Buying an airbrush can be expensive. Make some of that money back, or better yet, pay for your next airbrush by becoming an airbrush pro!
Pro is short for professional. And a professional is someone that does some task for money. Whether that task is kicking a ball around a field or painting miniatures, and whether good or bad at it: if someone’s paying you to do it, you’re a pro.
If the name hurts you, I get it. Call it whatever, but the result is the same: get some moolah with that pricy airbrush of yours.
Become an Airbrush Pro
There are many reasons why someone would prefer to pay a pro to airbrush their miniatures instead of buying one themselves. Sometimes it’s the upfront coast of buying an airbrush, other times is not wanting to spend time learning the ins and outs of it.
Offering airbrush services is also a great way to improve. The old saying, practice makes perfect, it works. In fact it’s one of the ways I really got started properly, both with learning the airbrush, and with commission painting as a whole.
Whatever the case may be, here are the five best ways to go full-on airbrush pro:
Base Coats
This is the number one money maker. It’s what most people are looking for, and one of the tasks airbrush are perfect for. People will tell you exactly what color they need, and you can even ask them to supply he paint.
Of course, the next step to this is to offer a simple highlight on top of that base coat.
Large Model Highlights
Similar to the base coat service, offering to do high lights on tanks or monsters is another great service to provide.
Many painter won’t get their entire armies airbrushed, the large models are always time consuming. This is a great middle ground and can easily be done with the base coat. I.E. Base coat the entire amy, then add an highlight on the large pieces in said army.
Basing
Bases should be done by the buttload, and are not the most fun think to work one. Slamming down brown paint on a hundred bases is no one’s definition of art.
Bases are a great service to offer, and you can even develop your own schemes and recipes and sell them as ‘pre painted’.
I’ve done this when I was deeper into commission painting to great success.
Special Effects
From vehicles’ headlights to glowing magic swords, there are a lot of effects that an airbrush make short work.
OSL is a big one here, because it is a hard technique to do with a brush, and quite time consuming, while it can be done easily with three sprays at the press of a button.
Primer
Shaker cans reign supreme when it comes to primer, but they require a space with sufficient ventilation or to be done outside. And depending on where you live, this might mean no outside primer for six or more months.
So you can offer to under coat models. This is a very basic service to offer, but a very practical one. And one that you can do with a simple spray gun.
Of course there are more than five ways of getting paid to airbrush, but these are a sure way you can start!
Think of every painting task that was long and tedious before you had an airbrush, those are all services an airbrush pro like yourself can offer.