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

Airbrushing that relativity bloke

I hadn't touched an airbrush for over two years, but picked up the tool again yesterday after a visit to Airbrush Services Almere that has redecorated their shop excellently. Not sure if I'll continue this old trade again, but it was nice to do. Therapeutic more or less. I used the Iwata HP-BH airbrush with Inspire H2O sepia paint on a canvas structured paper (Canson for oil- and acrylic paints). 100% freehand airbrush and some erasing with Faber Castell 7057 eraser pencil. No pencil- or hairy brush strokes added to enhance accents or add detail. I may be testing other airbrushes and paints while at the analog airbrush craft again.

The Canson paper is extremely strong and allows erasing (even with fiber glass erasers if done carefully) after which airbrushing over the erased area can be continued without a problem. In some places I sprayed Inspire white over the erased area before continuing airbrushing. That is somewhat similar to applying a layer of gesso onto which the portrait is sprayed. No spiders or absorption blobs due to too much paint accumulating in the damaged area where the paper surface was erased (which results in unwanted dark spots). Excellent!

This paper is well suited for artists who want their painting to have an authentic canvas effect, but in fact works a lot easier than real canvas.... It does not allow as meticulous details as on smooth paper, but real canvas doesn't allow too much detail either.

The H2O paint was I recalled it to be; the best a available on the market. Using reducer works better than mixing the paint with water. It makes the paint flow well, gives less clutter and keeps it usable / sprayable in the airbrush paint cup longer. In addition it allows erasing with more control. Finally it makes the airbrush easier to clean. These are properties not all paints combine.

For fine details I added Vallejo Flow Improver to the mix: paint : reducer : flow improver = 2 : 8 : 1 The Flow Improver really does its job well; add too much and the paint will slip (and cause 'spiders'), but it significantly extends the period in which very fine details can be sprayed or postpones clogging of paint in the airbrush. Nice stuff. Mind you, fine details are better applied on smooth paper or special airbrush board. Use low air pressure, push the trigger carefully to barely let paint come out and work very close to the surface (1 to 2 mm) with the air cap removed.

Oldest stage at the bottom, newest at the top. Hint: click on an image and you'll be taken to Google's Lightbox which is a type of slide show that allows you to scroll tbrough the stages (on a PC that is) for easy compare of the stages.

Really finished. 19:44 hrs June 11 2019

Only varnishing still needs to be done.

Finished. I think. 11:16 hrs

June 2 2019. Daylight photo

Further hair detailing 10:45 hrs

May 29 2019. Daylight photo

Added hair contours and texture accents
23:22 hrs May 27 2019. Daylight photo

Adding background for accent balancing
11:22 hrs May 26 2019

Adding texture detail 10:24 hrs May 26 2019
Daylight photograph

Accent and balancing by erasing 23:33 hrs May 24 2019
Photo shot in artificial light

Added texture detail 21:39 May 24 2019
Photo shot in the evening with artificial light

Corrected left eye and added some detail 12:02 May 24 2019

After another half hour 14:00 hrs May 22 3019

After airbrushing half an hour 14:00 hrs May 21 2019

Portrait of a little girl

Recently I started experimenting with a combination of airbrush and color pencils. I prefer the oil-based pencils because they're not affected by paints and lacquer. In addition their coverage is quite good and they leave light-fast colors. The Surface of this particular portrait was Canson's linen textured paper, which is not the ideal surface for color pencils when attempting to create realistic art, since the bumps and dents of the surface results in grainy lines and coloured surfaces. When the pencil tips are sharp this problem is reduced.

I tried the whites of Faber-Castell Polychromos and Caran d'Ache Pablo (which are oil-based), but the graphite Derwent GraphiTint gave the best result and is probably the cheapest of the three as well. The Derwent has the same feel as the oil pencils, perhaps even a little bit more oily - smooth movement over the surface - and its coverage was absolutely great. I haven't tested smooth surfaces yet, but will do so in the near future. My guess is that the Faber-Castell and Caran d'Ache will do better on such surfaces, but I have to experience that to be sure.

The reference photo does not show the top of the girl's head, so I created some more hair there to be able to position her face better on the surface. The photo also lacked detail, but fortunately child's faces have less accents than that of older people. Airbrushing those requires good concentration, because subtle accents are easily messed up. The girl's hair was a different story, half messy (which is what it should be with children) and also difficult to interpret due to the lack of fine detail. This where the Derwent pencil saved me a lot of time.

I started using the Iwata HP-BH and it behaved badly. Checking the needle tip under a looking glass showed a slight kink in the tip. I straightened and polished it after which it performed well again. For the hair, I used the Iwata Custon SB after first polishing its needle. Since I always spray freehand, this top of the bill airbrush was necessary (saves time). The Inspire H2O paints in combination with the Createx 4012 Reducer currently are the best paints /reducer available to spray fine detail. It took me four days to spray - doing all sorts of other chores in between airbrushing.

Oldest stages at the bottom, newest on top as usual.

Virtually framed (using Rhinoceros 3D)

Roger Waters portrait - frustration limiter

Recently my bloody computer crashed. Guess which system? I'm having an ordeal repairing the unruly beast (it's not a run of the shelf machine, but one tuned to DTP and 3D). While waiting for processes to finish I started doodling Roger Waters to limit the measure of frustration.

What I found out during this frustration limiting process, is that the surface of the dirt cheap office copying paper works quite well for both airbrushing and working with (opaque) colour pencils and that it allows to combine both techniques perfectly. However, the paper is very thin and in no way suited to any erasing that goes beyond using smooth and soft erasers (let alone scalpel or fiberglass erasing techniques). So this unplanned project has me searching for the proper type of paper - with a smooth, but not too smooth surface - and oil based colour pencils that would make the portraits water resistant and light-fast.

The tool I used for this rush portrait are: Iwata CM SB, Inspire H2O, Caran d'Ache Luminance colour pencils. I watched a number of Youtube videos and I concluded from that that Faber Castell Polychromos pencils may be what I am looking for. They are similar to Caran d'Ache Pablo oil based pencils, but significantly less expensive. I will try them in the near future and post my experiences with them in this blog.

Oldest stage at the bottom, newer one above that.

Don Corleone airbrush / color pencil / Affinity Photo

A slightly different approach for this portrait. I used more color pencil, mainly to set up the image. Surface is a Canson oil / acrylic linen canvas structure paper, 33 x 41 cm which is difficult for airbrushing because of the texture and smoothness. It requires very intensive spraying to achieve colour intensity, but the result is very vivid eventhough I used few (dark) colors. I used Inspire H2O Black Smoke paint, Caran d'Ache Luminance 6901 (white) and Derwent Studio Sepia 53 pencils.

The setup technique is quite simple: I tape common office paper to the monitor and trace most important face features with a fine Edding 400 Permanent marker. The traced image I tape to my lightbox and placed the Canson paper on top of that. In doing so the pencil strokes on the Canson paper are limited and the pencils are used only to apply accents. It beats using a traditional projector, since there is always an unobstructed view on the reference trace image and the projector's heat dissipation always causes the image to move (become larger), which in portraiture is disastrous. Intense thin lines nevertheless had to be sprayed with the Iwata Custom SB airbrush, because of the irregular surface of the Canson paper that mimics a canvas structure.

The reference image contained mainly black hues, which made me decide to make a monochrome portrait. Later (October 2022) I added a colour layer in Affinity Photo and made some corrections - right side of the mouth' upper lip, left eye and overall hardened the crispness with the burn / dodge tool, mainly to the shadowing and accents. Affinity Photo is a photo editor like Photoshop, equally functional, but at a much lower one time fee. This program allows to apply corrections digitally, that would take ages to do with an analog airbrush, brush eraser, colour pencils, hairy brushes and Exacto surgical knife.

Editing analog airbrushes with Affinity Photo is what I often do lately. After not having looked at old airbrush portraits for a long time, I see all sorts of mistakes that are easily and quickly corrected in this photo editing program. Apart from amending shapes, it also allows to tinker with colour accents, which would be some sort of an ordeal with an analog airbrush and real paint.

The photos of the various stages were shot with an old Sony smartphone camera, which explains the mediocre quality of the images. Update sequence: Newest stage on top, oldest stage at the bottom. Click on the photos to see larger versions of the images.