White Subjects

How does one create fur or feathers on a white animal. I have been wondering about this for sometime now.

When you look are white animal your brain is telling you that you are seeing white, but in reality you are looking at 40 shades of grey, just mist with light grey daggers and and then either erase/scratch or apply daggers.

It pays not to listen too much too your brain because any object you look at whatever colour it is will usually involve many shades of the main solid solid colour, without this object would have no sense of depth.
 
Ok now im even more confused. So you just mist light grey and erase 1 time?.
Not one time, but I would do it in layers - Keep in mind too, that surfaces also reflect their surroundings to some degree. So, if doing something like a polar bear, the fur on top may take on a bluish cast from the sky, and bottom a tan hue from the ground. Only in the brightest of light does white actually look white...

polae bear1.jpg

If you look at the attached image, you will see how little of the scene is actually white - particularly on the bear.
 
Looking at your tiger it looks like you have a handle on it.
Heres a really quick dirty 2 min polar bear sketch. It's black pen and standard pencil so only two shades of grey but kind of shows what @Malky was saying.

You see right under the belly is black, and towards the center of the chest.
The real deal would also have some yellow tinge in places , most white critters do.
If you were working with several more shades of grey you can vary more and create way more depth. Going from the center of the chest out to the left would be at least 3 or 4 shades.
Leave the truly white parts untouched , only paint the other parts.
I see your white tiger as furry because the parts you painted imply the rest is furry.

Hope this helps.

Photo on 10-14-17 at 8.09 PM.jpg
 
Last edited:
That tiger was done all wrong. That was before i learned what ive learned so far. The white is a tually white paint. Im surprised it came out the way it did. But i believe im going to have to take some lessons somewhere. I have a hard time learning by reading. I have to be shown how to do something. Some are great self teachers. I have not one of them. I had some health issues some time back that robbed me of that ability.
 
I've hand painted a white dogs fur before, never airbrushed but I only used white to be in out the highlights at the end. I painted my first layers using dark grey because most of the time the skin/undercoat is very dark. Then layered multiple layers of lighter shads of grey..
 
That tiger was done all wrong. That was before i learned what ive learned so far. The white is a tually white paint. Im surprised it came out the way it did. But i believe im going to have to take some lessons somewhere. I have a hard time learning by reading. I have to be shown how to do something. Some are great self teachers. I have not one of them. I had some health issues some time back that robbed me of that ability.
I'm just saying, It looks like you've already got part of it. you're doing great!
 
Well I think i remember that you don't have a computer, but If you want to post a reference I'd be happy to put it in greyscale for you. Then it's just a matter of painting what you see.
 
This probably won't help a lot with this particular image . You wont get a high end result without layering like dave and jonathon said and I can't help much with the airbrush specifics but you may get something you're ok with by studying this closely and only painting the greys and blacks.

grey.jpg
 
Last edited:
This probably won't help a lot with this particular image . You wont get a high end result without layering like dave and jonathon said and I can't help much with the airbrush specifics but you may get something you're ok with by studying this closely and only painting the greys and blacks.

View attachment 50476
Thanks for taking the time to create this for me.
 
shadows create the shape we see.... scratching and erasing is common.
 
And i hear what your saying. Its just hard for me to understand it.

The best and easiest thing to do is to forget that you are painting a tiger, a polar bear or a horse, instead like every artist does, you have to understand that all you are doing is painting shapes and puting together lines, dots, daggers, blends and shading using different colours, tones and intensities, where you place all these will determine what you actually end up with, if you tried to paint a white polar bear in one solid colour you would end up with a one dimensional object with an outline suggesting a polar bear, if you put in eyes, nose, mouth and toes you end up with a cartoon version of one, this is how younger children are taught about animals so as not to scare them.

It pays to study an image before even looking at your tools, you scrutinise your image to find the shapes and colours needed to best represent it, and this helps you plan your attack.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top