First finished nebula painting

[Krigen813]

In truth, this is my first finished ArtRage painting at all and first finished color artwork at all. I've grown up doing pencil drawings. What better way to explore new mediums and methods without fear of mistakes or on going costs than ArtRage?

I made this piece starting with making a custom sponge shaped sticker spray brush from actual art sea sponges and black acrylic paint. I used that brush to make a big stencil, and airbrushed a white base with the stencil. Basically I tried adapting airbrush tutorial techniques from YouTube into ArtRage. The stars came from one of the premade custom brushes. To color my nebula clouds and stars I airbrushed colors onto another layer set to color dodge blend mode. I worked from the blue to magenta, then added the cyan at the bottom left and tried to keep the transitions smooth, but separate. I just kinda went with what ever colors felt interesting and let my instincts flow. Glad I finally figured out how to make this technique work instead of needing to use selections with the edit menu like last time. I hope you enjoy :)

100946

[D Akey]

As Bowman said in 2001-A Space Odyssey

"My God, it's full of stars!"

In some remote places on the highway at night I just want to pull over and stare up to soak it all in. This has that feeling. I like the transition colors in the space dust from magenta to blue.

Nice one! Pick a star and "Engage". . .

Nice one!!!!

:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

[Krigen813]

In some remote places on the highway at night I just want to pull over and stare up to soak it all in. This has that feeling.

I think you just hit on to the feeling I've been needing when I painted this. I wish my area weren't so light polluted.

Now that I have figured out how to use the right blend settings to make the media work naturally for my work flow, I have a couple ideas for my next nebula. Not sure if I'll make a more complicated space scene than just nebula yet (still learning lol). I really like this style as an outlet. It's so relaxing to paint without having to worry "too" much about form. Good way for me to study/learn more about lighting.

[D Akey]

. . . and to get really comfortable with the tools. I hear ya.

Well, one of the great things about doing your own art is that if you haven't got the ability to see something in your area or world, you can create it in your paintings.

BTW, I'm from Los Angeles so I know that nemesis of astronomy, the dread light pollution. When I think of stars all over, it's been something I've seen camping or traveling into more remote northern areas.

:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

[Krigen813]

When I was in the Air Force, my first duty station was Edwards Air Force Base. About 3 hours North East of LA (as always, depending on traffic). Back then/there I could see the stars pretty much every night. It was a beautiful site when the distant fires glowing over the horizon didn't ruin it. And that was in the early 2000's.

Back to the art topic, I've played around with pretty well all of different tools to a good degree so far. I really like being able to fine tune and control my blending. So far I have found better ability to do so with certain brushes, and definitely the air brush, than I have with the palette knife. Or, perhaps easier and faster is a better way for me to put it. This might just be due to my background in shading with pencils, though the pencil tool in ArtRage so far has not had the same feel. I'm really liking the airbrush now that I'm starting to get used to it. Also custom brushes, including making my own or tweaking the spray settings of the existing sticker sprays. I managed to get a pretty interesting cloud effect by adding some randomness to either the luminance or hue spray settings of my custom sponge brush and dabbing the canvas in a really tight pattern. Then I can either blur it to smooth the transitions, or zoom in and manually blend with the airbrush.

Too bad there's not a way to air brush "transparency" so that a spot I airbrush gets less opaque. It would be the ultimate soft eraser with more fine control. Since I do my color work on a transparent blend layer, maybe I could spray black, then magic select the black and delete it? I'll have to play around.

[Enug]

Good to see that you are having so much fun experimenting with ArtRage.

[Krigen813]

It really is so much fun June! My favorite thing about ArtRage is that I can apply skills I was learning years ago on my own in photoshop to some degree, while also sitting back and relaxing to a Bob Ross video or other physical medium artists' videos online (like the many airbrush vids I watch), and either way I get something I can learn, use, or try all in one place. I saw an airbrush space scene today where the artist used sponge painting to texture his central planet before going over with airbrush for clouds. Seeing that technique matched what I was playing with on my custom sticker spray sponge perfectly!

[Enug]

Actually, until Mark's hair brush came on the scene, AR airbrush was my favourite tool. I love the softness it adds to cat fur.