Will give ya my take on your questions m8, though no doubt theres no real right or wrong methods..BTW Much of what I'm gonna suggest as with some of the mentioned techniques mentioned in ya post have been handed down to us through art itself, theres no real new theorys when it comes to airbrushing so perhaps a good place for some reading references is good ol' artbooks..Dru's theorys, as with Marissa's, Mitches, my own and a million other artists simply have borrowed and adapted what came before....ultimately its just what each calls it that makes it different
I want to know if, people use just transparent and why,
If your a watercolourist as my background comes from you'll enjoy utilizing the white of your canvas and will enjoy the brightness a finished transparent piece can obtain that imo an opaque kind of ruins, it just feels and appears lighter and brighter, but thats just a personal taste thing, one issue with opaques is they become chalky looking due to the white that's in it, you will here a lot of peeps say don't use transparents if you want realism, that's hogwash imo, transparents look grainy due to the fact that we are atomizing the paint, so in essence a light spray will leave white gaps in between the pigment, opaque actually does this aswell when you look at it closly, its just not as obvious, these white gaps can be overcome by re-layering the transparent to fill in the spaces, saying that though we know that overlaying transparents gets darker in color as we go, we can avoid this by starting of with a lighter shade and help remove a lot of that grainy look..Ultimately transparents are more of a challenge as colour mixing also takes place on the canvas and you have to be aware if you want to avoid graineness to start of with a lighter shade of the color you want to match and build it up slowly..
if people mix transparent with opaque and why
..yes some do but I don't see the point personally, not in the cup at least..Ultimately adding transparent to a cup of opaque will just turn your opaque color to a more intense version of that opaque color, add enough though and your heading towards a semi-opaque, but this can also be done by reducing an opaque and is much cheaper on your paint supplys..On the canvas though Hell yer, this is due back to that idea of chalkiness, a lot of artists will do their base painting in opaque and then add transparent layers over the top to add dimension, depth and of course for blending and to remove that chalky look, a very good system to get used to, as unlike transparent paintings, starting off with opaques allows you to fix any issues and the color will only reach a certain intensity of color IE It will only go so dark no matter how much more you spray it..
i want to know if when using transparent, do you mix a base tone and mid tone or do you just build up on top of the base with other colors to make the base pop and build up (a bit like steve drisco's tutoral),
Not sure on that tutorial m8 but mixing transparents its a very good idea to start with your lightest color and then add your darker colors to it in very small quantities, a small bit goes a long way and you'll waste a crapload of paint doing it the other way..and remember the pint I made before about it getting darker the more layers you add, this can also be used to your advantage, more so than opaques though similar is possible. One transparent color has a very large range of color tone available..
How do you colour match to your reference?
many do this by using a clear film and placing this over your reference, then dabbing their color that they have mixed on that plastic surface and checking consistency of color on the reference below. Using trans it can be a bit harder and ultimately practice is the key as its more of a case of knowing what layering will achieve, this includes finishing of an opaque base, I would suggest doing your opaque base in a lighter tone than the reference shows, knowing what overlaying a transparent will later do to this color, otherwise you cld end up with very dark paintings..For this practice though I strongly recommend using a simple diary and writing your color mixes down and create your own tonal value charts, also do a set of charts with an opaque base but with different transparents added over it, always take very good notes..This is critical as if you do run out of paint half way through it enables you to mix this color exactly as needed without guesswork..
A couple extra points- When painting with transparents you really have to go from light to dark, little else will work, try to be minimalistic around highlights leaving that white of the canvas to shine through as the actual highlight, as adding white later kind of removes the point to using transparent only..
experiment with semi-opaques aswell, in realistic terms these are just reduced opaques but have a lot of advatages, it may be harder to fix or cover mistakes but they allow some of the base layer to come through, as do over reduced opaques so either or for that, I certainally wouldnt suggest spending a lot of money on em..
Opaques really can be done either way, light to dark or dark to light though if you make a mistake on your darks don't try to blot it out with a light, instead go back through your tones and gradually lighten the mistake, this will help avoid pesky color shift..
As rand said, buy a set of transparent primarys, but also buy a set of each a warm set and a cool set, also make sure ya have a crapload of white..Use these transparents then to make your opaques, then use your opaques to make semi-opaques, be sure though to always leave some pure transparents aswell, so the bigger the bottle you can buy, the better..
Theres a million and one other points in regards to color theory but I hope its answered some of your questions, I really suggest though you go out and get yourself some good oil/watercolor painting books as this will explain things such as color harmonising, gamuts, localised color, warm and cool colors and why each is used,and likely a million other things I've neglected to mention...
Sorry bout the read but such questions are hard to explain in such a short reply LOL..GL
