Tools needed to begin airbrushing?

Is there anyone out there with a rather definitive list of what tools are needing for airbrushing.. specifically for dolls? There's a giant sea of info online but hard to distill it down into items you'd need to use to go with airbrushing vinyl/resin dolls.

 

If anyone has experience I'd love to hear your suggestions I'm looking to get some beginner tools and use a regulator on my shop aircompressor that is in the garage. Airbrushing might be slightly overkill for DDs -- so I guess this is mainly me asking a community I love and trust about their knowledge that can cross over to resin land. (I've got a thread on DoA asking this same info, but glob knows if anyone will ever answer it lol)

Does your regulator have a water trap? if not then you'll have to get with a water trap. It prevents moisture from the air going into the airbrush. I like using gravity feed airbrushes.. but that's my personal preference. Make sure you get a dual action airbrush, which allows you to control the air and amount of paint at you fingertip.

 

btw, how strong is your air compressor?

I'm going to have to check on the water trap... as I'm not super sure on that one.

 

Talking with someone earlier today it seems like what I currently have is more than sufficient to run an airbrush -- mayhaps even a tad overkill: 3 1/2 hp 25gal compressor with 8.5 s.c.f.m at 40psi and 6.8 s.c.f.m at 90 psi.

 

But it was free so I can't complain lol

 

I'm looking at getting an Iwata-Medea Eclipse HP CS Dual Action Airbrush Gun / Gravity Feed airbrush (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BQKFAI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

 

The gravity feed idea seems more of what I could want vs a siphon feed, though I guess because of my compressor already a siphon feed wouldn't really be that big of an issue??

 

Nicolle's Dreams actually kind of confirmed for me that I'd like to do more airbrushing, and she mentions using gouache paints with some of her faceups (more specifically the fantasy pieces, like faun legs). I've got both acrylic and gouache floating around here somewhere but wasn't too sure what you need to mix with the paints to get it to feed through the brush easily.

 

And of course -- because of all the items you kind of need up front, I'm shooting for maybe later this year to have everything all ready to airbrush so I figured doing my homework now would help a little.. (unless I lose both Mariko and Yukiho, then.. it's shopping time!! XD)

You will need to dial down p.s.i down to 10~20. It all depends on how warm the area is,how much the paint is thinned down and the distance from the airbrush to the subject. Which requires you to experiment on scrap pieces of surfaces, i just use paper or whatever i can find.

 

If the paint is too thick then paint won't come out unless the p.s.i is set higher. But leads to too much paint coming out. Also paint might dry before it reaches the subject, leaving a gritty surface and if your applying a clear coat the surface will end up having a frosted finish.

 

Too thin and it will take a while to paint and ends up being too wet, then you'll end up blowing the pigment around on the subject.

 

P.S. I'm no expert, but someone that likes to experiment with things

oh wow.. ya.. 3.5hp, it's more then enough for airbrush. And like himitsu mentioned, it is a good idea for a water trap. There are lots of traps out there that has built-in pressure dial as one unit, so that would be a good add to your setup.

 

just do a google on "airbrush moisture trap regulator" and you'll see tons of choices

I just bookmarked this yesterday because it seems really helpful. Even though it's a talking about Blythe the same principals should apply.

 

http://www.puchicollective.com/tutorials/blythetutorials/airbrushing-blythe-makeup-the-basics/