airbrush and concept art, do they mix??

[aloonne]

hey all iv been looking into buying an airbrush and compressor, im new to the concept art world and was wondering if anyone here had used one in there work, airbrushes and compressors are expensive so befor i bought one i thought id ask around to see if it would be worth buying to use for concept art.
any help would be awesom
cheers.

[Uziel]

Did you went to an art school of any kind/ do you have some kind of experience with art/painting?

The medium is not important for concept art as long as the result is great.

http://www.airbrush.com/gallery.aspx
Nice gallery, perhaps you can get more answers about how long it takes to get to a good level and master the techniques on that forum.

Get as much info as possible.

[aloonne]

hey thanks for the reply, yeah i guess your right, iv got years of art and painting experience under my belt and have done many an art class, i dont know why i didnt think of that myself hahaha thanks again :D

[Aberrant]

I use an airbrush on nearly a daily basis, it's NOT good for concept art at all. In my opinion a pencil is best, followed by digital, but several natural mediums that are quick and easy to work with like markers, chalk, pastels, etc are also good. When the emphasis is on the CONCEPT you don't want to be sitting there cleaning an airbrush, mixing paint, cutting masks, etc, it's a very slow way to work. What takes an hour in photoshop could take 20 hours with an airbrush.

[Etherial79]

I'd have to agree with abberant here. Unless you ejoy the manual labor between colors, airbrush might not lend itself to your temperment.

I do like to use my airbrush for value studies in a traditional painting, though. The gradual building up of values, and soft gradations. It's nice for some softening effects and finishing touches too.

If you're really interested in trying it out, I've seen relatively inexpensive airbrush kits in auto parts stores. (just a brush, paint resevoir and tubing, etc.) Then you can buy aerosol cans filled with compressed air meant for airbrush use. They don't last long, but the whole get-up is a lot cheaper than investing in a real nice kit.

Hell, there's even a kit for "Copic" markers that let you convert a marker into a kind of an airbrush that uses the aerosol can. That can get expensive real quick though.... Just some thought for you.