Apache logo - vector art

 

Years ago I was mainly into creating airbrush art, with various types of airbrush guns and paint. I used the Paasche V1, Paasche Turbo and in rare occasions the Fischer Aerostar. The paints I used were Illu-Color and Holbein acrylics. My favorite subjects were Native American Chiefs and warriors. All freehand airbrushes, i.e. without using masks. I did many demos on art fairs for Revell, promoting the Vega 1000 airbrush and Revell paints. At one point one of the sales persons asked me: 'Do you ever airbrush something different than indians?' Of course I did, but not during demonstrations, because it was sure to draw a crowd. I was - and still am - fascinated by Native American culture, their way of life, wisdom and sadly horrific oppression by invading western armies and colonists.

Some 10 years ago I switched to digital art creation, because of the countless undo functions that way of art creation allows, along with the endless tinkering it makes possible. In addition digital printing has soared in the last decades, which allowed me to print art work on many different surfaces (canvas, paper, aluminium etc.), while applying all sorts of lacquer layers to create magnificent effects. But once and a while I think back at those analog days and my favorite subject: Native American art. Below you see one of my most recent, simple digital vector creations that was used for T-shirt print. It was drawn in Affinity Designer.

Apache logo

Geronimo - from analog airbrush to digital art

 

In the previous century I was deeply involved in the Dutch airbrush scene and sprayed a lot of portraits, in which a returning preference was the airbrushing of Native American chiefs and warriors. Some of those portraits were not finished or could use improvement. After the turn of the century I leaned more towards creating digital art and not too long ago I decided to rework the old portraits with digital means. One of those is the portrait of the famous Apache chief Geronimo of which you see various stages below.

While airbrushing with airbrush guns and paint I usually used the Iwata HP-BH airbrush gun and various paints, mainly Illu-Color and later Inspire H2O waterbased paint. In the digital episode of my life I initially used CorelPaint until that program began to crash more often than not, particularly when exporting work to the png format from Corel's cpt format. Some 5 years ago I accidentally ran into the Affinity suit and changed to Affinity Photo for pixel editing.

I gave the document a look that suggests a canvas background in Affinity Photo that I thought matched the portrait better. This is easy to do in Affinity Photo by using various Filters and Layer Effects. Digital art creation allows to make many different versions with different feel relatively easy, while printing techniques have evolved to a stage that makes it difficult to distinguish analog from digital art. In the case of this portrait I could for instance, choose to have it printed on canvas and give it a lacquer layer, which would give a convincing impression of authenticity to the observer.

I still like to pick up the Iwata's every now and then, but today my main focus is on digital art creation. It is an entirely different way to work, but unlike many airbrush purists, I like to endlessly fiddle in the software that allows to infinitely apply changes without the headache that that the traditional analog trade forces artists to make. The oldest stage - the unfinished analog airbrush - is at the bottom and the various digital tinkerings are above that. Click on one of the images to see them in Google's Lightbox that allows to flick through the images by turning the mouse's scroll wheel.

Fourth digital stage

Third digital stage

Second digital stage

First digital stage

Unfinished analog airbrush portrait