Exclusive Airbrush Tips To Paint A Planet:

How to paint a planet using airbrushing techniques taken from the world of spray paint art.

Most airbrush artists use circle cut outs to make planets, and yes, you can do that, but I'm also going to show you how to paint planets another way right now.

Here are some materials that you will need:

We are going to use heavy plastic plates, the kind you can find at Walmart or some other convenience store in the dinner ware aisle. You can also use caps, like from vitamin bottles, but you will need to make them heavier so they don't get blown around by the air from your brush. (One way of making them heavier is to paste some heavy things on top, such as heavy metal nuts and bolts from your hardware store.)

OK, so once you've got your plates and caps, you need some posterboard to paint on. Most airbrushing techniques are not meant for posterboard, but these airbrush tips are different. I'm giving you airbrushing techniques that work with thicker heavier paint then you would usually use with an airbrush and they work great on posterboard! You can do them on other surfaces, but posterboard is a great place to start. You can learn how to paint on posterboard in exactly the same way a spray paint artist does.

Here is how you mix your paint for using these airbrush tips:

So the first thing you need to do is learn how to paint a planet like texture. You can do that by layering the paint and then removing layers with newspaper. I'll explain...

Usually we paint light to dark. This means that we start with a light color, such as white, or ivory, or yellow, light pink. Light means bright, opaque, or pastel colors.

Then we add a medium color such as red or blue, or any color mixed with a little bit of white.

Then we add a darker color, such as dark blue, black.

All of these colors should be opaque, meaning that they either have some white mixed in them or the pigments are not very diluted. You want something that's going to give you more coverage.

But after you add these colors, you can add a transparent color. That can be a very diluted color, or a color mixed with transparent medium. When you spray it on, you can still see the colors underneath somewhat. Transparent colors can add great depth to your work. It's great to add some into your color mixes. If you want to learn how to paint 3D planets with airbrushing techniques, you will benefit from adding some transparent colors to your planet textures!

 

Once you have applied these colors, it's good to add a little bit more white to the edge of the planet that will be the brightest.

Once you have layered your colors, it's time to use the newspaper.

Most airbrushing techniques do not use heavy enough paint to do this..but if you have mixed your paint as I described above, you can use these airbrush tips to create layers of textured paint.

First of all there are different kinds of newspaper, and also magazine papers.

Newspaper can be old or new, still or soft. Magazine paper is less absorbent than newspaper. All of these factors make a difference. If you use a lot of paint for example, and then use magazine paper to add texture, you will leave much more paint on the paper then if you use a soft absorbent newspaper.

So it's good to start experimenting with different kinds of newspaper and magazine paper until you find your favorite ones.

If you want to know how to paint a planet, you need to know how you crinkle the newspaper. (I know all these details)

The more you crinkle it up, the more little tiny lines and squiggles of texture you will create. Ask yourself, how far away is this planet? If it's really close, you may want more detail in the texture, if it's far away, you only want a little bit, because things that are far away make it harder to see detail.

Here is one way to crinkle it up.

Once you have created the texture of your planet, it needs to be dry to be able to block it off with the plate. You can dry it by being patient and going to get a snack. You can dry it also with a hair dryer or a heat gun on the low setting. If you dry it quickly, make sure you don't heat up one area of your paper too much or your paper will curl up!

Once it is dry, put your plate on top, and now you are ready to airbrush the space sky around it!

Airbrush tips on how to paint your simple basic cosmic sky:

You can add black, dark blue, and whatever other colors you want in your sky. Sometimes it's nice to add areas of red, orange, yellow and tiny highlights of white.

Once you have applied a few areas of color in your dark sky, it's time to put some stars on.

Here is how to paint the stars:

Take some white paint that is fairly undiluted, put it on a large hardware store spatula, or if you don't have that, on a strip of torn posterboard and shake it over your painting to make the stars. Try to throw them fairly hard so them come out small.

Now, you can take your plate off. Once the plate is off, you are almost done, just take some black and shade the edge of the planet so that it blends into the space behind it. And now you have a great planet!

I hope you have enjoyed these airbrush tips and that you'll give it a try yourself!