Texture FX mask trick

haasje dutchairbrush

Air-Valve Autobot!
I'm working at a project with a very close deadline at the moment which forces me to look for some quick and dirty tricks :p

As I have to do about 2 mrt of out of focus background I was looking for a quick way to fill the space (I realy don't have the time to do it the way I normaly would do that). The texture FX stencil is always a good one to quickly fill large spaces but for an out of focus look it's (like all masks) to nice and tight.

I still decided to playaround with it a bit and found that if I slowly moved the stencil wile spraying at it at the same time you still get the texture look but it also looks a bit "hazy/foggy". ideal for a quick out of focus background :D

Going to the infocus part you can slow the movement till you are at a stop to get a nice transition from out to in focus.
 
I have just bought a similar stencil and have been playing around,holding it up slightly from the paper also decreases sharpness,I'll have to try moving it as well.
 
Left bottom of the pic is the result of the above trick.

airbrush marineprog3.jpg
 
I really like my FX stencils as well but I was very disappointed to see it was not mylar. So now I'm in the process of having it laser cut out of mylar. It will cost about double of what the stencils cost and I'm supplying the mylar.
 
I really like my FX stencils as well but I was very disappointed to see it was not mylar. So now I'm in the process of having it laser cut out of mylar. It will cost about double of what the stencils cost and I'm supplying the mylar.
I think for that reason they are not mylar. The bubbles set is similar. The really intricate one is card the others are mylar. For us hobbyists card is hard to justify replacing often. For an established painter they are so essential the cost is not an issue.
 
Hi all! (guess I need to go to the intros thread) I've been playing with "foaming" carpet cleaner to get the same effects as the "Killer Grunge" spray. So easy, so quick, so cool! The carpet cleaner works but seems to be harder to "control" than the Lavallee Killer Grunge spray. I just got my Killer in the mail yesterday, dying to try it. The carpet cleaner turned out soooooo cool, I'm sure the Killer stuff will be even better.
 
I was just looking at the foamy carpet cleaner the other day, but I'm not a uro girl. Did look good though. And am just getting some similar stencils to those fx ones, looks like they will come in handy.
 
I think for that reason they are not mylar. The bubbles set is similar. The really intricate one is card the others are mylar. For us hobbyists card is hard to justify replacing often. For an established painter they are so essential the cost is not an issue.

I got some Translucent Yupo that I'm going to make some freehand shields with. I'm also gonna give it a shot with a similar type random patterns as the FX series.
 
I can never understand how come stencils in general are so expensive?
You'd think Mylar was gold plated, the prices some charge.
And it's not like the damn things are made of tungsten and would cost the earth to post out, either.
If you go to any hobby store you'll find heaps of kids stencils you can get for a couple of bucks, sometimes 3 or 4 to a pack.
They're plastic, but so what?
They do what they're made for.
Are the makers getting at us?:sus::mad:.
 
@splasha, I'm dabling in making my own stencils now and boy is it a lot of work. For a one off job it is fine to just cut a random shape that will fir with the current job but to combine shapes so that it will work with a lot of jobs, takes a lot of tweaking, trying, modifying, cutting out, testing, tweaking and so forth. Even simple shapes takes hours to draw up and get ready for the cutter. My simple circle stencil that I showed in "Engrave your stencil" has had 3 more modifications and that is just circles. And cutting these things takes a lot of time. When someone asked me to cut them a simple design they supplied I simply quoted them material cost and a bit of machine time. With something like the FX shields, you don't even think of material cost anymore and it is all machine time. Something like my circles takes 10 seconds to cut on a laser cutter. The one of the FX shields takes 15 minutes and that does not include the finishing of removing all the cutout bits. And obviously what ever artist's name is on the stencils also wants their piece of the pie.
 
I guess that when all is said and done, the time involved alone would add up to some astronomical figure.
Then, as you've said, comes the technical skills required for tweaking, adjusting etc.
Plus you have the cost of material.
When you look at it from that side, the cost seems more or less reasonable.
Custom work is a whole new ball game.
 
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