So I'm getting ready for a new airbrush project. My brother is huge herpetology fan - more specifically, of the snake family. So I'm doing a large airbrush portrait of this picture. [WARNING!] If you're deathly afraid at even the sight of snakes...do NOT click on the link. I will not be held responsible for nightmares.
So I wanted to bring back an earlier airbrush portrait I did of a butterfly. I don't remember where I got the reference photo, but it was pretty colorful and it inspired me. I'm also a huge fan of macro-photography and so the focused foreground on a blurred background was an easy sell for me.
You can see the entire album here.
This one was a spur of the moment decision, so I printed off a thumbnail picture, pinned up a 19X21 piece of bristol paper, and rough traced the image. Then I freehanded everything. After I did this, I got my hands on Airbrushing Techniques: Step-by-Step, by Roland Kuck. In it, Roland uses frisket paper to get clean lines. This makes sense, but I think I was just anxious to dive into another airbrush portrait since doing Taco. However, this next project is macro-photography, so I doubt I'll be using too much frisket. I'm actually looking forward to more freehand. I believe if I can maximize my freehand talent, I can get away without the need for time consuming frisket paper placement.
Color matching was done by eye. This has become an interesting task. I don't have 100's of colors, so I'm using transparent colors and then mixing what I need. The nice thing about transparent colors and adding a drop or two of another shade is that you can build on those shades. Opaque colors are going to be just that - one solid tone/shade. Whereas transparents allow you to make tonal and shade changes - much like watercolor I imagine. [I haven't braved watercolor yet].
Feel free to check out the album and leave a comment.
-Iwata airbrushes
-Createx colors
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