We have a lot of new members, over 5,700 now, so heres the Overview for shooting Createx Im constantly updating and perfecting. Hope this clarifies some things and helps fast track some of the newer members. SHOOTING CREATEX 101 – By Reaper Grafx I thought this might help out some of you members that are new to airbrushing, using Createx for the first time, and might be having trouble with some of the basic things to look for when all hell breaks loose when you are airbrushing. Remember it’s not as bad as it seems, its just paint and most of the time there is an easy fix and you are back to airbrushing in no time. Let’s start from the beginning, Air compressor, no water and you drain your tank. No water in the lines, hoses or your water trap. That’s all good….? OK let’s move on…. Now let’s look at your airbrush. Clean the needle and nozzle etc.? This eliminates your equipment. Make sure you have a small magnifying glass and look through the large end of your nozzle while pointing the small end towards a light source. You can actually see if there are nasty bits in there this way. If you dont already have some Restore, get some, youll be surprised how much gunk will come out of a clean nozzle when you use that stuff, it’s awesome. DO NOT SHOOT IT THROUGH YOUR AIRBRUSH UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE!! Restore is a soak not cleaner to be used in between color changes. Ok now the Paint. Learn with what you will shoot later. I see so many people using a cheaper or thinner paint to practice with and when they go to actually do a piece of art it’s a disaster. You wouldnt practice drag racing in a Yugo then jump into a top fuel dragster... it would go all bad right?? Use Wicked violet to practice your movements and triggering but also practice with the dreaded white and black, these you will use a lot to do under painting so get used to them before you start shooting a piece with them. Over reduce them (black and white) and turn your air down a bit and build layers of color. REMEMBER there is no magic reduction or mixture that will make you a top ten airbrush artist over night. There are a lot of factors that play into the reduction of your paint and how it wants to play from one day to the next. Humidity and temperature are a big factor in the reduction of your paint. Get some of the new 4012 Reducer it will change the way you shoot as it will reduce tip dry dramatically. The 4012 reduces the surface tension of the paint and allows it to flow better therefore giving you an overall better finish. Play with the ratios until you get a smooth flow from your Airbrush, to little reduction and youre going to get spitting, grainy finish and tip dry, to much and you’ll get blowouts, spidering and an uneven finish (pigment migration). Also learn your paint, yellow and violet won’t need as much reduction as white or black. Look at the paint before you reduce, pour some yellow and white into separate cups and look at the difference, one (yellow) is much thinner than the other. I will shoot yellow right out of the bottle most of the time and get great flow from it. If you are going to paint metal panels, automotive/motorcycles and other different substrates get into the AutoAir, Wicked and Illustration lines. I use AutoAir for my base starting with the sealers, then to a semi-opaque color (I do use Wicked Jet Black for all my black backgrounds, that stuff is the most awesome black you’ll shoot!!) or one of the custom colors (flairs, sparkles etc.) I use Wicked for blocking in colors and/or Wicked Detail or Illustration for finer detail work depending on the piece and its size. Yes you can inter mix them just dont mix the actual paint together. Your paint is only as good as the biggest pigment in the mix, SO if you mix Wicked detail and Wicked together your biggest pigment is in the Wicked, bye bye shooting properties of the Wicked detail. Start your reduction at around 20%, this is where Createx paint is tested and the MSDS are based on. Remember more reduction=less air pressure. ALSO if you thin your paint to much dont forget you can add transparent base to bring the body back to your paint without adding more pigment to the party. This brings us to Transparent Base!! This is the magic of this whole paint system in my opinion. Its uses are endless. You can bring the body (thickness) back to paint you have reduced to much, you can mix it 50/50 with reducer to protect your art work and bridge pearls and metallics to smooth them out before you shoot your clear. Use it to reduce your pigment volume in any of the paints to help reduce tip dry and get the paint through a smaller nozzle. Take any AutoAir or Wicked and make a pseudo candy out of it. Use it to seal around taped/masked edges to keep pigment from creeping under and making more work for you later. I will also spray it lightly over masking I’ve made cuts in to help keep it down until I need to peal it up to spray. After I peal up the piece I will lightly spray the new, fresh edge with this mix to keep creeping from happening under the fresh edge. If a panel/helmet/tank etc. has sat for awhile I will shoot a coat of TransBase (50/50) over the whole thing. This will help wick out any residual moisture that might have gotten back into the paint as it sits awaiting its clear coat. I will shoot it again the night before clear and hit it with a light heat gun the day of. You can use it as an Ice Cream topper, just kidding but you get the point. The Transparent Base is something I feel everyone shooting Createx products should have in their arsenal. I mostly use it to protect and bridge paint and as a final coat before my clear to smooth anything out I missed that might need bridging or filling. I hope this helps fast track some of our newer members, this isnt the complete end all be all for shooting all the different lines of Createx products but it will get you started in the right direction. - Reaper
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 20:40:35 +0000
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