Painting Skulls

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:13 am

I wanted to get a little better before I started showing these off, but I'm excited another pimp decided to pick up airbrushing, so I wanted to give Murdoch a little inspiration of what can be done with a little practice.

I picked up some Artools Skullmaster mini series templates. These are awesome because they are not stencils, rather it's a bunch of different shapes you can piece together to create skulls with your own personality

These are my 2nd and 3rd tries. The one on the right is my third try, and I screwed the bottom jaw up when I tried to experiment with adding more detail. Oh well, live and learn, I'm just practicing for now. It'll be a while before I'm good enough to reverse the process on Lexan.

And get this, I did both these with a $25 ebay airbrush. Anytime Tools, cheap airbrushes that work.

tyhodge07 · Post by **tyhodge07** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:03 am

id like to ad to this, since its about skulls, for the ones who shop walmart, head over to the model car section (their getting rid of model cars, so these might be on the clearance racks) and they sell skull stencils which are based for 1/24 scale models, their smaller skulls and if i remember correctly they also have larger ones on there, but their like 4 bucks for 2 sheets of it and its by the walmart hok brand stuff.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:38 am

Tried a side one last night. Couldn't find the tooth shapes I need, so I just darkened the whole thing over.

There's an instructional DVD for these templates out there somewhere, I need to find it.

sidewinder · Post by **sidewinder** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:46 pm

The when you get bored Bar-B-Q it!

This was brushed on art bored but its a bit bigger than you're dealing with (3ft tall) so its easier to get detail. And it was for a grade so this is six weeks worth of work...off and on.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:28 pm

You did that? Damn dude, that's really good. Bust out with some advice, 'cause I knows I needs some.

... and, yeah, my skulls are even smaller than they appear on the monitor, so they are pretty difficult to work with.

sidewinder · Post by **sidewinder** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 5:44 pm

OH its easy, you just lay out the pattern then cut some basic stencils, start blending (using acrylic paints) and then work on it in a college art class where you have a 23 year veteran art professor to fix your goofs

Actually, its not entirly airbrushed either. It was painted first, then brushed, the some final ink work. But like I said it took maybe six (or more) weeks working on it and it was 80% of the grade for the quarter(B+, I screwed up the red in the eye on the right side). One of these days I have to do a car. I've tried some rc stuff but painting inside the body really screws me up... I should learn, but then I'd spend way too much on toys.
work in progress:

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:21 pm

Well that's really cool. Makes me wish I didn't drop out of college.

I was never good with bristle brushes, but then maybe if I knew what I was doing. I never thought I'd be able to airbrush, and now I think I'm getting pretty good.

Thanks for sharing the WIP pics, that kind of stuff helps me. You couldn't have fixed that right eye? Personally I would have wanted the left to look more like the right, I like how it glares at you, but I wouldn't have even noticed if you did say anything.

sidewinder · Post by **sidewinder** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:55 pm

That was the problem, I didn't see it...neither did anybody I talked to...until it was done and graded. Its gonna get fixed someday but I got so sick of working on it and I was so disgusted with myself for missing it, that I just haven't bothered yet.

I hope the wip pictures give you some ideas, I wish I'd taken more.

Oh BTW, you can always take a couple of classes just for fun, state and community schools aren't really that bad price wise.

redrustbucket · Post by **redrustbucket** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:34 pm

Wow, that's sick! I finally ordered some paint to do some experimenting on bodies soon. No way it'll be that good.

sidewinder · Post by **sidewinder** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:44 pm

If you want to practice cheaply go to an art supply store (Michaels, hobby lobby, Pat Catan's, etc.) and get some cheap acrylic paint, it thins with water, when you have it about the same consistancy you can practice with it on empty 2 liter bottles or on stuff you don't care about. It will save a lot of money. The stuff I use to experiment with come's from Michaels and I pay about $1.99 for a two and a half oz bottle. I wouldn't use it for your RC stuff because I doubt that it flexes well...although I've never tried, so...?