degreaserI place Saral transfer paper over the substrate then a printout of my art work over that. I then trace it. When I lift the Saral off, a bue line tracing is transferred to the substrate. You can also try a three layer approach by transferring the lines to a piece of masking instead of directly to the substrate.
My transfer methodpictured here is a piece of Transferite paper peeled off of the substrate. The adhesive actually picks up the blue lines. I then lay down the piece on another piece so that I can see the lines against the white of the other piece. This enables me to see the lines to cut out the design. The pieces will easily peel up and not lose their adhesive qualities.
Picking up the transfer linesHerre I cut out the positive shapes. I cut out the entire mouth area and nose. I am only cutting out the outer most lines. No inner lines like teeth or tongue or eyeball are cut at this point.
Cut out positive shapesHere I am removing the positive shapes and setting them aside for later.
Remove the shapesPictured here is the mask with the positive shape of the mouth and nose removed.
Positive shapes removedHere is the negative shape placed over the transferred drawing. The black area will now be sprayed in with white. But first the area around the masking must be masked off to prevent overspray.
Masked off and ready to sprayHere is the same masked off drawing with the black positive shapes painted in. I paint these white so that I have a bright underpainting for the colors that will follow and also so that I will be able to see the blue lines on the cut out pieces when they are placed down on and against the white background.
House of Kolor WhiteI replace the positive shapes in their "holes" and then cut out all of the shapes with an exacto knife. I leave nothing un cut. If you look carefully you can see the blue lines showing through the masking from the other side. This is because of the white underpainting I laid down previously.
Replace Inside Pieces and cutI unmask the makeup shape around the mouth.
Mouth makeup unmaskedI am using Blue Blood for the red of the mouth. I am using mediium reducer. Once I spray in the area with red, I load up some Chrome Yellow and lightly create some color variation in selected places. I mainly use it to indicate the raised wrinkles around the mouth and to "warm up" the red a bit. Molly Orange can also be used instead of Chrome Yellow.
Red for the mouth Apply House of Kolor Chrome Yellow over the red of the makeup. Lightly spray it just enough to tint the red.
Chrome yellow over redI use Rootbeer for the shadows, not BLACK! Black deadens things and looks really novice. Shadows are almost never black. The Rootbeer candy may be layered slowly until it darkens. Black can be added later but very sparingly just to darken the color down a bit.
Candy rootbeer for shadowsHere is the blue blood with the chrome yellow ligtly glazed over the top in the raised areas of the mouth. I also added a shadow under the nose with rootbeer candy.
Red tinted with yellowMake the tongue red with some yellow to warm it up a bit. Shadows will come later although they are indicated with the red at first.
Same mixture for tongueUnmask the nose and replace the mouth makeup piece to mask the bottom of the nose.
Unmask the nosePaint in the shadow side of the nose in red. Use lighter and heavier coats to indicate shadows and mid tones.
paint the noseKeep the teeth masked!!! Remove the masking on the gums and carefully paint in the gums. Indicate the rise and fall of gums by layering the paint. You will indicate shadows and darken the areas more with rootbeer candy.
Remove masking on gumsPagan Gold candy is a magical color that makes everything just "pop" when applied over it. I use it here to spray in the nose on the right side. Later I will tint this with Organic Green candy.
Pagan Gold candy!I mix some candy apple red and white base coat to make a nice pink for the tongue. It is a fairly light mixture so that I can make highlights with it as well as tint with it.
Time for some highlights After removing the pieces of masking,I free hand in the dark corner areas of the mouth's interior and model the tongue. Then I replace the makeup mask to sharpen it up a bit. I use rootbeer candy for this. This is done free hand as well as by applying the masking around the corners of the mouth to sharpen up the edges.
More rootbeer candyI use the rootbeer to make the gums more defined and "bumpy". I also apply some light mists of it to the two teeth. I want to see what it will look like. I decide there needs to be a pagan gold underpainting first.
Restate the gumsAfter I use the pink to make the gums look even better with pink highlights, I uncover the teeth all the way on the top row and half way on the bottom row.
Remove the masking on teethI first spray the teeth with Pagan Gold candy then I model them and brown them with rootbeer candy. I make the roots really dark brown and then remove the rest of the teeth masking and finish them.
The mouth is finishedI next remove the large outer eye makeup shape. I then mix Cobal Blue candy with my pink I used for the gums and tongue. Now I have my tinted purple color. Because of the white underpainting, one mid value of purple can achieve a whole range of values. The shadows here were created by layering the same color. This saves a lot of color mixing. So use the white underpainting to your advantage!!
Purple eye makeupremove the set of masking from the white of the eyes. Then comes rootbeer candy to indicate the shadows on the inside of the lids as well as the warm fleshy tissue that shows up against the makeup on a real clowns face. Please notice I have not used black anywhere on this painting.
The inner eyeThis is one of the few places I re mask in this painting. I have re masked the outside of the eye in preparation for painting the green eyeball.
Remask and sprayThis shot shows the outsides of the colored eye masked off. This masking step is very important to retain a crisp edge on the eye.
More back maskingI use the masking to create a nice thin fine line shadow under the top eyelid and the bottom. I also freehand in the pupil with rootbeer candy.
More shadows It is hard to see on the left eye but you can see on the right eye that I have darkened in the outside of the colored part of the eye. I do this because I am going to candy over it and this will become the modeling of the eye.
Eye underpaintingI use Organic Green candy to color the eyes initially.
Organic green candyHere are the eyes with organic green candy. This is just the main color. It still needs highlights and reflected transparent like areas. Areas like this are where you must employ opaques to augment the transparent candies.
Green eyesMy eye highlight color is a mixture of organic green candy and white base coat. I mix all of my colors including reducer in the airbrush itself by blocking the tip and "gargling" the mixture in the airbrush cup. This makes for fast color changes and saves on paint. I also always airbrush with the needle completely exposed on my Iwata airbrushes.
Eye highlightsIt is finally time for some black. Use it to darken down the pupil and the shadow under the top eyelid on both eyes. I also very very lightly darken the shadow side of the nose and the shadow on the tongue behind the bottom teeth. Whenever you mix up a color for one area make sure to hit all of the other areas that will need that color while you have it in the airbrush. Color changes are a real time consumer if you have to keep jumping back and forth.
Finally Black!Here is the painting with the black added. Used selectively it really enhances.
Here I have removed all of the masking. You can still see the blue lines of the ruffled collar as well as the outline of the head.
Ready to remaskHere I have used a duplicate piece to re mask ahe head shape's contour.
Re mask the outside You can barely tell but the work I have done has been re masked with tansparent masking film. I choose this because I can see the features and better render the face in accordance with them. Because this was a complete re cut and mask job I left some of the contour of the shapes showing beyond the mask to avoid having a black outline where the mask ends. This is a progress shot of the white being added.
Features masked offHere I have begun laying in the white of the facial makeup. I let some of the black underpainting show through to indicate where I will paint my shadows. I do not just use the thinner more transluscent areas where the black shows through for the final shadows! I actually mix a gray or two and create the mid tones of the shadows. This looks so much better than just leaving the black showing through the white.
The white of the faceHere is the mid tone gray I use for the beginning of the shadows. I keep my main colors pre mixed at manufacturer reduction ratio in a squeeze bottle with flip top. I then just reduce it more in the airbrush and gargle to mix it. When I am done I pour the excess back into the bottle and save my paint.
Gray of the shadowsAll of the shadows are free handed in with careful strokes of the airbrush. I am almost ready to remove the masking but I want to lay in the broadest areas of shading and to do that I need the masking on since it requires spraying from a distance to avoid striping.
Gray shadows addedI have removed all of the masking from the mouth, nose and eyes. I do this because I have to be able to see them in order to accurately render the wrinkles and facial structure.
Apply the darksI warm up the shadows with a rootbeer candy and gray base coat mixture. As I said, shadows are not BLACK. They are warm or cool. Next I darkened down the shadows again with a darker value of gray. The warmth of the under painting shows through beautifully.
Warm up and then darkenI call this clown "Soda Mouth" because it looks like his teeth have been rotted out from drinking too much soda pop.
Soda Mouth unmaskedIn order to add the hair I use some black base coat to fade out the large overspray area on the back of the head. It would have been better to mask off the back of the head with a round contour but either way the black can be used to fade it out.
Hair prepOpaque colors tend to be very dull when sprayed directlly over black so I first create the fire with white. The use of freehand first, then hand held shields are employed.
White underpaintingJust a few more tips.
When creating real fire, spray at around 60 psi. Also creating a fine line is a lot easier at a higher psi than at a lower.
Head detail
