[opticillusion]

I thought I'd start a project to do a painting on glass. I've read the most original way is oil on glass. I can't use oils cause of the dry time and availability, but I can use acrylics.

So I'm wondering, what's the trick? I tried smudging the paint around, but holding it up I could easily see the different thicknesses of the paint applied. So, do I just need to layer and layer and layer till the thing looks like it's totally opaque? Also, I'm trying out a real airbrush as well, for the sky. Having trouble with that too, (not enough paint, too much water) kind of thing. Is it really pointless if I don't have oils? Or should I get off my arse and take a painting class?

So any tips on the matter would be greatly appreciated

[spooge demon]

Stop before you hurt yourself!

The reason matte shots were done on glass is to allow a rear projection of the plate for the compositing. There is no other advantage to it (and a lot of disadvantages). Another optical (i.e. before digital) process was front projection, and those were painted on anything.

If you really want to do this, my suggestion would be to get some auto primer, any color, and spray it on the glass first. Primer is a great surface to paint on and you can spray it on anything to make a good ground. It has a nice fine tooth. In glass matte shots, the plate area was then carefully scraped clean with a razor blade.

I was around at the transition of traditional to digital, so my memory and experience with it is a bit fuzzy. There are a lot of descriptions of it around, if you want to look.

[opticillusion]

Heh heh!

Sounds good Spooge. I'll definatley look into some auto primer.
I'm thinking of doing a night scene perhaps, in which I would scrape the stars in and put the light behind it. Another idea is doing a background, and create a character, or foreground element on another pane like cells.

It's experiamental more than anything I spose. But at least I have some hope now in using the spray

Where are you working now by the way? You worked on Final Fantasy for a bit, if I can remember right. Anyway, thanks for the reply