I haven't had access to Creative Suite for quite a few days, otherwise I would have done this awhile ago.
I decided to do my second original (based on the portrait by Cristiano Siqueira) of the character, Don Draper, from one of my favorite shows, Mad Men. His character is extremely clean-cut so I decided not to include as many loose, crazy lines. Additionally, I changed a few other things up including: I added more flat layers of value to the face instead of leaving half of it white, I completely filled in the background instead of leaving it white + random characters (wouldn't have fared really well in this situation as Don works in an ad agency and isn't a famous physicist), and while I kept the intensity of the eyes pretty much the same, I used a smaller brush to do the hair so as to make it seem a little bit more realistic. The entire thing is made up solely in Illustrator.
Here's my original:
1) Just like in the copy, I started out first by laying down all the flat layers of the different grayscale values. Just as a visual reference, I had Photoshop open in a separate window and after desaturating the original picture, I did the 8-layer cutout filter just to get a basic idea of what values should go where.
2) Next, I went over the top and added the detail with both the blob brush and a couple of brushes I created (a thin, oval one with pointed tips for the hair). Ignore the doodles.
3) Last, I created a background (his office building) using the pen tool and an assortment of gradient meshes.
While I'm still not 100% thrilled with the way it turned out, I definitely learned a lot from the process. As I've mentioned before, vector work is definitely my biggest weakness and working with it extensively gave me a lot of much needed practice and I will admit, I did have a little fun. :)
It certainly doesn't look like vector work is a weakness. It looks great. The biggest problem I have with this piece is the default look of the cut-out filter. Illustrator tends to leave some very characteristically filter like edges on the shapes out of cutout. You should go back in and redraw those value shapes to get rid of the weird twists and "punks". Assigning some colors to those values would help too. It may be easiest to do coloring in Photoshop. If access to software is an issue please remember that a lot of prep work can happen outside of the computer.
ReplyDeleteTurned out good.
ReplyDeleteSomething about the picture's value confuses me...I can't quite resolve it. The background values conflicts too much with the character I think. For example if I blur my vision and look at the picture, my eyes travel to the ONLY places with stark white(his collar and in the ceiling lights in the background)which cause me to completely avoid his face/head. Also that random black bar down the middle of the page is the same value as his hair and jacket, so it is not easy to separate the character from the background. (though I do enjoy your use of subtle simultaneous contrast. I wouldn't even know where to begin trying that in Illustrator.)
Btw did you intend to spell out the word "Raper" instead of Draper?
ReplyDeleteThank you guys! Now that I look at it, I agree, that stark white is extremely distracting. I'm going to go back and make the changes to the value shape edges and then find a solution to the value problem and repost it when I get a chance. Hopefully adding some subtle colors will make it a little more interesting as well.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I didn't intend to at first, but then when I did the clipping mask and I noticed it said "Raper" I just decided to leave it. I wasn't sure if anyone would pick up on it or not!