So this is like one of the Symbols of our City and I always wanted to print this guy´s face on a shirt.
Since I only have a cheap vinyl cutter, I was trying to create the most simplest black&white clipart from pictures of the sculpture I took from different angles with my camera, to catch his mischievous smile and face expression right. But my hand drawing skills are just not good enough to transpose it, so I tried to higher the contrast in PS, then image trace as good as possible in illustrator and in the end get rid of most of the unnecessary details.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
I´ve tried like most of the tutorials I could find, but as you can see, my results are still not good enough
All I can suggest is learn to draw. I know that’s not very helpful, but a really good way to start is to pick up the book Drawing on the Right side of the Brain and work your way through it front to back, no skipping.
Unfortunately, by your own admission, this is the road block, one which is for you to remedy. Photoshop is a mere hammer. It still needs you to hold it and hit the nail squarely on the head.
You don’t have to be a great artist. A working knowledge of drawing will help you to appreciate Photoshop for what it is.
I hate to say it, but PrintDriver is right. When drawing skills are needed, there’s no substitute for not having them. You might want to considering hiring out the illustration.
This photo doesn’t have enough contrast to create a clean Illustrator autotrace. To make this work you’re going to have to stylize the image. Simplify the lines and draw in parts that are not shown in the autotraced vector. There is no quick way around this.
If you cannot do it yourself, reach out to illustrators for a quote.
I would print the photo, then trace it on a piece of paper using a lightbox, and then work that drawing using traditional pencil and eraser. When that looks decent, ink it, then scan into Illustrator and autotrace.
or place the 2"x2" image on rubylith, cut out the white parts of the face, and place that on a flashlight and shine that on passerby people’s t-shirts!
success!
oh, 6 feet away!
