Ryan Townsend's Airbrushing Process
Ryan Townsend started painting cars at fourteen years old working for his father and it wasn’t until he was 25 that he started thinking about combining his drawing talents with his family’s trade of custom painting. He started his custom airbrush journey and worked night and day for five years building his talent known today. His artwork took him around the country until he decided to diversify his skills by adding tattooing to his resume. He then moved out to California with his girlfriend in order to apprentice under one of the best tattoo artists there, Armando Saldana at Vatican Studios.
Images 1-4 Above starting from left to right :
In his process of this airbrush piece using his Iwata Custom Micron CM brush, Ryan Townsend would mix black with 30 percent cobalt blue urethane paint (Although now he uses Createx Illustration Color Kit). He would set this mixture aside in a separate bottle as his cool black until he was ready to mix it with white creating a cool grey. Once his mixture was created, it would be sprayed across the entire panel creating his base coat. In this piece, he referenced a photograph by Michael Malak. After printing the image on regular computer paper, he would cut out all highlighted areas to map out a stencil the paint was sprayed through. After he had a good stencil, he would freehand all of the highlighted areas with over reduced white, along with the rest of the image (Ryan soon began free handing the entire process after experimenting with stencils). In order to get his smooth, transparent and silky whites, he mixes in a 4030 balancing clear.
Next, Ryan rendered the entire image further with just this white until the image starts looking realistic. After getting as much detail with white as he can, he begins mixing together his cool black and over reducing it with his balancing clear. The last part of this step is to start rendering his darkest shadows and black in order to make the contrasting image.
The thirds step is to begin filling in all the mid tones with the cool black used in the previous step. He works this process like any other medium, referencing his photo and stylizing shades to his liking.
His final step was to add the finishing touches. He comes in with the brightest whites and darkest blacks in order to exaggerate highlights and the deep blacks creating the finished product. This allows the contrast to be pushed as much as possible.
Brass Balls Cycles commissioned this piece in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was displayed around the country and inspired by photographer Michael Malak.
The gear Ryan Townsend used is listed below :
Iwata Custom Micron CM airbrush, White, Black and Cobalt Blue Urethane Paint (Ryan now uses Createx Illustration Color Kit), 4030 Intercoat Clear, 4020 Reducer, Super Silent Eco Air 1 gallon compressor.