First Vector Drawing

[angerisagift]

hi this is my first vector drawing.
im really sorry that i linked it, but it was frustrating me trying to get it to upload, and i just wanted to get the darn thing on here.

http://www.geocities.com/naesbowes/bass.html

any comments about the picture are welcome

and if you have any tips & tricks on uploading these darn pictures ill take those too hehe.

-sean

[danedawg99]

here's your vectorized version:
http://www.geocities.com/naesbowes/IbanezGSR200.gif

It's a pretty fair reproduction. Try to change it a little more, inject some style into it, is all I can say.

Keep it up! ;)

[angerisagift]

alrighty thanks. i can always find answers here its great. and thanks for the positive feedback

-sean

[morea]

nice work! What program did you use?

The shape and detail are quite good. I would just try to work on the highlights and shading.

[angerisagift]

thanks.
illustrator cs2. really let me practice with the pen tool and (with help from cjoe and others) figure out the gradients and such.
i still have some work to do with highlights, reflections, and other fine details, but i was getting impatient and just wanted to post it hehe.

-sean

[Skyler]

Could you upload a close detail of the frets/inlays and explain how you got that look to 'work'? I really want to see what you did there--I would have expected the inlays to look 'dead' instead of the way you've done them accurately. Great job!

[Mynock]

Illy CS2, hmmmm. As long as you didn't use the LiveTrace feature you're ok. If you did and don't admit it shame on you :P

[GreenThumb]

What Mynock said :P

Good job, though!

[angerisagift]

thanks a lot guys.
no, i didnt use the live trace tool. i used the live human with the pen tool tool.
as for the frets and inlays, i just used the line tool for the frets and the ellipse tool for the inlays. theyre very simple, and i guess simpler is better in some cases. i wasnt really sure what i was doing, so i put them in and then zoomed out a little and it looked good so i left it. i used the good old eyedropper to get the color, and was surprised to se that it is beige looking rather than a color usually associated with metal (gray, silver, etc) but as my Art 1 teacher told me in 9th grade "draw what you see, not what you know."
ill get that close up up soon, but its really just a simple circle and a simple line.

[Mynock]

draw what you see, not what you knowExcellent advice check out Monet's haystacks.

[cjoe]

Your skills are looking sharp mate. Now what to do?... rasterize it in photoshop and apply some filters to the body of the bass, try and get a real nice sheen going.

[Skyler]

thanks a lot guys.
no, i didnt use the live trace tool. i used the live human with the pen tool tool.
as for the frets and inlays, i just used the line tool for the frets and the ellipse tool for the inlays. theyre very simple, and i guess simpler is better in some cases. i wasnt really sure what i was doing, so i put them in and then zoomed out a little and it looked good so i left it. i used the good old eyedropper to get the color, and was surprised to se that it is beige looking rather than a color usually associated with metal (gray, silver, etc) but as my Art 1 teacher told me in 9th grade "draw what you see, not what you know."
ill get that close up up soon, but its really just a simple circle and a simple line.

Beige huh? Man, I'd really like to see a close up. I'm just really starting to work with gradients (I come from a newspaper layout background, not illustration, so alot of this stuff is new to me) just like you and your other thread inspired me to play with them more. I'm going to see if I can't work on something cool this weekend.

[Jason Fraker]

Great work! I'm embarrassed to show my first vector piece. Actually, I'd be somewhat ashamed to show some of my recent vector work! I'm a rasterbator, always have been.

Fantastic detail, and your 9th grade art teacher was right on the money. Must be a student of Betty Edward's "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".

[angerisagift]

thanks a lot guys. im pretty proud of it it took me a long time but it was fun and i learned a lot. yeah its beige its kinda wierd, but its a perfect example of my art teachers advice..

heres the close-up
http://img496.imageshack.us/my.php?image=closerup3gm.gif

you will see that the fretboard is just a one color shape, the frets are just simple line tool lines (the strings too) and the inlays are just the elipse tool. i used the eyedropper and picked a color that i thought was closest to the overall color and just used that. i used gradients for the tuners and that contour on the bottom left of the body, and once i figured it out it was pretty easy. that gradient tool (to determine the direction, start, and stop points is kindof a pain tho..oh well)

-sean

[angerisagift]

mynock- monet's haystacks (and all impressionist work) is a great example of that advice. they definately do not say 'i know there are 50bazillion pieces of hay in that stack, so i will draw out each of them in that golden hay color that hay is'. its all dots and multiple colors and all that. reds blues greens yellows everything, its so cool how they do that. thats another thing my teacher told me, was that when u find yourself painting or colored penciling something and only using one generic color to ask 'what if i add <insert random color here> and try it out and see what it does because there could be red in a blue wall or green in a basketball or whatever.' good stuff. even tho it totally goes against my technique of making the frets, its still good advice. hehe. My favorite thing is 'everything looks better when you stand across the room and squint your eyes'....its like a natural blur tool that fixes all your imperfections and teeny tiny white spots.

-sean

[JB]

Speaking of Monet's haystacks, I found this awesome short story...just a suggestion...it's way better if you read it outloud in an Irish accent.

http://www.modernmirth.com/04nov/monet.html

[YNOT]

That's pretty cool man. Looks really good. I love the look of guitars...I'm gonna have to draw one one of these days.

Keep it up man! And add some cool flames or some kind of cool design on that bad boy. ;-)

[cjoe]

i have a question: did you use a mesh for those fiddly bits?

[Skyler]

Thank you for the detail. I guess in this case it really is a matter of color and perspective. From 'a distance' the fret inlays *look* like there is a graident on them. :)

[angerisagift]

fiddly bits? probly not because i dont know what those are or their purpose...hehe
its all pen tool action with solid or gradient fills, or shapes, or lines.

yeah...eyes are tricky things...if i wanted to make it really big i would have to go in and add detail or it would look too plain, but at a distance it looks fine...wierd stuff..

gnihtemos ro ngised a yrt ll'i ,ti htiw nissem llits m'i (-: ynot sknaht

-sean

[cjoe]

by fiddly bits i mean where your shading and highlights are done. Investigate the mesh tool. Its extremely useful in that type of work.

[cjoe]

observe: this is a single shape created with the pen toll, but the mesh tool gives you great control over the fill of the object. However its a hard tool to master. As you can see; i tried to recreate your guitar body, then got frustrated and made it into somthing else.

[angerisagift]

ooh ok. ill have to check that out, it looks like it could be very useful if you can get the hang of it

-sean

[gr7ap2hi0cs]

Good job! I think the gradients could be smoother, try using your gradient mesh tool to do the gradient on the bottom left corner. You can get it to look very real. I'd also add some more detail to those those silver circles other then that looks great! Makes me want to play

[gr7ap2hi0cs]

opps sorry i didn't see the last 2 pages of replies (my bad)