Vyoma

It can be quite a lot of work actually. When deadlines are involved. There was this instance when I entered for a competition at a forum. Man! It was really a sleep killer as the D-Day came close.I too do not have any certificates. Wish I could have had some formal training in arts.

Well as of now, it is purely a hobby. I am an IT professional, and my day job involves me in coding, support of few systems, and managing a team. But after that, after few drinks of coffee with some of my buddies, I come home and work on these things. I have been dabbling with traditional artwork for some time, and did get involved in computer graphics, in terms of 3d design and raster graphics (GIMP! Yay!). Lately though, I have almost become an addict of Vector Art, and have been augumenting it with my blog, Splat.Given a choice and if I reach a financial state where money is not a question, then I think I would be glad to move into the career path of an illustrator or game/graphic designer.

Thanks Chesso. I am now doing some research with Google to find out write ups on doing vector art hair. I need to find a right way to do it. I have seen many people do excellent works but do not yet know how.

Oookay. Here is another update. I worked on her cloth for about an hour.

 

 

This is how much I can vizualize her shirt/top. I know - it is not that good compared to the other parts but for now I seem to have hit the ceiling of my skills. I cannot stretch it anymore. Hopefully it will improve as I work on other artworks.

Thanks leafbunk for your comments. And thanks to your suggestions too.

 

I did try a bit of texturing in the beginning but then it lost all focus and became to distractive. I do not know if texturing it was a bad idea or I do not have enough skills to get it right. In the end, I decided on having a clean picture than a distractive one at the expense of some experimentation experience I would have gained.

 

So, this is how it ended up. And about the 'interruption' - well, now that it has been published along with the article, you can all see it at the blog post article.

 

Inkspace is not strictly an inking program. You could ofcourse use it to ink out sketches that you can just scan and place it in a layer under your canvas and use it as a tracing tool to ink out the sketch. But it is more.

Inkscape is a vector graphics program, that is similar to Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator and Freehand. It though is an open source vector graphics editor (available at https://inkscape.org/en/) unlike the others.

Before some one asks, what is vector graphics - vector graphics unlike raster graphics are not composed of pixels. They are composed of points, lines, bezier curves, polygons and the like. (I have written on related topic at my blog - Vector Art). It can be zoomed and rotated to any degree (atleast theoretically) and still not loose its crispness and neatness.

And with respect to the above works - I was inspired by the works of Kevin Cornel. He does great illustrations for the articles at A List Apart.

Now, this is quite an interesting proposition. I would be really interested. But I do not think I can hire myself out as a coder as that is my day job and I am under contractual agreement with them.But I sure can work on graphic design - like icon design, menu design, layout design and other elements that are required.

Boy... am I getting addicted to this or what?

 

Like my earlier work, these two illustrations I created in Inkscape for the coming blog posts at my blog.

 

This is for a blog post on the Orphan Work Act of 2006 blog post, that I will be able to post by next week.

 

This one is for a series of design articles that I intend to write about.

 

I am not sure if I should say this, but are we not all - not already a part of an association? That is the Xisto community itself.I mean - any problem I face, I just come over here and pose a question at the appropriate forums. With its large user base, one is bound to solve my problem, and if no body replies - then that is it - this large group of people do not know a solution in the approach I tried. I try a new approach.Am I missing some thing here in grasping some subtle points? I mean, I am all ok for an association like this, but as I said, are we not part of one arleady? Why do we need another?

Well, thanks joe.k. Thanks for the encouraging words. And as for the Designing competition is concerned, I think it is something the admins would decide.

I cannot be of much help in this regard. If you want a blog, the only one I have tried my hands at is WordPress. Pretty good. I have two blogs running on this engine and it has not given me a problem to date.

 

But if it is a full fledged website that you are looking at, then I would suggest Drupal. Check out the features at https://www.drupal.org/

Ofcourse, some (few from Xisto forum) find the node system of Drupal difficult and they find it hard to implement a feature - but if you ask me, I am pretty impressed with stuff it can do and I have been using it for running my website.

 

If you do not want to go for Drupal (which incidentally can be setup as a blog), then you can go for other CMS like Mamboo, Joomla and others. I am sure if you want to know more about this, other Xisto members would be glad to give their views.

 

As far as blog engine goes, it is Wordpress for me.

Actually, the only thing that is a bit weird is the "hand" holding the larva - the angle somehow doesn't seem right - but it's just me

Yes, I did have a bit of trouble with it. May be I should have studied a bit more of reference pictures.

:makes note to self to study more reference pictures:

Actually, I was in a bit of hurry. The blog post is scheduled to get published in two more days. I was a bit tentative that the following days I would be busy with my day job - so I did it a bit hurriedly.

Thanks for the comments pyost.

PS: pyost - not seen you around in DA for quite a while. By the way, I have put up a bit larger version there.

Well, here is another one of vector art that I created. It took roughly 2 hours from concept to final stage in Inkscape.

 

My friend who is in the team of authors for my blog has written an extensive write-up on a nature related topic that dealt with parasatic blue butterflies (their larvae), ants and wasps. I was pretty impressed by the write up and thought I should make a image to accompany with it. So, I started doodling with stuff and got the concept. Then I fired up the Inkscape and this is what I have:

 

 

I attempted an caricature-cartoon like feel and also wanted it to look like someone had interrupted the ant in whatever it was doing.

 

Comment and critique please. Though I would not be changing anything in this image, comments and feedback would help me improve my skills.

 

Total Effort: 2 hrs

Software: Inkscape

It terms of blurring the high-resolution train model - here is something you could try out:First scale the train model to 70 % or even 65% (you may need to tweak with it a bit). Let us say you scaled it down by x%. After that again scale it up by (100-x)%. By doing this, you are loosing some detail (x% amount of detail actually), and there by should reduce the resolution of the train.After that compose the train and the track and apply a very light Gaussian blur. Try it out and let us know.

Hmmm. I thought of leaving the eyebrows just like they are now. But after your comments, I might add a little more detail to it after all - I will do it in the final stage when I will adding tiny details.The lips are done. I do not know if I can cram in any more details there.You see, this is my 4th vector art. I still have a long way to improve my skills in Inkscape as well as vector art. This piece of work is really helping me learn few tricks here and there.Next, I think I will work on her top. It is said that the vectoring of hair is a bit hard and requires a bit of advanced visualization skills. And the vectoring of clothes is the next hardest. So, I will work on her shirt/top first. That should get me on track. Then I will go for the daunting task of detailing her hair. (May be once I do the hair, I can do the eyebrows better).About a month and a half to go for her birthday - I think I have just enough time to complete this work by then.

OK. Here is another update. About an hour and a half of work on her eyebrows, teeth and lips.

 

 

Total Effort: 6.5 hrs

Software: Inkscape

Here is my system spec:Inter ® Pentium ® 4 CPU 1500 MHz256 MB RAMOn board graphics card (I am not sure about the VRAM)80 GB + 20 GB Hard Disk <-- (The 20 GB is an ancient one that I still keep)15" SAMTRON color montiorYup. That is about it. Pretty antique kind of specs - I know.(May be I can sell the artworks I do or work on artworks for commission and buy new PC out of it. )

Thanks Chesso. :)There are so many polygons in there that my old PC is starting to crawl a bit. I hope it holds on a bit longer until I finish this piece.

OK. Here is one update:

 

 

Major work on the flesh tones is done. Next, I will be working on the eyebrows and mouth.

 

Total effort: 5 hrs

Software: Inkscape

I think it would scare me too. I mean what has big eyes, small mouth and no nose?

 

Here is a quick and dirty sketch up in MSPaint:

 

Oh I see, it's just that I see that blotchyness alot due to image compression on a lossy level for because of reduction in or stretching in size and what not.

 

I never thought of an image starting out that way lol but I understand why now.

 

Chesso - no problem. I am glad that I could clarify.

 

 

The eyes and teeth you drew are a bit too big, I don't know if she really looks like that, but I don't find it feminin, you should check the proportios of the picture before including more details.

 

I too had doubts that I drew the eyes and mouth (with teeth) a little big than it is. To verify, I overlayed the photo I used for reference on the image I drew with a bit of low transperency. It matched, and it looked like the proportions were correct.

 

It all lies in the use of light and dark tones to emphasise the curves. I have not yet reached that point yet, and I hope I catch those cruves and creases properly to accent the feminine feature. Thanks for pointing it out though.

 

... if anything i'd say the nose is too big but some people have big noses so meh.

 

She does have a chubby nose - but yeah. I need to flesh out the cheeks a bit more.

 

And even now - the teeth looks a bit big now. I studied the photo a bit in detail and here is what I found out. Brighter colours make the objects look bigger than they are. When I add shading, and tone it down a bit they will look in proportion.

 

...

It's not like there animish .

 

Ha! Yeah. Anime does have the effect on how we expect the images of women to be - big eyes, small mouth. (Most of the times, no nose).

 

Here I was trying to draw a vector art that was close to reality.

The blotching look would come, Chesso, since I am still working on it. It still have just basic flat colors applied.

 

To illustrate the point, look at her left eye and right eye. Her right eye (left one on the image) is less blotchy looking and more crisp for one reason - it has more details. Her left eye (right one on the image) is very blotchy and flat. I have not yet put in the details.

 

Here are some screen shots from Inkscape of the left and right eye.

 

Her left eye (less detail):

 

Her right eye (more detail):

 

 

Similarly, her left cheek looks blotchy:

 

And her right cheek and nose looks smooth and shaded:

 

Get it? So, it is not because of the compression or something. It just has that much details - I am yet to begin fleshing it out. As indicated it is till in the WIP phase.

Here is a work in progress I would like to share it with Astahosters.

 

Lately, a friend of mine joined my blogging team at Splat. She had been of great help even before when I was working on my website WiseTome.com though she just joined Splat. To show my appreciation, I thought I would gift her an artwork. And with this, I hope to improve my skills too.

 

So, here goes.

 

 

It is still a work in progress.

 

I used her photograph as a reference and worked on it from scratch in Inkscape. The basic outline with flat colors is done, and I have just started to work on the details.

 

I hope to complete it as early as possible, but every now and then, I would post updates here. Nothing much would change other than the shading detail I would be adding. Right now, little work has been done on the highlights - work still remains on the highlights. After that, I would need to work on the shadows.

 

For those who know vector art, I would like to state that to this point, I have not used any gradients. I have only used bezier paths and polygons with flat color fills. I might use few gradients to give additional depth at the end of it. But as far as possible, I am trying to get this artwork done with flat colors.

 

Effort Spent: 3.5 hrs

Software: InkScape

WinRAR!

 

I do not use WinZip anymore. Long back I used it, but the latest setup of my PC does not even have a version of it installed. I got hold of WinRAR and am sticking to it.

 

Anyways, thanks for the update saint-michael. Any software, we need to be aware of the security breaches and need to update it with the patches made available as often as possible.

I am not sure how I could animate it with the tools available to me. I mean, I totally work with opensource softwares, and for this particular piece as I said earlier, I used Inkscape. I am not sure how I could animate it with Inkscape, and I am not even sure if Inkscape has the capability.

 

But even if I did have the tool, I am not sure if I would be able to do it. Technique and theory wise I do know how to do it, but the methods I know, takes a lot of time and that is something I lack. Doing these works as a hobby (as I have a day job to put the bread on the table), I am not sure I will be able to afford enough time on this. Animation as a venture though, does tickle my thoughts.

 

Thanks for the comments, kgd2006.

 

I am working on another piece, that I will put up here (as soon as my crappy net connection is corrected by the ISP). It is no where close to finish, but I would put updates here.

 

Photo realasitc imaging - that is a different medium altogether. I did try it out a few time, but I am not good at it.

 

So, I stick to what I can do and try to improve it.