both will work fine. airbrush, industrial paint, spraycans, handpaint with bottles paints. all will work. even using whiteboard markers will work. just a question on how nice it will look..

Best is airbrush lor. But I think if you hand paint, you hantam retarder kao kao, let it dry slowly in air tight room, it should be quite nice.

My guess only ha... haha.

actually, if you hentam retarder, there will be problems when the paint starts to flow.. :S

best is airbrush, since you have 1/48 scale.. handpainting would be quite challenging.. if not airbrush, spraycans loh..

just get your own hand piece bro, just cost like 80 bux.. not many will be willing to loan out their hand piece cos its rather fragile. either that or you can ask people to paint for you.. (commission work)

secret to brush painting is not just retarder... most beginners will hand painted their models regardless of what the model scale are... 1/48 can be big if the subject is an A-10 or F-14 etc...

when u brush paint, thin the paint more... my secret is ratio 1:8 or 1:10 ... then dip the brush into the color, before touching the model surface, lightly touch the end of the brush onto a tissue paper or towel so that the paper will absorb excess paint on the brush.. only small load is needed.. brush with one light stroke.. avoid goinf bark and forth onto the same layer. move to the next surface..
do this until one layer is complete.. for very thinned paint, only after a few layer you will get solid paint layer (normally after 6 layers , in my case).. to aid dying, use slow setting hair dryer (borrow from sister, mom, wife etc) ... keyword is patience...
this will eliminate brush stroke.. and use only qood quality brush... round tip is best..get no 1 and 0, and 2... nylon brush that sold in Popular book store pon ok....if you got the budget, invest in good quality brush... or later invest in airbrush / compressor...

some paints dried pretty fast (Mr Color, Giaia etc), so my advised try to avoid it unless u mix them with retarder or levelling thinner .. i used vallejo for all my brush painting and those day i used gunze aqueous paints.... they work marvel

Actually hand paint, spray can, n air brush r merely ways of painting. Each has its strong n weak points, and luckily, result is depends on the skill of the modelers.

There r modelers, due to various reasons, who cannot use air brush to paint big flat surface, but they still able to achive good result.

Eg,

1) 2008 World Bakuc Champion (Philippines) entry, all sprayed parts r fully done by spray can.

2) 2010 Malaysia Bakuc Champion (Centaur Unicorn) part of the unicorn is actually spray can.

3) 2010 Malaysia Bakuc Entry, Ex-S Gundam http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cvgW2tuxttA/TOwI...00/DSC02382.JPG
(This is fully han painted, very impressive!)
As for loan of hand piece, as Shauno mentioned, though a hand piece can last for years, but it can be easily spoiled......

If u stay in PJ area, u can actually just purchase a hand piece, n utilize my place's spray booth n compressor (free for use); or if in Ampang area, i heard AfHobby use to have spray booth for modelers to work on too (Not sure they still have it, u can call n check)

With this, at least ur initial cost will not be so high, coz no need to buy compressor.

Btw, 1/48 scale, if u r building AFV, tank n figures, definitely no problem for hand paint. For plane it's a little big, but still, there r people who can achieve great result; so if u really have problem with ab, u can always explore other options.