First real art and cheater portrait

[grinnen30]

Well, here is my first couple of tries at my first real artwork with the airbrush. I have tried the lessons, still need lots of practice on daggers and the curly Q things (among everything else), but they are coming along.

The first one (the less accurate of two) was completely freehand...the second I outlined the basic shapes (minimal) to get the right proportions...the third is the actual photo taken by the wife...

The only real problem that I have is getting fine lines and even flow (I am trying to fine cheap alternatives that can come out decent over airbrush specific...cashflow problems...so this is acrylic with a 50/50 alcohol-water mix spraying with a badger 155 at 40-45 PSI) So if anyone in the LV area willing to be patient with a newbie...I would greatly appreciate you help and time...next on the list is airbrush paints to see if I CAN get fine lines...

Take care
Ike

[fresnojohns]

Ike,
That is great if you are just getting going. Its ok to use guides, projector,
grid drawing , etc. This kind of work is hard to do. One thing to remember
doing faces is to stay away from any type of hard lines. At least that has been my mistake. Since you are using cheaper paints you did it cool. There are many paints for the portrait type of work you are doing available on the market. It takes practice, alot of practice. If you just started you are doing great. Keep at it. There are many here on this board that do wonderful photo
realistic work. Just by seeing many of the photos here can help very much.
By all means ask questions. Everyone here is great and will help also.
Fresnojohns

[quickchange]

I second what John said. For your first try you did pretty darn good.

All of his suggestions are right on. I have the anthems and I use them for both my T shirt work and my fine artwork. I can get pretty fine with it. I do have a Badger LG 100 also that can give me a bit finer lines but the biggest reason I have it is so I can change colors rather quickly without wasting a lot of paint.

Being a frugle person I understand the use of the acrylic paints from the department stores, but I can pretty much promise you that you will find a MARKED difference in the performance of airbrush paints over the plain acrylics. When I started trying to do portraits and finer work I was using the original createx and thought I was losing my mind, then switched to goldens and what a difference. Maybe a simple bottle of ink would be fun to try. Will also spray at a much lower psi.

Regardless, you are doing well and will continue to improve as you do more and more. To me airbrushing is a continuing learning process. Finding out what works and what doesn't is a personal thing. We all find our favorite paints and brushes.
Good luck