STEP BY STEP | "Iron" Mike Tyson
18 AIRBRUSH STEP BY STEP 03/19 E
05
Building the stubble
Using Illustration Black straight from the bottle I
start to build the stubble. A light pass with the Blair Micro-
Dot Stencil and lots of freehand dots, I begin to build the
base texture. I use a mix of Sepia and Black to build the sha-
dows in the nostrils and the skin textures on the left cheek.
I do not have to be as precise in this area as it‘s slightly out
of focus and in the shadows. Working down to the chin I
freehand random dots and dashes using the original opaque
colour. I use transparent Sepia and Black to add some inte-
rest.06
Adding highlights
At this stage I add some value
over all the structures. This has the ef-
fect of sinking all the contrast and ma-
king the skin come to life! In this case I
use a transparent mix of Red violet and
Burnt umber. I have to erase the high-lights again and now it starts to feel a
bit more finished. I try and get my pain-
ting to about 80% complete before I
make real decisions about colour and
hue. It‘s amazing how different your
work looks surrounded by the white of
the paper!07
Right cheek
The right cheek is a lot softer
to build. I use the original opaque tone
and add some of the transparent co-
lour I just used to sink the value. Doing
this ties the areas together with a com-
mon hue. Spraying from about 60 mmaway, I place random dots over a subtle
pass of the skin texture stencil. When
the structure looks good, I sink it using
the same transparent paint as before.
This time, I am careful about how much
I spray as I need to preserve the value.08
Working on the forehead
The forehead is a slightly different colour and re-
quired me to modify my base tones. I used Burnt umber as it
has a warming effect and also added the Yellow hue I saw in
the reference. It has an out of focus area and a super sharp
area side by side. Painting this looks a bit weird on its own,
but it‘s what I can see. I spent around 3 hours on the high-
lights and sub textures here. At this stage it‘s easy to start
rushing your work, but I force myself to take my time.