Airbrush Help For Beginners
Airbrush Accessories
Airbrush Equipment: Opaque Projector
Feb 11th
Not every airbrush artist is gifted with the ability to draw – and luckily for us, we don’t need to know how to draw to paint great paintings!
There are many ways to transfer an image to a working surface but my favorite (by far) is the opaque projector because it is SO simple.
All you do is place a photo, sketch, magazine clipping, whatever under the projector, turn it on, focus the image and VIOLA – there’s your image, projected onto the surface with no special preparation or skill – ready and waiting for you to trace it.
I want to say More >
Airbrush Plotter Information
Feb 11th
An airbrush plotter is, to break it down super simply, an inkjet printer, but, instead of writing with ink, it cuts with a blade.
Plotters like these were developed for the signage industry and are used to custom cut vinyl. Airbrush artists saw this technology and immediately saw the opportunity to use the device to make their own custom stencils and masks to aid in the creation of their art. If you want to see one in action, watch the video below … I’ll continue talking about the airbrush plotter below it.
I myself do not have an airbrush plotter More >
Airbrush Stencils: An Approved Method of Cheating!
Feb 11th
I’m kidding!!! Using airbrush stencils isn’t cheating … they are simply a tool to help you paint faster and cleaner.
There are basically three types of airbrush stencils:
1. Design Elements, 2. Design Aids, and 3. Edge Aids.
(note those are not technical terms – just my way of categorizing them)
Design elements are stencils that, when used properly, actually end up looking like something you recognize. For example an stencil of a skull would be a “design element”.
A design aid would be any type of stencil that doesn’t produce a recognizable result on it’s own but is used instead More >
Airbrush Tip: Frisket Film
Feb 11th
The best airbrush tip I have for new airbrush artist is…
… get yourself some Frisket Film.
If you’ve seen the lessons on this website, you’ll see that I use this product often!
The reason I use it so much is that when your learning to airbrush it can be very frustrating when your paint sprays in areas you don’t want it to. Frisket film is assurance that the paint will go where you want it to and only where you want it to.
So what is this stuff?
Basically, frisket film is simply clear tape that comes in sheets instead of strips. More >
Electric Eraser for Airbrush Art
Feb 11th
An electric eraser can be a handy tool to have around when airbrushing…
Erasers in general (the regular old hand powered ones) can be used to remove paint, add highlights, touch up overspray, blend out a hard line, add texture … all sorts of things.
Electric erasers serve the same purposes, but are able to concentrate their application in a tight area.
It’s a pretty simple little tool….all it is is an eraser mounted on a battery powered rotating shaft. You press a small button on the side of the tool and the eraser spins…. like a drill. The erasers More >
Essential Seven Airbrush Stencils
Feb 11th
Before I had the essential seven airbrush stencils I was CONSTANTLY cutting little scraps of paper to make my own handmade, temporary stencils – I thought I was being thrifty – but now that I have them, I see that I was really just wasting time!
These seven simple stencils are SO handy … and, while cutting your own stencils is a cost savings, at some point, you have to realize that having the right tools for the job can sometimes make all the difference.
So far I have not encountered a curve or a shape that I can’t match More >
Liquid Frisket for Airbrush Art
Feb 11th
Liquid frisket is a masking film that can be applied to areas of your artwork to protect those areas from being painted…. it is neat stuff and has tons of applications in your airbrush artwork.
This produce comes in handy on those occasions where your art includes a lot of tiny details that you want to mask…use it anytime you look at a reference and think, “whoa… that’s gonna take for ever to cut out all that detail.”
The simplest example I can think of is seeds on a strawberry… you could use regular frisket and use an exacto knife More >
Airbrush Frisket: How to Make it Behave
Feb 11th
Airbrush frisket can be a godsend, or, when it isn’t working properly in can be a nightmare!
If you aren’t familiar with the product go check out this page I wrote about it earlier and then come back.
Let me describe the nightmare… typically, airbrush frisket is supposed to be a very-lightly-tacky-backed clear film and is perfectly safe to apply over existing paint new or old without any problems. That was until recently…
Lately frisket films have been WAY TOO TACKY and have been known to rip up not only the paint that they are covering but also, if painting on illustration More >
Airbrush Holder: An Alternative to Teeth
Feb 11th
If you have ever held your airbrush between your teeth then you NEED to get an airbrush holder!!!
(c’mon, we’ve all done it!)
This one is a DAGR Airbrush Holder and is made by DevilBliss. It holds 4 airbrushes…. two in the yellow “u” arms and two more in plastic adapters that snap into the base …
… the two plastic adapters are not shown in the picture because I had a very unfortunate experience with them and long since threw them out in a fit of rage! Let me explain…
So these little plastic adapter things … they are little cone shape More >
