The majority of my painting is done with Humbrol enamels, these are an excellent paint and can be used equally well with brush or air brush. If air brushing the paint will have to be thinned by about 50%, I use general purpose enamel thinners which works beautifully, drying time is a bit slow with enamels so I always place my painted items into my heat box, this accelerates drying time and helps to keep dust off the wet surface. I also use Gunze acrylics, these paints spray beautifully when thinned with a tad of lacquer thinners, drying time is quite quick with full drying in two hours. I use oil paints to do my wood simulations, it is an excellent medium for creating the wood grain, I add liquin to the oil paint, this makes the oil paints dry a lot quicker. There are a lot of different brand oil paints but it's like most things, you get what you pay for. As a metal look I use Mr Metal Color paints, they are a lacquer based metal paint so dry extremely fast, they can be left as sprayed or when dry can be buffed to create a nice sheen.
As a final finish over my painted and decal surfaces I use Humbrol matt, satin or gloss clearcote (that's how Humbrol spell it), it gives a lovely finish and is very hard wearing once fully dried.
Des.