Inexpensive Paint For Practicing Airbrushing

[CDA 455]

What's a good inexpensive paint to use while practicing airbrush skills?


Since I'm a believer of practicing skills such as line painting, dots, gradation, etc; I'll be using a lot of paint. I've been out of modeling for about twenty years so I'm behind on everything modeling.

Thanks!

 

[Grendels]

I started by using water I colored with food coloring, and then inks. After that, I went to paint. I also started off spraying on newsprint.

 

[BGilbertSound]

I use Delta Ceramcoat almost exclusively. It's dirt cheap, usually around a buck a bottle, and while some of the colors can be a little inconsistent, (large "grain," transparent coverage, etc) it looks fairly good overall. I bought some to practice with and never got around to buying any real model paint.

You have to use a primer, of course, but I just use a rattle can for that. Some shades, like the yellow on trainer aircraft, are a little limited, so I use a thinned student-grade artist acrylic. And you'll have to do some research into colors and shades... none seem to be perfect Federal color system matches out of the bottle, but a lot come really close.

I've gotten into it so much that I've bought several books on military colors and even the FS595a color standard. One of these days, I'll go through them and print out a chart of which FS number comes closest to Delta colors. I know it's kinda silly, since I've spent WAY more on books that one would ever save on paint, but I think it's a fun challenge.

Best
BG