For working the background as well as the earrings, I set the painting horizontally on the easel mak- ing it much easier to paint. Make sure to have as much of the completed portion of your work as possible above your work area. This way you avoid any accidental paint spillage. I find I work better with horizontal side to side movements to lay down paint as opposed to working vertically. I used black to work the shadows and the entire background around the earrings. This part takes longer to do because I have to work around the contour of each earring as well as between the small hanging shapes. I’ll do the smoke later by adding some white on top. I used a hand shield to protect the face from overspray and to get a smooth contour. I have to be honest and say that half the time I was working the shadows around the earrings and neck collar; I did not have a clue as to what I was actually painting! I was simply following my earlier markings. It’s only when I stepped back that the metal studs and the details of the collar became apparent to my eyes. So paint what you see and not what you think you see!

With the painting set on its side, I completed the black background on the right side with still a bit of detailing to the neck collar to do. I don’t want to cover the entire area in the lower right side with paint, because I want to leave room for the Sin City logo. Using an acetate sheet and my stencil cutter, I make myself a shield with the letters of the logo cut out. I placed my shield to locate the top of the ‘’sin’’ portion of the logo, to help me figure out where to stop applying paint in the collar area. I’ll complete the logo it when I remove the masking tape at the end.

I fixed a small error at the edge of the lip with some white. While still using white, I added the smoke in the background. I can spray white all over the earrings and this is why I kept them for last to avoid having to work around small details. It’s OK to have the white paint go on the white fabric. The original picture has some rain coming down at an angle from the left side but I decided to leave this detail out.

I added white to the eyes to get rid of the slight overspray and to get sharp edges with the dark adjacent colour. I then fixed the teeth by painting them with some white and doing the shadows with a very light grey. I applied a minuscule amount of paint between the teeth with my needle almost touching the fabric for this process. With very small details like this, I usually bring down the air pressure to around 25 to 30 PSI max.

I gave it a matte gloss coat, and heat set it for 3 to 5 minutes with a hot iron and a pillowcase, careful to keep the iron moving. Kind of wish I had it on canvas! I haven’t worn it yet and I’m not sure I ever will!!! I might just frame it. This was my first expe- rience doing a portrait on t-shirt, and I learned quite a bit from the experience. At least for me, the one thing I noticed the most is the confidence I gained controlling the airbrush. This I believe is due to the difference between working on a t-shirt using shields very sparingly, and lets say, an illustration board. This is probably because the t-shirt is more forgiving to paint. No need to worry about those nasty spiders!

With some black and grey, I completed the right side of the neck collar. The earrings were painted using some grey, white and a bit of red oxide. In the end, I came back with some white to work on the highlights. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32