Today I worked on the background, as well as the stockings. I started with masking out the whole image, then mixing a dark green acrylic and airbrushing the background. I mixed a bit more black and continued, putting more emphasis on the edges. I then used a light green acrylic and airbrushed mostly the center area of the background. Once dry, I used a dark green gouache to paint hints of leaves and foliage all over the background. I don’t want to call too much attention to it, so I keep it subtle, creating just a feeling of the plant life. With that done, I finished the background with another coat of the dark green acrylic, airbrushed loosely to created soft textures and hints of shadows.
I let that all completely dry before the next step, since I’ll be adding masking back over the background. I removed the masking on the stockings, and surrounded them with masking. Using a mix of brown and flesh gouache, I loosely painted the legs as if they had no stockings on them. This will hopefully give it a sense of sheer in the end. Next, I mixed a flesh acrylic and airbrushed the legs, followed by a medium light green. I darkened the green and began contouring the stockings, mixing darker shades as I moved into the shadows. Once that dried, I used the dark green gouache from before to paint in a vine design on the stockings. Then I airbrushed white highlights over the stockings to complete them…