Native American Dakota nation chief quote

This work I started as an analog airbrush with a physical airbrush gun and real paint on a T-shirt, that I photographed and edited extensively (adding plenty detail) in Affinity Photo many years later. I appreciate the Ctrl+Z and History of digital tools to get things closer to where the image is in my mind (without getting my fingers covered in paint). Digital art creation in my view is in no respect inferior to the traditional analog way of conceiving. It takes effort to reach the point where artists want to be, the tools they use are just different.

Most recent edit in Affinity Photo

In the early 90's of the previous century I discovered CorelDRAW as an amazing tool. Later I fiddled with Inkscape, after which I worked with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign on a professional basis. When Adobe started their ridiculously costly subscription model, I discovered Affinity suite and switched to those programs. Most recently I ran into the magnificent VectorStyler, so I guess I evolve along with the tools that become available to artists that are continuously looking for tools that help them express what is in their mind.

Click the image to see a larger version in Google's Lightbox

Halfway the 80's of the previous century I happened to run into a Native American lady of the Comanche nation, who lived on the edge of an Indian reservation, who told me a lot of her culture and what life is like in her area. It is nowhere near to the fake representation that the Hollywood moguls prefer to offer to the public. To unassuming people that live in a comfortable place in the West, it is bizarre and mind boggling what life is like in a place bordering a reservation. Even to those, like me, who live in a way that sets themself apart from most of the the common people in their area. In spite of the difficulties that minorities are forced to deal with, the spiritual wisdom of their ancestors remains lingering in the minds and hearts of their offspring.

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

Changing Native American portrait

I used to airbrush a lot - the analogue type in which a real metal airbrush is hooked up to a compressor to spray real paint on a real surface. That started in the early 80's of the previous century and lasted until approximately 8 to 10 years ago. After that I became more interested in digital image creation and manipulation, also because the programs became better and allowed to approach the quality that traditional airbrushing did. Today, the quality of the digital image creation programs has surpassed the traditional way of working in the sense that it is able to create more accurate detail that, in addition, can be edited endlessly.

I used to mainly use CorelDRAW and Corel PhotoPaint for my personal projects and during the day worked professionally with the Adobe products in the office. Sometimes I used Illustrator and Photoshop for my personal projects as well, but I always found their programs way overpriced. Things got worse when they imposed their subscription model on their users after which I switched to Serif's Affinity Designer (vector drawing program) and Affinity Photo (pixel creating and editing program). I accidentally ran into these programs when aimlessly browsing the Internet.

I've truly fallen in love with the Affinity programs that both cost about 50 USD that give you ownership of the programs and 3 free updates.... That is a whole lot more affordable than the programs in the Adobe suit. Designer and Photo are developing well - bugs are continuously removed and functions are added - which causes them to almost be on par with AI and PS functions wise, while having surpassed them in a certain number of aspects. I may elaborate on this in a future blog entry. In addition Serif issued Affinity Publisher which is and InDesign competitor. Already now Publisher is sufficiently equipped with functions to do by far the most DTP work very well while only lacking compared to ID in very specialist areas like interactive digital publications for instance. But artists that work in that type of document creation are relatively small numbered.

OK, back to what I was going to express here. Sometimes when I get bored, I tinker with images in Affinity Photo. In the old days I used to airbrush a lot of portraits of Native American people. But when browsing the web, it occurred to me that many artists create portraits of the same people, simply because there weren't too many photographers to record faces of Native American people in the old days. In order to create a unique face one has to be created from scratch or an existing one has to be changed so that it looks nothing like the original, trying to preserve the ethnic facial traits of the subject. Gertrude Kasebier and Edward S. Curtis are two of the best known magnificent photographers who shot a large number of great Native American portraits. But in their day, it wasn't like everyone had a camera on their smartphone like people have these days. It is why a relatively small number of genuine photographs of Native Americans exist.

So when I find a photo of a Native American person that I potentially would like to airbrush, but I find elements in their facial traits that I would like to change, I load the photo into Affinity Photo and start tinkering. Some would say that this is historic fraud, which in fact is the case to a certain extent, but that could also be said of the paintings of the brilliant Howard Terpning who I am sure interprets some things according to his personal vision (which is what makes his art so awesome). Personally I enjoy watching Terpning's work. Perhaps a little more and focused on details than the average person, because I want to know where the beauty of art is hiding in the details.

Below you find a brief sequence of me changing a portrait that I found on the web. At the bottom is the original photo. Above that the alterations made in Affinity Photo - mainly using the Liquify Push Forward Tool in the Liquify Persona. The image above that shows more detailing done with the Paint Brush Tool (using a textured brush), The Blur Brush Tool and the Clone Brush Tool. I also used the Color Adjustment and Curve Adjustment filters to make the image more crisp and dramatic. Finally I placed the edited image in a frame in the 3D program Rhinoceros v5 as show in the image at the top. I enjoyed doing this piece of historic fraud that I think turned out quite well considering the original photo was small and of a low resolution (600 x 938 pixels), while damages were present both in the face and in the background.

Tip: click on one of the image and it will be displayed in Google's Lightbox. If you are on a PC (also possible on a Mac I presume) you can turn the scroll wheel of your mouse and flick through the images to compare them.

Placed the edited image in a virtual 3D frame

Image edited with Paint-, Blur- and Clone- Brush tools
to add detail and Colour and Curve Adjustment filters
to make the image more crisp and dramatic looking

Photo edited with the Liquify tool and
Blur tool to remove jagged edges on areas

Reference photo, which was small, low res,
damaged and jagged

Native American Paintings

I've always felt attracted to the Native American way of life and their often spectacular appearance. Needless to say I was intrigued by the work of photographers Edward S. Curtis and Getrude Kasebier and painter Howard Terpning. They captured an age and shortly after which Native American people were brutally massacred by the invaders of their land. An estimated 100 million ( ! ! ! ) Native American people were slaughtered; the biggest genocide perpetuated in modern history. Yet only few are aware of this as a result of intentional falsification of historic records and the (mis)conduct of current broadcasters that either distort facts or omit them on order of the descendants of those that committed the cleansing.

The indigenous people's closely related spiritual approach to life and and its oneness with nature is without doubt the fact that appealed to me most, because I intuitively sensed that this is how beings in this material realm would perhaps one time be able to return to their original, majestic and magical existence. All is transient - some situations are ended by violent interference while others sought harmonious ways to transform. I believe the latter is the process that the Native American people attempted to do. I realize of course that there were wars between various Native American nations, but consider such to be the consequence of the ominous legacy that this material realm imposes on all life forms present in it.

I made two digital paintings so far (that are more or less finished) that depict the Native American life style. Both of which contain rifles, which is some sort of symbol that reflects their battle with the invaders that brought an entirely different way of living to the North-American continent. Also visible in the paintings are the traditional dresses, hair styles and environment. I chose to show these paintings in frames, because that is how they would look once they were giclee-printed, which is the goal of every painter. I used a computer to create them, so that they would be preserved beyond the life span of traditional materials. I started creating them in Corel PhotoPain(t), but after it continued to crash, I switched to Affinity Photo that has an UI that I find pleasant to work with.

Please click the images to see the paintings in full screen full HD resolution.

Tribe gathering

Peace Pipes & Winchesters

Lakota warrior 'Kills First'

Proud Men

Powow

Kiowa warrior

'Tribe gathering' - work in progress

An other digital work. Huion 610 Pro tablet + Corel PhotoPaint X6. Years later I continued editing in Affinity Photo. Newest update on top. Inspired by a fabulous painting of the great Howard Terpning. The original painting is bigger than images placed on this page, because I found out only after drawing the pixel image that I painted a mere crop of the painting. I also added rifles, teepees, horses and background to this pixel work. 

This is what the painting would look
like when printed and put in a frame

After a long time edited the painting.
Time allowed me to spot mistakes
that I didn't see while in the process
of painting it the first time

After 6 months of not airbrushing

After not having airbrushed for over 6 months due to a lack of time, I picked up the gun to spray at the Airbrush Services Almere 12.5 year anniversary in Lelystad, The Netherlands. I prefer to spray portraits of Native Americans, because usually there is a lot of expression and texture in the images. My trusted Iwata HP-BH sprayed awful in spite of cleaning regularly. Later after I returned home I found out that the needle packing leaked, which allowed paint to reach the needle spring all the way in the back of the airbrush.

Iwata HP-BH

I continued spraying with the Micron SB that I hadn't used for a long time. A kind of re-discovery of that gun. It sprayed magnificently and allowed me to shoot the Vallejo Premium paint exactly where I wanted. I used a mixture of 1 drop of paint and 20 drops of reducer and very low air pressure (just enough to push out the paint). Vallejo Premium has an enormous covering and adherence on almost all surfaces (paper, board, metal, plastic, wood etc.) so spraying very thin (transparent) in many layers allows to correct with an eraser. If sprayed too thick it is a hell of a job to remove the paint from the surface, if not impossible.

Iwata Micron SB

A peculiarity of Vallejo Premium brown (color number: 62.018) is that after spraying a while, you start spraying a greenish hue instead of brown. I suspect the green pigment is heavier than other pigments in the mix which causes it to sink to the bottom of the paint cup after some time. Sucking up the paint in a pipette and returning it to the paint cup several times returns the paint to its intended, original color. It is a thing to keep in mind for artists who use this paint, that is of an excellent quality - comparable with Holbein Aeroflash for half the price per bottle. The paint also tends to disperse somewhat - crisp lines become less sharp after a while and evenly and smoothly sprayed areas become textured.

Vallejo Premium 62.018

Below you see a sequence of my work in progress. The images were photographed with the camera of a Samsung S4 Mini at different times in the day / night, which accounts for the difference in lighting. The portrait is sprayed on 50 x 35 cm airbrush paper. At the very bottom you see a photograph of my airbrush workplace. The portrait is attached to my lightbox.

Photo shot with better cam than that of a
Samsung S4 Mini phone in daylight -
color differences are amazing

Rushed to finish to try Inspire H2O in next portrait

Vallejo paint dispersed. Attempt to correct with different brand.

10 drops Vallejo Premium

So far I used 9 drops of Vallejo Premium

The portrait on my homemade lightbox.

The Telling of Legends

The inspiration came from a painting by Howard Terpning called 'The Telling of Legends'. I decided to make a different type of legend. Changed the expression on the old man's face and gave the young man a Winchester rifle. I might rename the painting to 'Peace pipes and Winchesters'. This is a work in progress (Feb 16 2015). If you click on one of the images and turn the scroll wheel of your mouse, you will see all images appear as in a slide show, allowing you to see the differences between the various stages more clearly. Oldest stage at the top, most recent at bottom.