hey i am doing my first open mouth bird. It is a wood duck and i am not sure how to paint the inside of the mouth. One color or it it a couple different colors. Also how do u guys paint your beaks. I always have airbrushed them but my buddy told me he uses oil based paints and it gives him a sharper line, i tried it and like it but i would like to fade the red out a little bit more and it leaves paint lines in it also, what do u guys do?
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For competition, depending on the head, I use both acrylics with a paintbrush and the airbrush with polytranspar water-based. Take a pintail for example, I blend the blue/grey with the airbrush to get the color right (its not one solid color). Then, I take a paintbrush with black acrylic and paint the black. I can get sharper lines with the brush. Now for commercial work, I usually use just the airbrush.
what about the inside?
Usually a flesh color is all that's needed inside a duck's mouth...but you need to look at reference. If you still have the ducks origianl bill frozen, look at it to get an idea of what colors to use. If my memory serves me correctly, woodies have a black marking inside the mouth...but again, I don't have reference with me.