I would like to buy an airbrush, but have no idea where to start! Do you all have a brand you love/hate? Are they pain to maintain? Hard /easy to use?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

I understand there is a very inexpensive one ($20?) at craft stores. They use a can of compressed air instead of an expensive compressor. I understand they work great, but the air doesn't last too long. It might be a place to start. The good ones, like Kopycake, are expensive. I plan to try the cheap one to see if I have any skill or potential with the thing.

I have a Kopycake airbrush. It is really easy to use. It just took me a few tries to work out the kinks of how to do what I wanted to do. I have not had any problems!

when you say the cheap ones are you talking about the one for painting model cars?

I have the Kopykake airbrush and I love it! Like jackimorgan said, it's really easy to use. It saves me a ton of time (I don't have to tint a huge batch of icing to frost a cake or knead a giant mound of fondant) and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

As a side note, I got the box of 11 colors to go with it. This December, it will 2 years since I got it and I've yet to run out of any color!

I have a KopyKake, I think it's called Kopyjet or something like that. It was a little over a hundred when I bought it, that was ten years ago. I don't think it's gone up much since then.
It's basically the Kopykake base model, made for small shops or home decorators. It's a small compressor, but I never had any problems with it. Actually, I used it at my grocery store bakery job for awhile when theirs went out. It's a good value, and if you take care of it, it will last you a long time.
And I also bought the small variety box of colors with it, real cheap and lasts a long time.
You can order it from Kopykake.com I think...

HTH
cheri