The REAL Vector

[Juggs~AV]

There seems to be a trend these days to say a GFX piece with brushes in vector style are vector arts, but in reality they are not. Vector is the line drawing, but rarely do you see it termed properly. Anyway. This is a post from my favourite online magazine. It's a magazine all about gfx, fonts, css, web design etc etc.




There are heaps more in their post, I just thought I would share a few with you, amazing stuff really. These look so real, yet they are all vector art.




LINK TO POST AT SMASHING





Nuria Herrero
This artist currently resides in Spain. She has a portfolio filled mostly with cartoon style realism. Though she also works in Hyperreal style on occasion, as can be seen from the selection of her work below.

Catherine Preston
This artist is from the United Kingdom. She has a small selection of high quality vector portraiture. The top illustration is exemplary for her work. In the bottom illustration notice the choice of details in the image. Leaving out some of the texture in the iris of the eye gives a little bit of flatness to such a realistic image. Apparently, such kinds of artistic choices lead to stylistic effects.

Chris Nielsen
Chris is an illustrator from California, USA. He doesn’t use the Gradient Mesh tool. He prefers to create all that exquisite detail with a multitude of flat abstract vector shapes. He defines his style as “Stylized Realism.” In the motorcycle portraits below, he allows some unfilled vector lines to show through the design. They coexist with the shiny chrome details.







Tell me, what did you think??

[Wayne]

Wow, the motorcycle looks like a photograph! Amazing indeed.
So what does it mean that it is a vector art? I don't see "lines"..

[Juggs~AV]

From Wiki::


Vector is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics. Vector graphics formats are complementary to raster graphics, which is the representation of images as an array of pixels, as it is typically used for the representation of photographic images.[1] There are instances when working with vector tools and formats is best practice, and instances when working with raster tools and formats is best practice. There are times when both formats come together. An understanding of the advantages and limitations of each technology and the relationship between them is most likely to result in efficient and effective use of tools.

[Wayne]

Hm... so...
I can't really think of any other way to
make an image other than using "vector"

what other ways are there? would like a free flowing brush be another way?

[starly]

Originally Posted by wayne1210

Hm... so...
I can't really think of any other way to
make an image other than using "vector"

what other ways are there? would like a free flowing brush be another way?

if you know photoshop and illustrator...

(most) things made in illustrator are vector graphics
(most) things made in photoshop are not

[Juggs~AV]

well yeah, basically there are two types, bitmap, and vector. Bitmap is basically all photoshop stuff, you know tiny pixels make up a bigger picture/image. Bitmaps don't hold well in enlargement. Whereas vector images are like um moving parts (maybe - only way I can think of explaining it). They are not made up of pixels, yet display on the computer as pixels. They have a lot less colours (think company logos) and they are easily scalable. Vector images are commonly changed to bitmaps (like in PDFs - which is basically vectored then changed to bitmap).
Don't know if this makes much sense, but basically vectors are high quality, scalable and have less colours (although gradients make them look more colourful)

[Auto-Merged Double Post]
edit::

Originally Posted by starly

if you know photoshop and illustrator...

(most) things made in illustrator are vector graphics
(most) things made in photoshop are not

heehe. that was more simple than my explanation thanks Starly

[Razzgirl]

Vectors are math and rasters aren't which means that vectors can be enlarged easily by the computer program changing the formula.

Visually is the best way to describe it. Look at the difference.

Raster Circle:



Raster Circle Enlarged:



Vector Circle:



Vector Circle Enlarged:




Now, imagine you're a company, and you see that information. What are you gonna want your logo made with? Vectors of course so that it can be one size on a shirt, one size on a rug, one size on a webpage, and another size on a billboard. That's why vector artists make the big bucks.