Silly question maybe...

[sevastra]

So i know all about the dreaded color shift with white on black or black on white. Are there any others that i should be aware of before i totally ruin a piece?

 

[AndreZA]

Any colour over another will shift. With transparents you use it to your advantage. You build up the colours to the one you eventually want. If you ever look at the colour samples from the Schmincke Aerocolour range you will see they show you what the colours look like if you paint it on white and on black. Some of them have interesting shifts.

 

[RebelAir]

Color shift never ruins a piece, just takes it into a different direction LOL. Brand can play a big part, personally have found the brand for me and i don't find it shifts much at all, but there are ways to stop it completely. If an opaque is sprayed on top of an opaque at 100% intensity, the top opaque should completely cover the base opaque (Opaque is not see through if opaque LOL), where color shift happens is towards the oversprayed edges where its not 100 % opaque, so control that overspray and it controls your color shift.. Its not impossible to still get a little due to the nature of the airbrush's spray pattern or our gradient needs but thats where hand or edge shielding can come into its own..Best of luck, I'd say experiment with the color shift if your getting a bit, you'll be amazed how easily a piece can be turned from a day scene to a night scene with a blue moon and all to suit those shifted edges, this way the mistake becomes a strength...

Also remember one thing, its extremely, extremely rare to find pure white next to pure black unless your going for a very bold or contrasted image, greyscale is more common than pure black and white pieces, in the real world also and by using greyscale it can also help remove shift if painted light to dark..

 

[sevastra]

Thanks both of you . I'm going to have to spray all my colors and experiment before i think i know what im doing on a piece haha. I am having a problem recently with over spray. AndreaZa, i'm going to look for that, that interesting.

Rebelair, i have been using a neutral grey and experienced some blue hue towards the edges of another grey tone i used, one of those moments where you stare at it for a few minutes, than rage comes.

 

[RebelAir]

Rebelair, i have been using a neutral grey and experienced some blue hue towards the edges of another grey tone i used, one of those moments where you stare at it for a few minutes, than rage comes.

Do you underbase in the lighter color before going over with a darker color? Or meeting two area's of color? Or trying to relighten? Is this also more so on heavy reductions or full strength and what brand do you use? Sometimes some particular brands do have heavy blue bases in their blacks and no matter what ya do it shifts. Are you mixing your paint or shelf bought?

 

[sevastra]

Do you underbase in the lighter color before going over with a darker color? Or meeting two area's of color? Or trying to relighten? Is this also more so on heavy reductions or full strength and what brand do you use? Sometimes some particular brands do have heavy blue bases in their blacks and no matter what ya do it shifts. Are you mixing your paint or shelf bought?

Hey Rebel, I do yup! I use E'tac, Wicked, and comart. I mix some of the same brands up.
What happened this partial time was i was working on a black canvas which i haven't done before, and i was doing a very monochrome'ish joan jett portrait, and using the black canvas as the darker shades, but going in with a lighter grey tones and off whites, and everything was shifting to a blue hue, maybe it was the black canvas? I also wasn't using shields ( can't get the hang of it, i don't know why) I try and put the shield where i think i need it and i miss the mark completely. So, i was free handing and using my hand as a shield. I think my air pressure was up to much as well for that type of work.

 

[RebelAir]

I use spectra m8 and it doesn't shift at all on black canvas although it could just be me being half blind and deaf LOL..Did you base the canvas yourself or was it already black? I find on a based black you'll get shift where on a coloured card style I get much less..if at all. When I do work backwards like that I try to use a really heavy opaque dark grey, just off black, then transition it a few times through your shades back to the whites. i find personally that going light to dark on say white canvas we can jump through only 3 or 4 shades no issue. On black I find that adding another 5-6 shades can help. If you only use say 3 it can at times be too big of a jump from dark into a light and those edges may shift. I assume your making your paint quite opaque and not thinning down too much? The other alternative I use a lot on black and many do is to paint the whole thing in white and reasonably strongly, don't try retain to much of your blacks but erase them back in then blend it all with a true transparent black, this way your kind of painting it on a white base again rather than the black base and I have found at times that helps also with shift, best of luck and hope ya get it figured..

 

[sevastra]

Ahh, yea, i didn't thin the paint much at all and didn't really build up much. i didn't even think about erasing back to black, that's a really good idea. Thanks a lot rebel, thats really helpful!