Airbrush Step by Step (english) Magazine

25 June 2020

What a crazy time... From one day to the next everything was different – worldwide. Travel ban, contact ban, shops and restaurants closed, schools closed. And the airbrush industry? Airbrush dealers, who run their business mainly online, were lucky – with them everything remained largely the same. For professional artists, exhibitions and certain jobs were cancelled – especially body painting jobs were dropped. All those who live mainly from airbrush workshops were also heavily effected. For hobby artists there were positive and also negative side effects: Some of them certainly had more time to enjoy their hobby. But some of them might have had to give up buying new materials due to loss of income. Many manufacturers and suppliers of airbrush accessories were also only able to carry out their work to a limited extent: In China and Italy factories were temporarily closed, in Germany work was done in two shifts. We in the Airbrush Step by Step editorial department only work in a mini-team anyway. In home office, working on this magazine alternated with our daughter's math lessons. International shipping is currently the worst for us: Bookstores in the US have been denying to receive overseas magazines, postal shipping is still restricted in many countries which makes it difficult to get our magazine to our partner retailers and subscribers worldwide. Another personal restriction: Actually, we wanted to travel from Germany to Florida in April to meet some artists and retailers… Well, we have to postpone that until next year... Fortunately, the Taiwanese airbrush manufacturer Sparmax managed, despite the corona crisis, to hold its International Airbrush Contest again this year with participants from 26 countries. And our Step by Step authors from Germany, Spain, Poland, the US and Australia were also able to complete their works and contributions in time and finally bring us to more positive topics and thoughts: The Polish Elzbieta Osinska created our gentle and harmonious cover motif and the Australian Paul MacDonald painted the cool, impressive world of glaciers. Spanish artist José Luis Parada Caballero is bringing a Rainbow Boa to life and Timothy John-Luke Smith from the US uses the airbrush and ink mixtures to create a quiet, tender portrait. Continuing the topic of 3D printing from the last issue, Thomas Kunert from Germany is showing you how to paint a 3D printed Ironman model. In the middle of April, a sad and shocking message was received by the airbrush community: The famous American airbrush artist and father of "TrueFire" Mike Lavallee passed away on April 14th as a result of a stroke. Together with Mike's friends and artist colleagues Alan Pastrana and Gerald Mendez, the ASBS team is sharing some memories. We sincerely hope that by the time you hold this issue in your hands, the worldwide crisis situation will have eased furthermore (this editorial was written on May 15). Stay healthy, hang in there, we wish you all the best and hopefully some entertaining relief with this issue. Greetings from the ASBS Team