Urethane paint portraits

A

AJs

Guest
Hi all

I was at a custom car show the other day and inspire paints had a stand up, loads of cool vibrant candy colours, pearl sparkles and a neat looking base colour set with flesh tone in too, all urethane based. Long story short i couldn't help myself and spent far more money than i should have :whistling:

So my question... Ive only used water base so far, createx illustration and etac efx so the erasing technique works neat for giving highlights in flesh tone portraits etc, or even correcting mistakes.

How do you go about this with urethane base paint? as far as I'm aware erasing isn't an option, and white on top of other colours creates blue shift?

The inspire guys had some cool examples of work with the urethane stuff including pretty realistic portrait work so i presume there must be a method?
 
Over the last few years, maybe a little more there has been a shift in general towards erasing. That's basically because a lot more people do canvas work and its an easy method to get some white back and super reduction seems more the go for many...Whites can be painted over other colors without shift, where most make the mistake is not building highlights correctly and they place the white over paint that is too dark to do so or can't control their overspray as this is generally the area of shift. Whites is as opaque as any paint, more so, so in theory it can provide 100% coverage unless massively thinned which water bourne painters tend to do a lot, urathane painters don't need to reduce quite as much as realistically urathane sprays so much better..Also white doesn't color shift on a very light skin tone, that light skin tone won't color shift on a sightly darker skin tone etc..So in essence erasing is not needed to create a realistic portrait, again its more a modern thing as more people demonstrate those kind of techniques..Understanding correct layering from light to dark is important, understanding transparent overlay is also important and knowing how to map those earlier layers so you leave a lot of canvas white present or very light skin tones is also important..These lighter tones left through the painting can then at the end be painted with white without real shift as essentially its just off canvas white anyway your working the highlight white into (remember that white only shifts on a dark color...generally)..There are various methods but I apply my whites earlier in the painting process and dont leave them until the end unless its a very pure white highlight, this way you can adjust any issues the white may cause with transparent overlay layering after but there are many ways to skin this cat...Soooo, if doing a portrait on a dark car, you'll probably want a full white base (for the portrait itself) for or to assist creating a realistic portrait and then build it as you normally would...if painting on a lighter based or white vehicle then its not too much different..

To actually demonstrate or show these techniques would require a lot more space and a lot more coffee and 20-30 hours work so hopefully the explanation helps a little...Also you can combat blue shift by adding generally a little bit of orange, but not something I bother with...and also some paints blue shift much more than others, pending how blue the black is..Most blacks have a blue base, that's why it shifts blue when oversprayed with white...adding that touch of orange neutralizes the blue..Also many vary tone with black...That comes back then to the same issue as essentially its not only black you add to that color but also an amount of what the black is based in (PS Black in these days predominantly blue based but can also be red based or green based in some paint brands). So rather than adding black to a color and getting all kinds of weird effects, use the colors complimentary to darken it instead, this may also help reduce some shift......
 
Over the last few years, maybe a little more there has been a shift in general towards erasing. That's basically because a lot more people do canvas work and its an easy method to get some white back and super reduction seems more the go for many...Whites can be painted over other colors without shift, where most make the mistake is not building highlights correctly and they place the white over paint that is too dark to do so or can't control their overspray as this is generally the area of shift. Whites is as opaque as any paint, more so, so in theory it can provide 100% coverage unless massively thinned which water bourne painters tend to do a lot, urathane painters don't need to reduce quite as much as realistically urathane sprays so much better..Also white doesn't color shift on a very light skin tone, that light skin tone won't color shift on a sightly darker skin tone etc..So in essence erasing is not needed to create a realistic portrait, again its more a modern thing as more people demonstrate those kind of techniques..Understanding correct layering from light to dark is important, understanding transparent overlay is also important and knowing how to map those earlier layers so you leave a lot of canvas white present or very light skin tones is also important..These lighter tones left through the painting can then at the end be painted with white without real shift as essentially its just off canvas white anyway your working the highlight white into (remember that white only shifts on a dark color...generally)..There are various methods but I apply my whites earlier in the painting process and dont leave them until the end unless its a very pure white highlight, this way you can adjust any issues the white may cause with transparent overlay layering after but there are many ways to skin this cat...Soooo, if doing a portrait on a dark car, you'll probably want a full white base (for the portrait itself) for or to assist creating a realistic portrait and then build it as you normally would...if painting on a lighter based or white vehicle then its not too much different..

To actually demonstrate or show these techniques would require a lot more space and a lot more coffee and 20-30 hours work so hopefully the explanation helps a little...Also you can combat blue shift by adding generally a little bit of orange, but not something I bother with...and also some paints blue shift much more than others, pending how blue the black is..Most blacks have a blue base, that's why it shifts blue when oversprayed with white...adding that touch of orange neutralizes the blue..Also many vary tone with black...That comes back then to the same issue as essentially its not only black you add to that color but also an amount of what the black is based in (PS Black in these days predominantly blue based but can also be red based or green based in some paint brands). So rather than adding black to a color and getting all kinds of weird effects, use the colors complimentary to darken it instead, this may also help reduce some shift......

Damn, i feel like i owe you a few coffees and whiskey chasers after that! Thanks for taking the time to explain in detail, that helps a lot.

I did have a feeling i was learning bad habits with relying on erasing to make up for short cuts in mapping and rushing layering etc, especially as i want to start taking things to auto stuff.

Im pretty excited to try Uro paint, some of the colours really popped, especially the candies. The better flow will be a nice benefit too without having to reduce a lot.

Thanks again :)
 
Mmmmm Whiskey ;)

Hope I didn't make you think erasing is a bad habit..Its actually an extremely useful technique and often the best realism effects takes a little of many different methods and on canvas its def easier and at times more effective..but saying that you can erase also on metal surfaces although the effect can be much harsher if not careful,many use the likes of etac and other airbrush brands to auto paint and with a softer eraser erasing effects still can be used, ie you can heat treat your base white or intercoat it to also ensure it stays there when erasing layers sequenced after (You can even dab the paints with a rag soaked in thinners and create molted or stippled effects early on that then create nice texture within, once more paint is layered)..Can't say also if learning uros is a useful thing either as I don't doubt they will soon be gone..one day LOL, but they are nice to paint with and def more vibrant in many cases..To specialize in auto imho requires a good knowledge of everything as often we will want to use a lot of candy or the like in and around realistic portraits to blend it with the vehicles base color or other art going on and knowing how to mix some of those elements can be difficult and requires a very good layering understanding, but every shortcut on auto will (unlike canvas) punish you later in the piece..On canvas we can recover much easier from boo boo's, on auto it really stands out and can be hard to get back on track without then overdoing it and sometimes going back to the drawing board is required to understand r see a better way of achieving it. Grab some old metal signs or washing machine or other white goods panels for practice, will really help before getting onto the real thing. Best of luck.
 
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