Finally finished my second vector

[matt2000]

Some of you might remember an M5 vector image I did in March (if not, it's here)

Well I said I would have a go at a Land Rover vector, and finally, here it is:



It's not really a vector, but it was built up in PS using paths so it sorta is. Higher resolutions are available on request.

If you think you have too much space on your HDD, I can send you the 570Mb PSD file to eat some of it up.

Comments please.

Edit: Added mirrors now.

[jeffy777]

Very nice work

[Schwupz]

Nice work! Keep it up Whats next? Peugeot 205 GTI?

Chris

[Clockwerk]

Awesome looking vector!!! How time consuming is the process of vector drawing? Basically I'm asking, if I attempted to teach my self would it end in my suicide?

[fbc]

Great work - that would look brilliant on a t-shirt.

[Blayde]

^^ Defintely, i have this fatigues like pale green that would look awesome with that Defender

Nice work Matt

[matt2000]

Wow, thanks guys.

Putting it on a shirt hadn't even crossed my mind, maybe if I fixed some of the elliptical bits (I haven't found a way to make an elliptical path yet) I could have a look at prints.

Clockwerk: I can't say exactly how many hours I put into this vector, but I would say 6 or 7 evenings at least. I haven't done anything to it for the last couple of months though. Having patience helps (which I don't have, which is why I left it for so long) and you need some good music/radio/podcasts to listen to while you do it. Each drawing is different too, the M5 took a lot less time than this one because it was just black and blue.

Matt

[matt2000]

Well I found a simple way to made proper ellipses, so here is a new version that looks much nicer.

[LurkerPatrol]

Great job! You need to get illustrator though. It's 100000 times better for vectors than photoshop.

[kyoru]

good job, and yeah use illustrator it will be much easier haha

[matt2000]

Got it. Seems much better even from having a quick look at it.

The next vector planned will be this I think:



And 'Kiss it.'

[LurkerPatrol]

It's much better because you can stroke paths with just a click, and fill and twist them around as much as you want.

Most importantly you can arrange paths, so you can send them forwards and backwards to match the thing you're vectoring. I noticed that ellipse on the wheel was in front, and if you had made that in illustrator, with just a couple of keystrokes that could be sent behind.

Gradients are bit tricky to use, but they're great once you get the hang of it.

I hope you enjoy illu. Its teh awsum.

[matt2000]

Well I'm really hating Illustrator so far. You can't zoom with the scroll wheel, images are never imported at the right size, there's not button to apply the strokes and the fill, I can't add points and make a curve like I can in PS and the warp tool is rubbish and the area covered by it can't be changed.

Unless there are ways around these things I will be using PS again, because I can do everything you said Ill can do with layers and paths. I can't even do a back bumper on the 911 because I don't have a way of curving the path.

[LurkerPatrol]

Here's the stroke and fill:



I'm not sure how you are making curved paths, but I'll cover both ways of doing it.

The first way is to start with one point and then put the second point at some other place, and then converting that to a curve, like this:

Step 1: Place 2 points, one beginning and one at the relative area you want it to be.



Step 2: You should see at the very top, a place to convert the point from straight to curved, click that



You should end up with this after doing so:


That's one way of doing it. The better way of doing it is to make your first point, then make your second point and drag the mouse down (or up for a different kind of curve). This is what you should end up with:



I apologize, the mouse didn't get captured in the print screen, so I added in the mouse using the custom shapes tool in photoshop and placed it where the mouse should be.

If Illu didn't have such easy strokes and fill areas and didn't have curved paths, it wouldn't be so popular

I hope that helps you out. Let me and others know here or via pm if you get stuck. Good luck and happy vectoring.

[matt2000]

Thank you for that, that's more familiar to me now.

I'll have a play around with it tomorrow and see how it works. I was getting a bit frustrated with it.

Matt

[syncview]

nice man! loved your m5 vector and I like this aswell!

[matt2000]

Right, I still can't get on with Illustrator despite your help. I'm using CS2, which doesn't have an anchor point toolbar at all, so there is no way of switching between curves and corners. Along with that, I'm finding that when I try and curve a line, it never follows the right shape and there's always a 'bulge' in the line.

The way you showed is very similar to the way I work in PS, so I'll show you how I work to give you an idea of what I'm getting at.

Firstly I open the image in PS. For the sake of this I'm going to use the Porsche image, and I'll draw around the number plate section.

First, add a new layer for the first part of the number pate section.



I grab the pen tool and add a rough outline of the area I want to draw:



then grab the add anchor point tool, then click and drag the new anchors into shape (in the same way as you do in Illustrator, using the handles to make the curve.



Double click the work path so save it



Set the stroke colour (Foreground) and fill colour (Background)



Hit the stroke button to stroke the path



Now right click the path and fill to use the background colour. You can use the filled circle next to the one you just used if you want it filled the same colour as the stroke, or you're prepared to keep switching the colours.



And hey presto! first part done. Now hide that layer, add a new one and do the inner part.



So this is how I do my vectors. I find it much simpler really that using Illustrator. I doubt it's to everyone's taste though.



This was done by selecting the anchor points using the convert path tool (click anywhere on the path) and then using the add point tool to move them into the new place, without moving the top part of the path (no lining up paths needed).

[LurkerPatrol]

I guess you could continue using photoshop for now, so that at least your drawings get some headway and you're not stuck figuring out things in illustrator.

Right so, I've never used Illu versions other than CS3, so I can't tell you straight up what is missing and what isn't missing, but I'll try my best with what I've got.

I have a little dock at the top where all these things show up (stroke fill, and anchor points). If you have the same dock, then you may just be able to enable anchor points by doing this:



However there's a much easier way to get around this for doing anchor points. Take the pen tool and draw the 2 points, horizontally away from each other as before.

Now change to the convert point tool (Shift + C or hold down alt). Click on the second point and drag to make your curve.

If you want more path points, like how you did the curves on the license plate, then switch to the add anchor point tool ( + ) and add a point on the path.

To switch back to pen tool at any time its just (P). But I'm sure you knew that already.

Lemme know. I'm off to work so there aren't going to be any more screenshots but I'll still come by and check out your progress if you have any updates.

Btw I'm sure CS2 has all of this but it's just hidden away. If this is too much of a hassle, then you should probably download CS3 and use that. It has quite a few new features.