Choosing an air compressor

What kind of air compressor are you going to need? To airbrush your going to need at least 30 to 45 psi. Some of the small airbrush compressors made for airbrushing barely meet this criteria.  Many have no tanks, so they must run continuously.  Not good if you airbrushing for several hours strait. I would burn them out.  So they are only good for the model car hobbyist.  Not for a power user.  I've also had bad luck with the oil less types too.  A good oil type can be picked up at your local Home Depot.  12 gallon tank and up will serve your purpose.  Make sure to have a moisture trap too.

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Choosing an airbrush

One of the first questions I am usually asked is what airbrush do I use.  As an artist, I feel the airbrush is a tool to paint with, nothing more.  Your talent, experience, and abilities are what really counts.  If you have a expensive top of the line airbrush model don't expect your work to be that much better.  Some of my best work was done with basic entry level airbrushes.  Just make sure it's a double action airbrush in the $80 to $110 range.  A medium tip is fine.  You can fine line very well with it. Now a double action airbrush means you can control the airflow and paint volume with the trigger.  This is very important when you need to freehand details.  All of the work you see in my pictures were down free handed with a double action airbrush with a medium tip.  When started in the late 1970's I used a siphon fed airbrush with a bottle.  Today, I prefer the gravity fed type for easy handling and getting in tight areas.

Birth of an Airbrush Artist

It's been a long day for me, just finnished painting. I am living my dream and it is worth the hard work. I have a bit of time to reflect on how I began airbrushing. I am often asked this question. As a teen I saw a movie about lowriding, and a lowrider with a mural was in it. I thought "Hey I could do that, and maybe make some spending money too." With the money I made on my summer job I bought a compressor and airbrush and paint. I had read a couple of books on airbrush art and graphics. I dove into it, I painted on an old stove door, my first attempts were fustrating because the airbrush is a little difficult until you get enough practice with air pressure and paint mixture, and thinning it to the right consisitancy. A friend of mine told one of his buddies about me and he hit me up for a mural on his trunk. Being my first paying job I charged him only $50.00. He wanted a mexican girl with a mission in the background. It came out very well, even I was surprised. He loved it and spread the word. By the time I was 19 I had already painted over thirty murals on lowrider cars, trucks and bicycles. My business was born, I never thought I would still be doing it today.

Artist in development

Once I had a pencil in my hand, I realized the power I could wield with it. I saw the affect I had on others with my drawings. Every day I would draw to entertain myself. I could create a whole new world for my imagination to grow and mature. I had found a home in a 2 deminsional land of castles and dragons. I could travel to other planets to which I could explore. Dive to the depths of the ocean in a submarine or fly through the heavens on a high speed futuristic plane. I can remember collecting my first comic books before i could read. I would get a new one every time we would visit my grandmother because she lived right next to a market. They would have all of the comic books on racks outside the store. I would just look through them trying to decide which one I could get. I would go home and start to draw looking at the comic books, studying them how to draw the anatomy, how to draw trees and buildings. Later I started to create my own comic strips using what I had learned.

How I got started in art

I had grown up on comic books and sci-fi movies as a kid. I was blessed with a very good imagination, and art provided that outlet for my imagination. At around 4 years of age I started drawing on anyting I could get my hands on. I can clearly remember drawing on paper bags at my grandmothers's because she had no paper. My mother brought home a giant roll of butcher paper; I went wild! I drew a whole battle scene measuring 7feet in length.

In first grade I made my first money for my art work at school. I would sell drawings of super heroes for a quarter to the other kids. The day I realized I had a talent, was when my second grade teacher had the class draw a portrait of her. While everyone else was drawing a stick figure, I was drawing a realistic anatomically correct portrait of her. She walked around the classroom checking everyone's art work. When she got to me she stopped dead in her tracks let out a gasp, she ran out of the classroom and quickly came back with several other teachers. The next thing I knew I was sitting in the principal’s office. Luckily, he only wanted to see my drawings, I thought for sure he was coming out with his big thick belt, in those days they could whip kids. Soon I began making my own comics to entertain myself and anyone else who would look at them.