Electric Eraser for Airbrush Art

Erasers in general (the regular old hand powered ones) can be used to remove paint, add highlights, touch up overspray, blend out a hard line, add texture ... all sorts of things.

Electric erasers serve the same purposes, but are able to concentrate their application in a tight area.

It's a pretty simple little tool....all it is is an eraser mounted on a battery powered rotating shaft. You press a small button on the side of the tool and the eraser spins.... like a drill. The erasers obviously wear out over time - but they are easily replaced as shown below with refills.

Uses

I tend to use mine for three purposes (although there are many more I am sure):

Re-establishing Highlights ... it never fails that you purposely leave a nice white highlight in your painting (like the sparkle in someones eye) and as you are painting overspray somehow migrates over to that bright white area and muddys it up. A few touches with the electric eraser and ...poof... back to white in a flash.

Softening Harsh Lines ... Sometimes you screw up and make a harsh line when you intended to make a soft, gradual transition ... and often, there is no easy way to get rid of that hard line short of painting over it ... OR... you can try softening the edge with an eraser! Using an electric one makes short work of this.

Frisket Clean Up .... This is what I use this tool for most! And it is totally not it's intended purpose!! When you paint with frisket, paint overspray builds up on the frisket and that personally drives be crazy!! I like to see what is below the firsket so that I can judge the value of the color I am painting. To clean the overspray off the frisket I used to use my fingernail and painstakingly scratch it all off.... until one day I tried my electric eraser instead ... and WOW does it work great for that.

Things to Watch For

I did a search on the net to try and establish a price range for these tools.... and was shocked to see some of the prices!!!

I paid $15 for the Staedtler Model above ... but on the net I saw them as high as $125!! That is ridiculous - don't pay over $20 ... they are not THAT useful!!!

Also.... because the eraser spins so fast you run the risk of burnishing your paint when you erase on it. Burnishing results in the a texture change and shiny spot on your painting which can ruin the overall look.... that is, it looks like you made a mistake and tried to fix it at that location because the shiny spot will make the color look slightly "off"

Other than that.... I am pretty happy with my little toy!