Futuristic Cityscape

Start with a sketch. This will give you a rough idea of the overall composition of the landscape. Make a mat border by putting masking tape on a sheet of a airbrush drawing board and cutting out the middle. Mix HANSA pro-color Ice Blue with a few drops of HANSA pro-color White and a little water. Spray this mixture as a color gradient from the top down, covering the first one-third of the picture.

Spray a couple of slightly jagged lines in white on the color gradient to indicate wispy clouds.

Our "Space Landscape" stencil is an ideal tool for creating the mountains that will later be in the background. Place a couple of weights on the stencil to hold it in place. Wad up a paper towel and use it to dab on a mixture of blue, white and water, creating structures. Fill your airbrush gun with ice blue and spray on the shadows for the mountains. Spray the shadows on the right-hand sides of the mountains. You can create additional structures with slightly jagged lines.

Spray the left-hand half of the mountains with white, creating a three-dimensional effect for the mountain peaks. If necessary, you can use a 10-0 brush from our red sable brush set 333, for example, and white to integrate even more structures. Now you can remove the stencil.

Draw another chain of mountains in pencil in front of the mountains. Mix HANSA pro-color Ice Blue, a little HANSA pro-color Lemon Yellow and a touch of HANSA pro-color Black to create a dark green color. Use an acrylic brush to apply this mixture as the primer for the mountain on the right-hand side. Using a fine brush and a mixture of lemon yellow and white, paint the side of the mountain structures facing the light. Apply the paint in several layers, adding more water to the mixture as necessary so that the layers blend with one another more smoothly.

Spray a transparent mixture of white, blue and water over the first green mountain to give it a foggy layer and to cause it to retreat into the background. Use a similar technique to paint the second mountain. You can leave a little area for the waterfall.

Lightly mark the other two mountains with dark green so that you have a basis for positioning the buildings later. Take the "Future Landscape" stencil and place it over the mountains. Carefully spray over the stencil with a mixture of ice blue, black and water. You can apply the mixture so as to create subtle light and shadow effects.

Use the various sizes and patterns of the "Future Landscape" stencil set to create a balanced and interesting combination of buildings.

Use white and the window structures of the "Future Landscape" stencil to integrate delicately the window patterns, bringing the skyline of buildings to life.

Complete the chain of mountains on the left-hand side of the picture. You can spray a transparent mixture of blue and white and create a foggy layer; this will give individual mountains an illusion of depth.

The waterfall is sprayed on as a series of vertical blue and white lines. Spray dots and a little white fog to simulate an interesting effect on the waterfall edge.

Use the "Future Landscape" stencil again to create another city skyline in the middle ground. Make sure that your paint is dark enough in color so that the skylight stands out against the background. More detail can be added later with a brush.

Create a water landscape in the foreground. Use a mixture of lemon yellow, umbra and water for the sandy-colored areas. You can use various shades of blue for the surface of the water, mixing ice blue, a little white and water and adding a little umbra or dark green for the darker areas.

Add more details to the futuristic city landscape with a fine brush from the red sable brush set 333. Thin lines and dots in white suggest more windows. Black lines emphasise the contours of the buildings.

Indicate the shape of rocks in the foreground with dark green (mixture of yellow, blue and black).

Sprinkle some small dots to create a sandy look on the beach. Take your brush and paint the structures, highlights and shadows of the rocks. A bristle brush and various shades of green can be used to dab on bushes.

Spray a thin, straight line with white to give surface structure to the water. A hint of shadow from the rocks in the middle ground can be created by applying umbra to the water surface and on the land.

Use a fine brush and white to paint additional water effects and details.

Use the "Space Landscape" stencil to create quickly the right depth in the foreground; spray this dark, futuristic rock level in black.