Homemade airbrush stencils that fit any purpose.

Making a stencil that fits exactly you purpose made easy – In matter of minutes you’ll have yourself any image transferred into a stencil for painting your dolls!

Tools needed are:

• Computer and printer.
• Laminator & a laminating pockets.
• Hobby knife & Scissors.
• Airbrush, compressor and paint.

Making the stencil:

1. Use Google picture search to find the image you want to use as stencil. Simple images like skulls and the imperial eagle are nice, simple and easy to use.
2. Measure the area where the image is to fit, as you’ll use these measurements to scale the image.
3. Use Powerpoint or Word to scale the picture (right click the picture and select 'Format Auto shape' after pasting it into a new document - then the size can be set using the size tab). Check my tutorial on banners for detailed info.
4. Print the image and laminate it.
5. Use combination of hobby knife and scissors to cut the stencil from the laminated piece of paper.

Applying & using the stencil:

1. Use masking tape to fix it to the target.
2. Use airbrush to apply paint.
3. Remove stencil and enjoy the result.

Example:

I have used a brush to paint the eyes in the skull. But this could have been done using a stencil also…

/Nicolai aka Atoom



Playing with the airbrush – Light and shade II…

Following the experiment with light and shade on the storm troopers (see post light and shade I) I decided that I would like to give it a go on some tanks, to see if it was possible to get the edge highlights for free. The storm troopers were lighted using white, but it actually took the green colour to a too light tone.

That is why I decided to use yellow for lighting the tanks. I sprayed all edges and raised areas that I wanted to have a highlight, then I sprayed the tanks with the camo-green that they were intended to have. I’m really pleased with the result, as the yellow brings the camo-green ‘alive’.

Judge for yourselves:

/Nicolai aka Atoom

Taking the airbrush to the cleaner...

Even through I 'm a NOOB in the world of airbrushing I do know one thing - A filthy airbrush is the shortcut to a poor finish. So a word of advice to all, keep the gun clean at all times. This is in fact as easy as it sounds, if one is prepared for the task that is... Allow me to share the shortcuts I have come across while working with the airbrush.

This is what I do to ensure that the gun is operational at all times:

Before a spraying session:

·        Prepare a bucket of water for cleaning and a jar of water for brushes (the hairy ones).

·        Check needle on airbrush to ensure that it is completely clean.

·        Functional check of gun and compressor to see that air / paint flow is ok

During a spraying session (when changing colours):

·        First fill the cup with water, and use a brush to clean the cup.

·        Submerge the tip of the airbrush and cup in the bucket of water and spray for a short while, to blow the remaining paint from the cup/nozzle.

·        Put some drops of washer (the freeze resistant version from your car) into the cup and spray until cup is empty. NB! Make sure that you spray into a cleaning station as the alcohol in the washer is not something you want to inhale.

After a spraying session:

·        Repeat the steps from the colour changing above.

·        Remove needle and dry it.

·        Check the cup and gun for remaining paint and dry that.

·        I end the session by spraying some drops of Vallejo airbrush cleaner through the gun and then drying the needle again.

Safety considerations:

·        Inhaling stuff like paint, washer and airbrush cleaner is unlikely to be good for your health, so I suggest that you use some kind of respirator with a filter.

·        Further to that I’ve started to use a homemade cleaning station to catch some of the spray before it spreads to the entire house. You could buy one from the airbrush vendor, but any semitransparent container with a lid will do – Mine is a cotton stick container with a hole (made with a hobby knife) in the lid.

/Nicolai aka Atoom

UPDATED 01032011

I bought a ultrasonic cleaner, that works wonders on the tiny dirt inside the airbrush - Must have if you can afford it.

Playing with the airbrush - Light and shade I...

I've been playing with the airbrush, looking for light and shade, the easy way…

I have 2 squads of storm troopers that are to be painted at some point - 20 man strong is not something I favour, especially because I have just painted 10 of them for the tournament I just attended...

So, I was looking for the cheap and fast way around that, and that was the aim for the session - Define light and shade, using the airbrush. Starting from a black undercoat, I figured that I could use white to define light on raised areas and let the black undercoat define the shades. Below picture shows two test subjects, with different amounts of white 'lighting'.

Using an airbrush you live and die baced on the quality and colour of the 'canvas' you are spraying - The test subjects had a poor quality foundation spray, and mould lines that the airbrush made even more obvious... So I need to spend more time on prepping the lot before scaling the experiment to the lot of the storm troopers. That aside I started applying the 'real' colour for the troopers. In this case a dark green, and you can see the test subjects are now 3, as I sprayed one additional directly on top of the black primer.

Do I like the result?? Well, test subject 1 is too bright and subject 3 is too dark, so the conclusion is that I need to be very careful when using white as lighting the model, or spray the modes with a coat of black wash. Below is a picture of the 3 test subjects and one of the troopers from the squad that I painted using ordinary brushes.

Quick recap:

1.      Black undercoat.

2.      White lighting, sprayed from above 90-45 degree angle targeting the head and shoulders.

3.      Colour the model with camo green to set the tone – Alternatively I have seen people use inks to colour the areas, something that I’ll explore another time.

Finally on a side note, I continue to be amazed by the work you can do in no time - See this, where I used a plastic cup and some paper as stencils and two colours to make, what could have been a nice canvas for freehanded banner or rhino-door - if it hadn't been on paper :o)

/Nicolai aka Atoom



A new toy - Airbrush!

Last Friday I got a new toy - An Airbrush. I see a huge potential in the airbrush as a tool for painting minis - Not only Tanks but also smaller dolls like infantry...

I have to show you the kind of WIN I got from 45 minutes of testing the magic of airbrushing (remember that I am a NOOB with less than 2 hrs of air-bush experience in total before starting the endeavour).

I started practicing on some paper, but soon moved on to spraying a Manticore missile tank for my IG army. I started from black undercoat, and sprayed the vehicle camo green as base:

Then I applied masking using masking tape:

Sprayed brown (& white on the misiles) and removed the masking

45 minutes later including some silver and black ink (and all the boring stuff like cleaning the air-brush):

/Nicolai aka Atoom