This will be a step by step progress in my attempt to paint Pete Mander's latex Wolf head. I have only used an airbrush once before, and it turned out horribly:
The mask (made by Akira Fudou) was fun to paint, but my painting leaves a lot to be desired: bad triangle spots, mouth is too pink, not enough fading, not enough spots, etc. What I did like was the way the quills and teeth turned out. I made them myself with Sculpy and Bake & Bend.
This time I'm ready: I've borrowed a Badger airbrush and compressor, I have my Prosaide and Permawet, and I have my acrylic paints.
Here is the raw mask:
This is after I applied a coat of prosaide to the entire mask with a brush:
(the prosaide goes on white and then turns transparent and becomes tacky to touch)
I am following Scotts advise and I'm going to layer my paint and prosaide. One layer of prosaide, then paint, then prosaide, then paint, etc. That way I don't have to mix the paint and prosaide at the same time and Scott says it has the same effect. I'll be watering my acrylic paints and prosaide down enough so that they can still flow through the airbrush without clogging it up.
Tomorrow I will begin the base color. I'm starting off with the light colors, then adding viens, then moving to the darker colors. There are a lot of you guys who are seasoned with using airbrushes (Scott, Pete, Larry, Lee, etc) and painting heads to look lifelike...feel free to give me any pointers.
First question: when I go to put the next layer of prosaide on, should I just dilute it 75/25 with water and use the airbrush to apply it to the mask? I'm worried that the prosaide will gum up the inside of the airbrush...does that happen?