I was practicing with my airbrush using Badger Air-Opaque and my no-name airbursh EDIT: Floquil Precision Flo airbrush (i think its an older badger) last night. I noticed that my paint was starting to spray very poorly. I looked at the nozzle and it was covered in paint. There was a slightly hard peice of paint that stuck out like an icicle about 1 mm. It also covered the rest of my needle tip. I never left my airbrush sit for more than 5 seconds without painting.
Question 2: I was filling in my camouflage and I was getting inconsistant shades of the color. Does this have to do with the fact that the paint is opaque and that layered colors lose light and make it darker?
That is typical with acrylics, and it is called tip dry.
When you get tip dry the air cannot flow smoothly over the needle and it comes out poorly as you stated.
You may have also had a bigger piece of acrylic paint go through the airbrush. Straining the paint will stop that. With most acrylics you need to keep picking the paint from the tip of the needle with your fingernails or use a small brush or hollow stemmed Q-tip soaked with cleaner. I would also recommend a good needle lube such as Super Lube to help minimize the effects of tip dry.
Yes. I’ve had that happen with Air-Opaque as well. Sometimes the darker colors can appear darker especially if you have to apply more layers over it.
If the paint was mixed really thin during out-linning to get the type of fine line needed but not mixed as thin when filling in this can cause an inconsistant color shift too. This is due to paint that is extensively thinned being more transparent than paint that is not. Also make sure you shake the bottle to insure that the paints vehicle and binder is thouroughly mixed to avoid spraying paint that may have separated in the bottle. Not sure if these incidents are true in your case but difinitley possible.