Airbrush...tattoos and tshirts

I have been seriously considering investing in some equipment to start airbrushing. I think I can throw almost everything together except for the guns and ink. So my question is....should I invest in a gravity or bottom feed? or do I need a dual action? How many guns are really needed to do these two things? and does anyone have any brand recommendations? Any and all info anyone has would be greatly appreciated...thanks all

Iwata makes really, really good guns, I hear that dual action is best with a bottom feed, you will need as many guns as you'll want colors. We purchased a Cricut machine to do stencils, because they are pretty expensive to but individually, and use X-Ray film we buy on Ebay to make the stencils. We also bought a program that you download into your computer so that you don't have to use the stencils from the cricut boxes. It turns any vector image into a usable image.

Hope this helps

I learned (temp tattoo's) on a single action bottom feed with an open cup, however my preference is for a dual action (for the control). I've been happily using top feed airbrushes for years, but recently purchased several bottom feed (dual action) to move to having a dedicated airbrush for each color - it was unwieldy to change colors fast, repeatedly.

It is very easy to work with a dual action top feed changing colors, just not so much fun doing tattoos when you need to change often and quite often right back to the color you just got out of.....

jnjkoz wrote:We purchased a Cricut machine to do stencils, because they are pretty expensive to but individually, and use X-Ray film we buy on Ebay to make the stencils.

I don't know what your x-ray film costs, but we just started cutting our own stencils with the Cricut, and I'm currently using the plastic index dividers. Our cost comes down to around 10 cents per stencil (using 1/4 page per stencil) versus paying $3-$5 each to buy them! And I think these are going to hold up really, really well.

jnjkoz wrote:  We also bought a program that you download into your computer so that you don't have to use the stencils from the cricut boxes.  It turns any vector image into a usable image.  

I would love to know what program this is!

Rachel