I picked up my first airbrush in 1998 after a lot to go with a head-on tiger portrait incorporating
of research. Initially I just wanted to paint mirror tribal design flames. It’s very easy to overdo a tank
frames using simple stencil techniques and fades. so the most complex part will be the tiger itself. It’s
It wasn’t long before I realised the potential of this nice to really go to town on the main subject and
tool and I started to read articles in magazines. I re- leave the rest of the design fairly simple.
ally like painting animals so for this design I decided
Step 1 Step 2 Step3
To begin with I painted the whole tank in
Using a reduced black I lightly spray With the flame design cut out using a
Auto Air basecoat black. This will be my
around the stencils. Repeating this using scalpel blade I remove the background
background colour for the flame design.
various other flame stencils I can get the
tape leaving the tribal flames covered.
You can see here I have covered the tank
look I’m after knowing that it will be even
in 2-inch masking tape. To ensure symme-
on both sides of the tank.
try I have cut out 2 flames from a sheet
of paper and positioned them on the tank
using magnets.
Step 4: I have printed a black and white
Step 6
tiger image onto A4 paper and this will
I have now started to stroke in the fur de-
serve as my basic stencil to position vari-
tail with my airbrush and reduced white.
ous areas of the tiger ready for my free-
These are simply fine lines to create the
hand work. I have cut out the brightest ar-
illusion of fur.
eas of the head as you can see here and
again attached it to the surface using my
Step 5
magnets (very useful!)
Here you can see how lightly I have
airbrushed through the stencil
apertures with my very reduced
white. Remember this is purely to
give me reference positions for
the freehand work to come.
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