Badger Sotar 20/20 airbrush

[ninjahamster]

Hey guys,

I;ve just ordered a Badger Sotar 20/20 airbrush from amazon at what I think is a relative cheap price:

http://www.amazon.com/Badger-Air-Brush-2020-2F-Gravity-Airbrush/dp/B000BROVIO/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Ordering it from the states, with shipping and customes came to 52ukp, not bad as the same brush is 162ukp on the uk amazon site :s

I'm upgrading from a cheap chinese airbrush I got with my compressor/tank and was wondering if anyone had any hints/tips for me? I'm guessing as this is a finer tip I'll need to thin my paint down even further to get fine lines out of it.

Cheers

Jimmy

[Fenton Crack]

Hey guys,

I;ve just ordered a Badger Sotar 20/20 airbrush from amazon at what I think is a relative cheap price:

http://www.amazon.com/Badger-Air-Brush-2020-2F-Gravity-Airbrush/dp/B000BROVIO/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Ordering it from the states, with shipping and customes came to 52ukp, not bad as the same brush is 162ukp on the uk amazon site :s

I'm upgrading from a cheap chinese airbrush I got with my compressor/tank and was wondering if anyone had any hints/tips for me? I'm guessing as this is a finer tip I'll need to thin my paint down even further to get fine lines out of it.

Cheers

Jimmy

I have had my Sotar 20/20 for a while now, and I suspect you will be quite happy with it. While I love the detail it is capable of, it is still likely to not be your workhorse brush. For detailed work, it's great. Hell, I was actually able to shade individual folds n the December Acolyte's cloak one at a time, you could sign a check with the thing if you had it dialed in right.

Obviously the small nozzle and needle give you great detail, but it can be burdensome for general use such as priming, laying down your base colors, zenithial highlighting and the like. It is also potentially more finicky when it comes to paint viscosity and air pressure settings, and will be more prone to clogging and dry tip.

Keep using your old one for your main use, or if you don't really care for its performance, get a higher quality workhorse brush like the Iwata Revolution or the Badger Patriot 105, which work great for general work, easy to clean, and are very durable.

I would recommend Vallejo's airbrush thinner for acrylic paints rather than water (it thins very well put doesn't seem to adversely affect the adhesion of paint) and that you use use either Vallejo, Reaper, or some other "dropper bottle" paints, as one can't really trust pots not to have some floaties that will clog our tip. Additionally, you can also always get Air Color, Badger Minitaire, or some other "airbrush ready" paint if you don't mind spending a little more for the convenience.

Do get the hyper fine detail, you will need to experiment with the viscosity of you paints, the air pressure, the distance of tip from the model, and paint flow. The trickiest can often be the paint flow (how far you pull back the trigger) and how fast you move across the model, but the Sotar 20/20 does have a set screw to govern max flow on the back so you can lock in the sweet spot of how far you want the trigger to be able to go back for one task or another. For fine lines you'll want to dial down the pressure, and get close. Low pressure means you'll need thin paint to avoid clogging, but too thin will get you "spidering", so practice on some same material before you go they it to airbrush the glow on the Nothing Beast's eyes or what not.

Good luck, they are fun, but sometimes frustrating.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Fenton Crack
Spelling