Saturday, April 17, 2010

Sundress - Vector Art 1

I am revisiting this figure from two days ago. After looking at the initial sketch, I thought this would have potential for a CILM pin-up.

Top left: First thing I did was fix what I didn't like about the original sketch. I sketched her in my sketchbook, tightening up the lines and details like her hands and shoes. After scanning her I realized her head was still too big In Photoshop I selected her head and reduced it. The white area around her head shows just how much I reduced it. I think it is 92% of what it had been.

Top Right: I placed the corrected file in Adobe Illustrator. Using the pencil scan as my guide I digitally inked the figure on a separate layer. Using some custom vector brushes and the pen tool I complete the line art.



Bottom left: This shows the digital inks without the distraction of the pencil sketch layer. At this point I expand the line work. This changes the lines into shapes that I can resize, tweak and erase. Look at her jaw line and you can see how the shape extends into her hair. That is an area I erased as part of the clean up. When I am happy with this stage, I selected the whole thing and turned it into a Live Paint object.

Bottom right: Live Paint allows me to fill closed areas with a paint bucket rather quickly. Remember when I made the line art into shapes? I can now use the paint bucket tool to add color to the black shapes making up her outlines. Once I have the base colors done, I will start playing with light and shadow. I can still change any color combination at anytime. I'm not locked into anything at all.

More to come.

Note: As I was typing the last paragraph I had a moment of deja vu. For some reason I think I might have done one of these vector art progress posts. I imagine it's possible to repeat myself after so many posts. I hope not, but if I did, no harm. I'm sure if someone goes back and looks for it and finds it, it's probably different enough from this one. Okay, I need to get back to work.

This is Post #913

3 comments:

LUD! said...

Wow! It's been awhile since I've posted here, Gene! I like the new look of the blog!

Anyway, it's always great to see how someone puts a piece together, especially in this new land we call digital, where you can do something at least 16 different ways! I use Illustrator all the time and I've never used Live Paint-- I'll have to give it a try...

Gary M. Peiffer said...

Gene,

I don't care if you post this type of process steps a hundred times, I always get something out of it.

Explain to me why you went from Photoshop and then continued in Adobe Illustrator? I suspect you could have finished the piece in PS, but something about Adobe Illustrator caused you to use it for that part of the process? Wonder if we will see Manga Studio a little later on :-).

Gary

Royce Thrower said...

Thanks Gene for peeling back the curtain for us yet again. As Gary said, do NOT worry about repeating information in posts. As a teacher, I understand the NEED for repetition lol. The whole idea behind the blog is to share with us what you are doing on a daily basis... traditional art, digital retouches, the set up of your studio/work habits, even including such posts as painting murals in your den, doing some landscaping around the house, etc. It really is neat that we get to feel like we dropped by your house for a quick visit even if only to just say hello. Now if you can only find a way to offer us up a glass of iced tea as we sit and "visit" for a while.