This one came from a viewer request: do the outline first, then lay the fill over it with a needle cap so the fill drips over the outline, instead of the usual order. I went in expecting it to possibly be my worst video yet, but the idea was worth testing on camera. Simple block letters, taken slow. Here's the technique, where it comes from, and how it actually turned out.
The Order Most People Use
Normally you fill first and outline last, so the outline sits clean on top of the fill. The request here flips that: outline first, then fill over it. On its face that sounds backward, but there's a real reason it exists, and it goes back to painting bare walls in the 90s.
Where This Came From: Bare Walls and Osh Silver
Back in the 90s we'd often find bare walls to paint, and there was a silver called from Osh that was incredibly clean. When you bomb a bare wall with silver, the silver eats the black; fill over an existing black outline and the silver would lift and muddy it. The fix for me was to reverse the order: lay the black outline down first, then cut in the fill over the outline. Done that way the outline stayed a nice solid black instead of getting eaten by the silver. So outline-first wasn't a style choice; it was a workaround for how those paints interacted on a raw surface.
The Problem With Doing It With a Needle Cap
Applying that same outline-first order with a needle cap introduces a different issue: overspray. A needle cap throws a lot of it, so filling over a finished outline risks dusting and softening the lines you already laid down. The adjustment for this run was a thicker outline to give the lines something to survive the overspray. Whether that's enough is the open question the video is actually testing.
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Full Transcript
Okay, I'm prepared for this to be my worst video yet, but I'm going to try to make it happen. The request was Astro, using the Astro fill with the needle cap outline, but doing the outline first so the needle cap fill drips over the outline. So I'm going to do kind of block letters. I don't do these that much, so I'm going to go slow so they're not completely terrible.
I used to do this in the 90s because we'd often find bare walls, and there was an Ash silver. If you remember Ash, it was so clean you could do your outline first and then cut in with the silver. When you bomb bare walls with silver, the silver eats the black. So I'd do the outline first and then the fill over the outline, and it would be a nice solid black without getting eaten.
The problem with the needle cap is there's going to be so much overspray. So I'm going to do a thicker outline and see if I can pull this off. They're going to look bad, or it's going to look cool. But I'm intrigued.
They're not the best letters ever, but. This is where I'm wondering how to fill it without completely overspraying the outline.
Yeah, I don't know. I like it.
