Airbrush paints: when to dilute and how.

After understanding how an airbrush works, beginners immediately struggle with colors and find themselves frustrated by not reaping the benefits of their practice. Because, as I repeat endlessly in my classes, when you have an airbrush in your hand, it's not like wielding a marker or a pencil. And there are no miracle cures: what's needed is a lot of practice and determination.

If you, who are reading this article, are thinking of circumventing this obstacle, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you won't be encouraged to do so here. Quite the opposite.

Let's try to understand why. There are various types of pigmented paints on the market, which are the result of a mixture of pigments (ground metal oxides and inorganic substances), resins (acrylic ones, for example), and the solvent, which in the case of water-based acrylics (as the name itself suggests) is water.

Schminke Aerocolor

The main brands of acrylic paints on the market (Createx, Hansa, Schmincke, Pebeo, Valleyo, Liquitex, etc.) use different resins, pigments and different percentages of water, which has the sole purpose of making the color fluid so that it can be sprayed and pulverized with the airbrush, but must evaporate, leaving only resin and pigment on the substrate.

Liquitex Basics Acrylic

Each brand offers different lines of paint: some are pre-diluted, meaning they already contain a pre-measured percentage of water so you can use the paint right away, without any dilution, ready to use. These include Schmincke and Hansa paints, for example. You can add them directly to the airbrush (with nozzles of 0.2 or larger) and use them without any difficulty.

Then there are brands that produce slightly thicker colors, with a higher percentage of pigment and a lower concentration of water. Createx are of this type: with nozzles under 0.4, they need to be diluted slightly to allow the color to come out and be atomized properly.

Createx Illustration Colors

Then there are paste colors, those with a consistency like toothpaste, and obviously need to be carefully diluted without creating lumps. It's practically impossible to use them neat with an airbrush. Liquitex tubes belong to this category. It's best to filter them through a fine mesh strainer to avoid clogging, after diluting them on a small plate with a brush.

Then there are "TRANSPARENT" acrylic colors (but still with pigment). Hansa has a line with these characteristics. This means they have a lower percentage of pigment and a higher concentration of water, making them brighter and more transparent. Hansa also produces a "COVERING" line (ready to use), where the colors have a higher concentration of pigment and are more immediate in their coverage. By slightly diluting these colors, they can be made less opaque and more similar to transparent colors. To achieve a full coverage effect, transparent colors must be used with a greater number of overlapping layers.

Airbrush Thinner by Vallejo

When necessary, or simply to make the paint more fluid, you can thin it with water (for water-based acrylics, of course), but don't exceed a percentage of 20%-30%. If you go above that, you risk "unbonding" the paint and losing its adhesion, because if the water content exceeds the percentage specified in the factory formulation, the paint loses its adhesiveness. In these cases, if you need to thin significantly, you should use a REDUCER, a type of transparent resin that makes the paint more fluid and transparent, without losing its ability to adhere to the surface.

Anyone who thinks there's a precise formula for diluting paint clearly doesn't understand what an airbrush is and what factors influence it. Not to mention the folkloristic definition of optimal dilution, comparing diluted paint to milk! Nothing could be more amusing, and—as a guideline—absolutely useless!

Because before diluting the paint, you must ask yourself: a) what type of paint am I using? b) what is the diameter of my airbrush nozzle?

Because it can happen that, even if you dilute the paint, you still can't airbrush it because the pigment won't pass through, clogging your airbrush (because you have a very small nozzle or the pigment isn't ground for airbrushing). And sometimes, you'll find, among the brands of ready-made paints, there are some that don't require dilution, while others, more viscous, require it. Only personal experimentation can teach you what no formula can accurately provide.