So I airbrushed for the first time ever last night.

I'd spent almost all of last weekend cleaning and rearranging the back room of my garage to be used as my "studio" and I finally got the opportunity to use it and pop my own airbrush cherry last night. After a hugely frustrating afternoon/evening, I plugged in the small compressor, turned up the blues - and regardless of the results, it felt really, REALLY good to finally begin my learning curve and get that HUGE monkey off my back.

For practicing/learning/experimenting - I decided to go with a couple toilet seats. I'd taped them off a long time ago, and scored some freebie leftover paint samples from the nephew - and last night was finally my shot to put the two together.

Being a virgin, I decided to play it conservatibe and be gentle with myself - and went with a simple 3 color flame. I had a silver base with a darker grey metallic fogged in fat on the edges - then followed up with the blue. Here it is with the tape still on it:



I obviously had some adhesion and un-taping ussues, but here it is in its current state:



With that "safe" one out of the way I used the second one to experiment a little. I went with a blue base, a fat silver fog in, and mixed up a little purple for the solving of curiosities regarding going heavy on the tips and outer edges (left side) or just fogging the tips in lightly (right side). Again, some slight adhesion and taping issues - but here's that one too:



I'm glad that I tried the things I tried, but I'm not real happy with the 2nd one. Too much silver - the hard purple outline didn't work out, etc. Anyway, I know that I still have a LONG way to go, and I still have to bust out the pinstriping brushes - but for being in my absolute infancy with using a new tool I think things could have turned out MUCH worse, so I'm encouraged. The goal is to start with smaller cheaper stuff like toilet seats now, progress to bigger things like refrigerators soon, and be ready to full flame a full sized car by spring. The biggest thing I had to do was START with the STARTING already - and with that out of the way - I'm off and running (like a racing turtle).

Thanks for the look - and thanks too for any/all constructive criticism and helpful suggestions.

Peace,
John

It just needs some mauve pin striping around the color edge and it will be fine.

The reality of toilet seats is that if you forget to lift it, you pee on it anyway!

Any body been trying the Green Frog painter's tape?
Does it really hold an edge better?

Dave

I'm not sure they have a fine line tape.

Hey John,thats some pretty nice work on your first try.Definitely have the skills and patience so just keep at it.Just
dont put your work outside on a tall post.
Gotcha Buddy
Jim Gordon

Air brushing an entire car?

I sense epicness afoot.

I like the first one. Grab those pinstriping brushes and fix the edges!

Pull the tape with the paint very fresh. Almost wet. Also, did you scuff the flame area after it was taped?

I had a surfboard that looked like the first one, Good work! can't wait to see more....I bought an air brush kit myself a few years ago and never did anything with it yet....

learn the tru fire flames john,. there,s where your artitstic talents will thrive,.
I would re-paint and give you the black car for a practise canvas,. perhaps it might finally get the flames i,ve always wanted,..

Nick

Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

Yea, I scuffed the first one after it was taped - but I agree that I let it sit too long before untaping. Hopefully with a little striping brush practice, I can improve those edges.

Thanks Nick. True flames are definitely in the plan, but I don't have any of those stencils yet. Gotta start at the start, which is getting comfortable with the brush. I'll also need a more colorful selection of samples besides, 2 silvers, 6 shades of grey, lime green, blue, and a red.

I know that pinstriping things out with a brush is important, but it's especially the case on smaller items where you need that higher level of detail. I've seen plenty of cars that just had the pinstrip color airbrushed around the edges, and that style seems to lend itself much better to the much bigger sized flames on that much bigger of a canvas. I have a spare fridge that I'll be trying this theory on pretty soon too.

read,.... google is your friend,. the stencils are part of your 'artistic flair' you draw and cut out your own,. thats the beauty of tru fire stuff,. the random shapes etc,.you definition of the flames is your signature,. there is no pattern,..there are better color combo's tho,. etc,.
there is no spoon,. neo.

nick

Nice work! You got talent Bud!

Thanks Mike.

Ok, so the holiday acivities put me on pause for a little while, but I'm still trying new stuff out there as often as I can. I knew that I had to start trying to finger out how to lay stuff out so that parts of the layout crossed over other parts of the layout. I can draw that in my sleep, but hadn't tried to paint it yet.

Since I wanted to work on something a little bigger than a toilet seat too - I spent 2 minutes and Krylon'd a square on the wall - then another couple minutes laying out a quick layout to serve that only purpose.

In the grand scheme of photo-journaling my attempts, triumphs, and tribulations - here's how it came out. I know that I need to go back and add some shadowing - but I was really only trying to figure out the "how to tape off and paint where, and when" of it all.

Same as before - I know there's lots of room for improvement, but I'm comfortable with how this first shot went - concerning the areas that I was concerned about. I know it could have turned out much worse and I know that my next one will be much better.



I know, I know - not my first choice of colors either, but I only had like 30 minutes to shoot the whole thing AND clean up - so I had to grab the first two colors that both contrasted and were already ready to spray. Meh.

Thanks for the look,
John

looking good, but have to say it reminded immediately of Aku for some reason.....

Damn! If only I wasn't keeping the Marshmallow looking like a sleeper, I'd have you paint it next summer for WF2K11FM!!!!

toomanytoyz wrote:

Damn! If only I wasn't keeping the Marshmallow looking like a sleeper, I'd have you paint it next summer for WF2K11FM!!!!

Get in line.................