I'm a little late for mothers day but I have airbrushed everything from t shirts to cars and animatronics and gravity feed is the way to go. I tend to let my colors mingle at color change.... and always when using black. Hard black kills a nice job. mix in some blue, pluple or brown to take the edge off. very little in nature is actully black if you really look at it theres allways and over tone. But now that im way off topic the Iwata is the best on the market altough some knock offs have hit the market that are basicly the exact same thing at half the price. Vulcun has a good one Ive airbrushed twelve years and can barley notice a difference. and the vulcan has some adjustments that are handy for doing hair on animals and other small repetitive strokes.