Pg.7 Sketching with Your Airbrush

This post is only about Airbrushing, not copying other peoples work or selling of DC comic characters.In fact NO AIRBRUSH PAINTING on this site is for Sale. If you wish to Purchase DC Comics material, Please visit DC Comics for some REALLY COOL Merchandise.

As I explained on the page 3, undercoating is very important. Depending on your Canvas size, the entire area must be coated with a Primer using a normal Latex paint brush. (about 2 1/2 inches). This will enable your colours to blend better and to have a brilliance depending on the coulour and how many layers are sprayed.It also helps when a spraying mistake occurs. Spraying over the mistake with the white primer acts as an eraser. I generaly use a Flat White Latex house paint. Its about $8.00 a gallon and can be thinned with water for easier flow through your airbrush. It would be much more exspensive if you used a tube of acrylic white from your local Art supply store and a longer spraying time to cover a large area with the airbrush. I use Burnt Sienna my "Drawing" colour choice for these 3 reasons. 1.) because it can be used as a drawing paint. That is, I can draw the picture with this colour, and not worry about mistakes that might need erasing,or covering up. If I used black or gray it would take Layers to cover with my undercoating white, 2.)because its Colour can be lightly aprayed when Mapping Highlited areas,and Dark when layered many times to map shadowed areas, 3.) its relatively cheap. A Mars Black or Any other colour cost 2-3 dollars more.

I like to draw the picture with my Burnt Sienna until it becomes a full sketch, like a pencil or charcoal drawing, with all the lights and darks maped out. Try to keep the Highlighted parts soft. They will be covered eventually by a White or something similar. The darks don't matter because ultimately a Black or something as dark will be used to cover these dark areas. This is also the time to exaggerate your drawing. If you notice the "crowsfeet" at the corner of his right eye, I made sure to leave white areas surrounded by dark circles. I know that later on these areas will be blended. Take a look at the Finished picture and compare the same area with the sketch.


Also notice the Green Lanterns Mask . In the sketch, I left it mostly white. Normally one would think this was a dark area and should be painted in like Batmans Mask. When using a drawing paint on an undercoat of white, the white will be reflected in the colour that's being sprayed over it. I wanted his Mask to be a bright green, so I left the space white. Had I painted it with the Burnt Sienna, it would have been a lower key Green, because the reflectiveness would have been less. After the sketch is finished, blending the darks and lights will be the next step. Blending is explained in Page 3 . The next photo shows the skin tones and some colours blended, making the painting more 3dimensional, or life like.


Final Image:


Here are some of my Airbrush paintings. I hope you enjoy them...captphrank



These are My Graphic Murals.Some were Airbrushed, and others were Painted with conventional Latex house paints and 1/4 inch masking tape was used to create their Linear effect.These were Painted in Electronics assembly rooms and Some were painted in Hospitals.I hope you enjoy these as well.