Hi all, many apologies about the laaaattteeee updates. Every time I crack on with my bonnet, jobs start coming out the wood work. I've just finished a computer, and about to start a Yamaha bike, so I'll slip this update in-between and see what else I can do on the bonnet between other jobs.
I left you with the last parts of the flames being painted. I'll probably re-visit the flames and skulls later on, but for now it's time for the next mayor part of the design.
I've had a drawing in one of my books for a long time which I've always wanted to airbrush. It's a mean looking skull, chewing on an airbrush with the hose going through it's eyes etc etc. I'd scan it in but the scanner is broken, so I'll grab a pic later.
first thing I do is trace a line drawing from the original, then scan it into the computer, then trace it out in Corel draw, tweak it a little, add some banners, draw the airbrush properly and finally cut it out of masking film on the plotter!
Here is what was sent tot he plotter. There does not need to be any major detail here - just basic shapes. The airbrush is accurately cut.
The benefit here is that it is repeatable.
I mark a centre line down the bonnet with fine line tape...
Then I stick one corner of the mask down when I have it lined up. This will anchor is in place so that I can lay the mask down accurately.
Mask is on:
(look for the dark patch)
I'm going to be painting the airbrush first of all. Because it’s all nice, smooth straight lines Its easy to back mask later so that I can paint the skull around it.
I'm going to be painting the airbrush in grey scale. For this I have about 8 - 10 shades of grey that I have mixed up all labelled as a percentage of black.
"0% black" is just pure white; "50% black is 50/50 black and white; and "100% black" is exactly that. I find that this is the best way for me to do it.
I'll hardly ever use 100% and 0% paints, as they form the absolute shadows and highlights. for extreme highlights I use 5-25% black, which gives a very nice bright highlight. then I use 0% ( pure white) to give the already bright highlight a very sharp kick.
The reason for all the shades is also because it's a bad idea to just use black and white. i.e. doing a white skull and using black to shade - allowing the overspray for the black to form a gradient. It’s bad because you normally end up with a brown tinge to the gradients because of the way the pigments are made up.
here are some of the grey paints I'm using:
I'm not going to do a complete step by step on the airbrush, as I'll be here all night. I'll just give you the highlights ( huh huh no pun intended)
I remove all of the masking from the body of the airbrush and RETAIN THE PIECES I HAVE REMOVED - this is very important as I will be re-sticking them over and over again. I fill the gap with 100% black
Amongst other masking materials, fine line tape can be handy for sharp highlights:
It's hard to tell which parts re masking tape and which are not. this is the back end of the airbrush, you can see where the patterns spread onto the masking film. It will look very sharp when the film is removed....
Like I said - It's important to retain the pieces of masking that I have removed, here you can see that I have painted sections of the cup then replace the masking film to paint other parts.
Almost there:
. have you tried it?
. 
