How to make a flesh tone with your airbrush? Help Please

[parallax1987]

Im trying out airbrushing my first piece and I can't figure out how to make a flesh tone that the airbrush will actually spray. I have a Master Airbrush and I made a flesh tone from some acrylic pants and watered it down, but it seemed like the airbrush was clogged or something because nothing would come out. I eventually gave up and put my airbrush cleaner in their and that sprayed out just fine after a few moments. My question is, How do I make a flesh tone for my airbrush? Do I need to mix strictly colors that made specifically for airbrush use? Cause I wouldn't even know where to begin. PLease Help with any advice. Thank you!

 

[SpaceGladiator]

My first suggestion... check out Darren Carnall (he's UK based) and his Kirk & Spock tutorial gives a stage by stage look at his brush work.

Second - don't give up! You are starting at the top-end of this art and expecting instant results - again look around at other top artists... I'd suggest Jacob Rahmier's work as unmatchable! He's also on this site and approachable for tips. This will serve to give you an idea of what top class looks like - hopefully it will inspire you (as it has done me).

I started same as you - thinking this was simply a point & click exercise and treated my first heads like they should hurry up and appear. After MANY fails I eventually decided airbrushing was NOT for me and I retreated to brush work - which to me is not labour intensive, but very pain-staking and very time-consuming... a second will coat a surface, but half a day will pass to see it dry! Here's an example of my first attempt at brush work...

If you insist on the airbrush - I'd suggest you need to add (airbrush) thinners to your acrylic - this will thin the pain but not water it down, enabling it to flow better. Practice on sheets of card or paper before going near the head! Get the feel for the flow and speed of your paint from the nozzle...

Hope this helps?!

 

[oziegoods]

I am no where near very good at this but i have been spending between 3 -4 hours night every night now for about 2 months and i have seen my standard change considerably during this time. I have used the following as learning tools.
Lots of youtube - David Carnell is awesome and if you sign up to Patreon you will gain access to his other videos where he explains what he is doing. And why he does it. I also found Rafael Robledo Jr to be an awesome wealth of information and very friendly approachable. I love all his videos. Galactivids is a great source of information. Now what you will note is that some of these artists actually only ever paint with brushes not airbrushes. However this is fundamentals.
- And then facebook and find the great artists on there and ask them. Some will answer and give you snippets of their craft and little hints.
Remember that alot of artists make their living from this so some may not want to share and im sure experience will show that when they open up and share that normally one question will lead to alot of others and they need to work not be answering all our questions.
What i will say is that there does not seem to be a set method. It is art and what is really important is to understand this and accept that if things were repeatable we would all do it and it would not be art it would be a process.
The best thing you can do is watch and learn try and understand what techniques are being used and how to do do those techniques and when you identify a style try it out and try and master it.
And then learn another until you start putting them together to develop your own style.
- try and get samples of work that great artist you admire have done and try and break down and understand how they have achieved the end result.
You will find the more you learn you will start looking at each HS picture and try and break down what has been done.
And get spare heads and paint and practice. You will see it your self that you will start to develop and change. And some days you will walk away thinking that looks great and come in the morning and say damn that look ****. Or vice versa
And get a head that you can keep on repainting
Finally take your time dont rush it let it dry or get a hair dryer
Just thought i would put in what i have learnt so far.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Natedog]

As mentioned above, you need to thin the paint more by the sounds of it, or up the air pressure.

Thick paint - low pressure = Nothing
Thin paint - low pressure = YES = Good for detail
Thick paint - high pressure = YES = Not optimal but can be good for primer/base/top coats
Thin paint - high pressure = Disaster

The lower the air pressure the thinner the paint needs to be. Too thin and it will have a poor result. Too high a pressure and paint will go everywhere. Trial and error.

I was in your position a while back and was all excited about my new airbrush. 2 years later I'm strictly brush now. No airbrush. Occasionally I'll use it to put down a base coat or a sealer coat.

With flesh tone, you need to do lots of layers and blending with different colors. This is difficult with an airbrush due to switching back and forth between colors. With a brush and a palate, you simply dip your brush in and go, rinse, dip in another and go.

Cheers!

Airbrushes are good for applying really thin coats for shading areas for shadow or makeup (blush, eye shadow etc.) but this can also be done with a brush and pastels which I prefer.