Using a transparent light brown with extender I start to define the darker areas always start- ing with the lighter values and gradually working the entire face area using the photo as a reference. Remember to work gradually you can always add paint if you’re too light but if you’re too dark well I think you know the rest. I basically work on the darker zones making sure to make smooth transitions with the lighter areas. This is very important since this is a face and you don’t want to have hot spots! I pay close attention to my reference picture to make sure the values are OK. I used a small hand held shield to create the hard edges like the under- side of the nose, and a circle template for the eyes. I got some comments from some fellow airbrush artists regarding the highlight on the left side of the nose, telling me that the nose looked liked it just finished 15 rounds of boxing! I agreed with their comments, but that’s really the way the photo is. I also feel that because the painting is not advanced enough, it is very easy for the eyes to be drawn to this particular area. I decided to leave it as is because I could always soften the edge at the end if it still looked like a fat nose! I make an effort not to spend too much time in any given area. Remember to step back from the painting and observe your progress to see how it’s all taking shape. You want to have the entire face progress at the same time.
Here I have the light brown completed and you can see the face and its features taking shape. It’s almost like painting a monochromatic painting and applying the proper values accordingly. I even painted the areas where I know the colour is going to be close to black like the area of the eyes for example.
I apply a slight fog of pink over certain areas of the skin prior to starting with the darker colours. Always work from light to dark colours. Using a transparent dark brown I worked on the chin area and the shaded portion of the face. I then added some black to my dark brown to obtain the darker colour needed to work the eyes. Here I’m very careful not to have any overspray on the lighter areas so I work very close to the fabric (+/- 1/2’’). When I spray I try as much as I can to aim the paint spray towards the surface to be painted as opposed to outwards to an adjacent colour. I always work from the edge towards the inside similar to when we played around with colouring books when we were young, taking great care not to go over the perimeter line! I decided to temporarily move my painting setup outside in the shade on my backyard deck. With the nice hot weather we were having I simply had to try airbrushing outside, and aside for
the odd fly or mosquito I enjoyed the experience very much.
The dark brown/black colour is now completed for the eyes and eyebrows. When doing the eyes I made sure to not fully cover the light brown underneath to give some depth to the eyes. The white of the eyes is the actual white fabric. I’m careful not have any overspray in those ar- eas. I didn’t do the eyelashes yet because I plan on doing those with the hair at the very end.
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