Kenny from Next Level Painting is back helping us with tips on how to unclog your airbrush- check out how to do it!
Today Kenny helps us how to stop your airbrush from being annoying because it obviously clogged itself. This video is all about getting you back to airbrushing with easy-to-use techniques. If you want to see how to take your models to the next level with more like this, be sure to check out his Patreon here! Or if you want to see his previous tutorials, we have hundreds of them cataloged on the site as well.
Today he’s going to be using techniques from his awesome 101 painting curriculum, which is a set of three easy lessons to get your minis on the tabletop fast and looking good!
Get your paints and brushes out and let’s go!
How to Unclog Your Airbrush: Next Level Painting Tutorial
Kenny made this video because so many people complain about their airbrush not working. He’s going to be using his Iwata for this video, but the tips are pretty universal.
Tip #1
Unscrew the nozzle and pull the tip out, this is usually where your phantom clog is. Then take a pipe cleaner and run it through it. After that, dry fit your needle, if you still have paint in there, it will get on the needle and rub off on you. To get rid of it take Hopper’s #9 gun solvent and put some on the back of your needle, then use that to coat the brass nozzle. If you’re worried about the amount of oil in there, roll up a paper towel and get the excess out.
You can also use Iwata’s lube, and Grex’s 10:1 concentrated cleaner to make short work of cleaning and stubborn clogs.
Tip #2
This is super important for your everyday painting to stop clogs from the get-go. Pour in a nice bed of Airbrush Flow Improver and pour some paint on top, with some water on top finishing off the mixture. then, cover the tip with your hand and bubble mix it all together.
You can then spray this onto your minis and it shouldn’t clog nearly as much. He uses the Deep Blue from the Army Painter, just to show how thick of paints you can use with this technique.
Next, pour the excess out you didn’t use into a bottle cap. Now, he’s going to show how you can blend colors using this strategy without having to fully clean out your airbrush after every color. With the excess paint from before in there, he pours in a lighter blue, flow improver, and a little bit more water. This will naturally blend your colors and give you smooth airbrush transitions. If you aren’t getting good flow, just put in a little more water and mix it all up again.
Tip #3
You can do the color transitions like this all the way up to white. White is very hard to spray without speckling, so when you have a tiny bit of the old color in there and the flow improver, it really keeps down the speckling. This also gives you even better transitions. He does a top-down spray here and just hits the very tips of where he wants to highlight. If you do it this fast, it will create a sort of wet blend, so maybe let it dry a little more before doing this!
Tip #4
When you are finally ready to get rid of everything, he dumps some water into the airbrush mixes it with the technique from before, and dumps it out under the desk, in a huge container he keeps down there. Then he then adds more water and does the step once again. Do the mixing technique again and just keep mixing and blowing it out.
Then take out a toothbrush and get the excess off. To finish it off, he just puts the airbrush in a cup with an 80/20 mix of water and Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner. He just lets it sit in that overnight and only does a deep clean once every week or so. It’s really that simple!
If you want to see how to take it to the next level with all his tips, check out Kenny’s full videos on them on his Patreon!
Join The 101 Painting Curriculum From Kenny
This post contains affiliate links, as an Amazon Associate Spikey Bits earns from qualifying purchases.
About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
