While at the Las Vegas Open I was lucky enough to get my hands on a few different colors from the Minitaire airbrush paint line from Badger. The paint set has 80 different colors available, in addition there are some colored primers available too. The price per bottle is around $3.33 for 1 oz. (or 30 ml) which isn’t too bad for what you get. I used a Badger Patriot 105 and Badger Sotar 2020 with a Masters TC-20T running 20 to 25psi. The paints were thinned with water when thinner was used.

The Primers The primers by Badger go under the name Stynylrez. I’ve only used the White, Black, and Gray but if the colored ones work anything like the basic primers do, they will be amazing (editors note: I’ve used the yellow Stynylrez Primer and it’s just as good as the ones Clint used). I love the coverage and haven’t had any issue with any of the primers on multiple different surfaces. They go on smooth and adhere well to plastics, resins, and pewter like a champ. You could get away with just a Black and White primer and mixing them together for a Grey primer but that is personal preference. I tried a few ways of using the primer, straight from the bottle and thinned down. Honestly it shot the best straight out of the bottle. I probably will never go back to rattle can primers since I have used the primers from Badger and saw what they could accomplish.

Tip: When using an airbrush Primer regardless of brand, allow either 24 hours for it to properly cure or blow dry it for 5 minutes on medium heat. This will solve the biggest complaint about airbrush primer, the it rubs off easy. 

The Colors With the Minitaire I once again tried thinning and straight from the bottle with the same results as the primer. The Patriot 105 shot the paint straight from the bottle the best, but the Sotar 2020 was able to shoot it as well, but worked better with some thinning. Shooting straight from the bottle gave the best results with the setup I was using. The colors range from rich and deep to vibrant and ghost tint. I didn’t get to play with any of the tints but I look forward to being able to use them in the future. Coverage on the color range was exceptional, only 2-3 passes and it was completely opaque.

A few cons with the paint line though: It may be due to my novice airbrushing skills but I did have to fight a lot of dry tip when it came to certain colors, the reds and yellows especially. A quick wipe off solved the issue but slowed me down when I was getting into the groove of things. Also the plastic containers used for the paint can be a bit on the hard-to-squeeze side for some painters out there.

Speaking of cleaning, I had no issues what so ever between color changing or doing a nice deep cleaning between sessions.

Below is a few progression shots of a zombie that I used 95% Minitaire paints and air brushing to complete.

I started with the Grey Primer and allowed it to dry/cure for around 30 minutes before I started shooting more paint on the models. Blocking in the base color using Orc Complexion as it has a nice dark richness to it. A quick cleaning and color change to Rotted Flesh for mid-tone was used. I wanted to try something for the shadows, so instead of using a purple for the shadows I blocked them in with Angelic Blood (ironic I know).

After another color change I went over the Angelic Blood with Spellslinger Blue lightly to create my own purpley look to it. It came out even better than I thought it would. I wanted to really deepen the shadows so another light pass of Angelic Blood was used. I wanted something with a bit of a yellow tone to it so I used Amber to highlight the skin in some areas.

One more once over with Rotten Flesh to blend in the shadows with the highlights and the skin is done!

Time for the clothes. Something simple so since we already used Spellslinger Blue why not use it again? This time it was put over the Grey primer and took a few extra passes to really bring about the opacity I wanted for the clothing items.

Finished! (besides the base that is). A few details were left to be completed with a brush, like the eyes. I could have used the Minitaire paints on a brush as they are brushable and shootable but before I knew it I already grabbed my usual paint and had some on the palette, oops.

I was told by a few other people who used the paint line before that I would want to add in some Flatative as the line tends to dry a bit on the gloss side. I didn’t use any as I wanted to see how glossy it really dried and didn’t find it to be that bad. It is noticeable for sure but it isn’t going to blind an opponent if they are sitting at the right angle and under the right lighting conditions.

Over all I really like the paint line and will probably get more in the future as I venture further into my airbrushing.

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All items that I talked about in this article are things that I use and highly recommend. None of these items were donated or were we paid to say what we did.