranty on them. All of the parts you can get replacement bits for them. They're used on shows like Face Off and Paint Wars. It's like anybody who's anybody who airbrushes has heard of Iwata. Now I have heard success stories with badger brands. I firstly have never tried them. Their brushes are a similar price point if not a little bit lower and you can get replacement parts for those as well. Now that being said this eclipse is kind of that middle of the road. They also have the Iwata Neo which I've read good things about. It's about an 80 dollar brush. You can get a cheap little compressor that goes with it. Not too bad of a brush and then you get into the really fancy ones that are on the higher end of the spectrum like the Micron. So there's also a couple different styles of airbrush. So this particular one is a gravity fed but you can get a couple different styles. So this is the large cup gravity fed airbrush. So the cup is quite large. It can hold quite a bit of paint. It comes with a lid and so you can lock the paint in and you can use that much paint in your airbrush and the gravity just pushes it into the nozzle so that it can spray out. There's other types that come with smaller tops depending on how much paint you're going to use. The bigger one is better I find. You can tip it and you're not going to worry that the paint is going to overflow and spill everywhere. You can also get ones that are bottle fed. They come with a full bottle on the bottom. You can get ones that feeding from the side. Don't really know the specs on these. I've heard gravity fed is the one you go. You end up with less clogs, less issues, your pressure doesn't need to be so dramatic. So you will see airbrushes that are labeled as dual action or single action. Single action means that you literally just pull the nozzle back and you get paint and pressure. That's all there is. That's all the range you get. It's either on or off. Dual action means I can push down for air, pull back for paint. So dual action basically means that you have more control. So I can control the amount of air that's coming and the amount of paint that's coming. And so I find this really important because you have way more control and you can create better techniques and effects this way. A lot of people think that airbrushing is super messy. It's not. I don't have any issues with this spraying anywhere it shouldn't. I do have a sheet up against my wall to protect my wall but I've never had any problems where I've had to like really make sure that that was up. You can get away with just a cardboard box but you really don't even need anything. For the miniatures that I paint, the airbrush really doesn't have any overspray so I've never run into an issue with that. I would recommend airbrushing somewhere with ventilation or at least a little bit of airflow. What comes with airbrushing is that you do need a compressor. Airbrushes run on compressed air. They're pushing paint through to create a very fine mist and for this you need an air compressor. You just need a hobby air compressor. I personally have a compressor that I just got off Amazon. It's nothing fancy. I know Iwata and Badger and I think Apache all make airbrush compressors to go with their airbrushes. These are really expensive and I think really overkill because I was just getting into airbrushing I didn't want to spend a whole bunch of money so I went on Amazon and for about $130 I got myself a good little compressor. I've had no issues with it. It's just under two years old now and it's been going strong. No problems. The things you want to look for in your compressors are the same. There's two different types. There's a compressor that you will turn on and it will run the entire time and there's a compressor that comes with an air tank. Mine comes with an air tank so it has a three liter tank and so that means that when you turn the compressor on it's not going to be running the whole time. It actually has an air reservoir so when you turn it on it's going to pump up air and fill its reservoir and then it can shut off so it has an automatic shut off once that reservoir is full. So when I'm painting with this air compressor if as long as I'm spraying it's pretty much running the point is when I need to change paint or if I'm not doing as much it will shut off so it's a little bit quieter. So I would recommend getting that air tank. It's a little bit more but it definitely helps and it helps the air compressor itself because it can get quite hot and so if it has a break every once in a while it doesn't have to feel like it needs to run the whole time and that way you don't have to worry about turning it off and forgetting about it and having too much pressure or whatever it is. I also think that having a tank adds consistency to your air pressure and your air flow because there's already a reservoir it doesn't need to continuously like pumping in the exact right amount of pressure. This compressor also comes with a pressure gauge that's really important because you can change the amount of psi that's coming out and the amount of psi is going to change the amount of air flow that's coming out of the airbrush. So this varies for what you're painting and depending on detail or widespread work the psi is going to change the flow of your airbrush and another good feature to have is a moisture trap. This just traps extra moisture so that your airbrush won't blow out spits of water it will trap it all into the moisture trap and you will just get straight air. My compressor also came with its own cord so that's also something to look into and make sure that it has the right adapting heads on both of it. There's a couple other things that come with owning an airbrush so the airbrush itself the compressor that we talked about somewhere to paint but then there's just a couple little must haves that also come with owning an airbrush because there's maintenance on an airbrush for both yourself and the brush. The number one thing you must buy with your airbrush is a cleaning pot. It's not very fancy mine is really dirty really full of paint because I use it all the time. You need to clean out your airbrush every color you use and all the time constantly and this makes it completely simple so this is just a cheap off-amazon cleaning pot like will be in the description below. You basically just insert your airbrush here and spray all your excess paint out in your cleaning process basically just a glass jar where all the paint and your cleaner and everything goes into and it's filtered so that the fumes don't get out and go everywhere. Twist it off and you can clean it out when it's two full like right now. You're also going to need a airbrush type cleaner. This is a necessity to owning the airbrush. You have to clean it out between paints. This is a water-based cleaner but it has properties in it that help break up the paint. Media Iwata airbrush cleaner. Fast-acting odorless and environmentally safe. There are more advanced ways of cleaning but I'll get into that in a separate video about how to clean your airbrush. There's a couple different kinds of paints that you can get for airbrush. There are paints that are designed specifically for the airbrush. I personally have used both Golden High Flow Acrylic and Vallejo Model Air. These both work great. They're paints that are designed to go straight into the airbrush. There's also paints such as Createx. There's a lot of different brands out there but there's specific airbrush paints that are designed to go right into the airbrush. I would recommend buying these paints versus mixing acrylic with water or a reducer or anything like that because they just work better. They flow out of the airbrush better. You'll be less likely to have clogs. You'll be more consistent in your color, your texture and your flow. You want to protect yourself when using these paints. A lot of the products that I've used directly say on them can cause cancer or bad fumes. Don't inhale. So getting one of these respirators is a really good idea and I wear this now every time I airbrush because the smell of the paint sometimes isn't great. It's not good for your lungs. It can cause cancer. So using a respirator when you're airbrushing is really important. So these are the correct filters that you should be using on your respirator. They are the 3M60921 designed specifically for vapors so they trap all of the particles that comes from using aerosols and paints. Highly recommend this. I have a whole video on it as well so I'll put the link to that in the description. So with my glass pot it also came with these funky cleaners. I don't find these super necessary but they are good to have on hand in case something goes wrong. They came with my cleaning pot so I'll link that in the description. My Iwana airbrush came with both a wrench and some lube but these are also important to have on hand. It's literally a lube designed for the airbrush. You can drop it in the room tomorrow and make sure everything's running good. And then this wrench is to take the airbrush apart. The last important tool that you should get is the Iwana nozzle wrench. Airbrushes frequently need to be taken apart and cleaned and you have to replace parts at times and this is a tool that will take off the nozzle safely so that you won't destroy it and wreck your airbrush. So it's a really important tool. It's a good idea to get some replacement parts, have replacement bits on hand. I always keep a replacement needle and a replacement nozzle in my studio because you never know when it's going to break down. So I hope that this helped make your decision a little bit easier and guided you in the right direction of what you're looking for. This whole airbrush escapade cost me around $400 all said and done. I made that back in probably the first month of owning it so it wasn't a huge investment for me but I would highly recommend just doing it even if you're just doing it for fun. It's a super fun tool. It's super rewarding. The level of work I've been able to get out of this airbrush I never would have been able to with another medium so it's really really fun. I would highly recommend it. I love airbrush. Airbrushing is so much fun. I hope this helped. If you have any other questions feel free to message me. You can leave a comment below. Let me know what your concern is, your questions and I will try and help you out for sure. Thank you so much for watching and happy airbrushing. All of the tools used in this video are in the description below. Please subscribe for weekly Wednesday uploads. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at DJB Studios. Check out my website and sign up to my mailing list to be the first to know about commissions, tutorials, and sales pieces. If you have any questions feel free to message me.