It took nearly two days, but I came close to finishing the background today. I think I’ll add another plant in the foreground later, and perhaps pencil in some added details, but otherwise it’s done.
I started yesterday with masking the image. Then I airbrushed the top portion with a light blue acrylic, followed by a tan in the lower half. Then I filled the mid-section with a moss green, completing the base of the background. From there I started painting acrylics with a brush, starting with a darker moss green, stippling the idea of leaves from the top to nearly the bottom. I varied the brushes to get a greater variety of textures and sizes, and also altered the green acrylic from brownish to bright green. Once that was filled up, I airbrushed again, this time using a light gray-green on the top half or so of the foliage, sending it further back in the distance. Next, I returned to stippling, this time with more vibrant greens, and only at the bottom of the foliage area.
With the background jungle complete, I started painting the tree. I started with a broad wash of gray-tan acrylic. I then built up the color and texture with various browns, tans, yellows, and gray. With the lightest gray-brown I painted in the vines, followed by a dark brown for their shadows. For the ground, I staggered brush ‘hits’ with various browns, building up the terrain. Finally, I painted in the foreground foliage with greens and yellows ( and a touch of white).
It was nice to remove the masking at last, seeing the outline once again of the model, which had been lost with all the paint work I had done on top of the masking…
Tag foliage
work progress – jungle background
work progress – airbrushing completed
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…
