RE: The Joys of Air Brushing.

>	If all goes well, it should be quite a striking model.	If
not... my
> tank will be getting a Formula 409 bath.  In the meantime, does anyone
> have any over all tips or suggestions about air brushing figs?
 
Unless the air brush is an expensive one with a very fine tip
you are going to have to use a mask. friskit doesn't stick well
to 1/300 miniatures and using card templates as stencils is 
difficult because of the bleeding and overspray, same problems with 
friskit lifting. 

The only masking that works well is masking fluid, but then you might 
as well paint the stripes by hand as you may well get a better finish
and
don't have to peel off fiddly mask. 

I gave up trying to do fine tiger stripe cammo by air brush as
the results by hand are superior. Air brush is ok for freehand
splotch and band patterns. You need a good air supply (compressor with
regulator) 
and a dual action air brush. I found the badger air brush ready paints
though expensive give the best results as you don't have to play
with the viscosity which also has a bif effect on fine line control.
That and lots of practice on graph paper to get the control.

If you work out a working masking technique for tiger stipe let
us know here. 

Couple of tips. 

If you are swapping between colors then use air brush liquid reamer
this is a spray of trichlorethylene (use ventillation) and 
flush into tray of clean kitty litter (it soaks up stuff very well). 

This allows me to switch colors rapidly without having to strip down
the whole thing. at the end clean with reamer, it makes sure there
are no nasty little bits of paint left which will spell doom to the air
 brush.

enamels are coarse pigmented so need to be very well stirred and
filtered, acrylics
are by far the easier.

--
Tim Jones