Stunning looking car mate. Sadly reminds me of my last car. The wheels look outstanding. What finish is it on the wheels? Is it smoked chrome? Mine were anthracite, which looked good but nowhere near as nice as yours.....well done mate
thinking of some changes
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Thanks Mac, I remember your car, had a votex kit on it. Considered buying it at one stage if I remember correctly. The finish is shadow chrome, it's the standard finish for e39 BMW M5 alloys, they were doing a set when I visited and it was seeing them that persuaded me to do it. I'm really pleased with the results.
Joss- I'm sure I've seen that golf on a tshirt design? They look great mate, very impressive. If you do get a chance try illustrator. It would be perfect for that kind of design, simple areas of colour. The benefit being each point on a curve can be edited anytime, it's easy to play around with colour combinations and it can be scaled to any size with no loss of quality. So if someone wants it one the side of a truck, the quality will be the same as the original because it's not pixel based.
Your design looks great though, will have a try doing similar in PS myself sometime.
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jam, i dont think hes drawn the photo from scratch, more taken a photo and used photoshop to make it look like its been drawn.
Illustrator is more a vector based design package that you'd use to draw the thing in the first place? Not sure if illustrator would allow you to build a vector image ontop of a photograph using edge detection or something?
Illustrator is more a vector based design package that you'd use to draw the thing in the first place? Not sure if illustrator would allow you to build a vector image ontop of a photograph using edge detection or something?
yep used a photo and went over the top of it in layers.
god i'd be a freekin genius if i did them from scratch.
You can get the same effect in illustrator but you would place the image on one layer and then on a layer above trace over it using the pen tool and multiple points, adjusting each curve to suit etc etc. The image would then eventually be made up of hundreds of vector points and shapes.
The drawback of illustrator would be that you have to trace each piece rather than simply lasso it as you would in PS. But that then can cause problems if similar areas of colour merge. All depends on the preference settings you have.
But then the benefit of illustrator would be that it's vector based therefore can be scaleed to any size with no loss of quality. Also all edges will be pin sharp. PS will be limited by the size of the original image.
Each program has it's benefits and drawbacks all depends what you want to achieve. I flick between the two all day at work and often combine jobs in both.
Either way the sig and tshirt designs look great!!
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Ah cool didnt realise you could import a photo into illustrator like that. Would be impressive if it had some function where it could detect the 'edge' automatically and trace it out for you though!
Also, i'm Kevin if you want to use real names :icon_thumright:
Also, i'm Kevin if you want to use real names :icon_thumright:
Hi Kevin, pleased to meet you!
The latest version of illustrator, not CS2 suite has a similar function called Live Trace which can convert an image in to a vector with a selected number of colours or tones. Pretty useful but as will all design packages it's trial and error and still takes some skill from the user to make things look perfect. There is never a magic button that just designs. Though sometimes I wish there was.
Not quite the same as the PS lasso tool but each has it's benefits and drawbacks.
The pic below took 30secs to fo in illustrator, not quite same as the style that started this convo but will give u an idea of what cs2 can do. Again if tweaked and time spent it coould look so much better. It's vector so scalable too.
The latest version of illustrator, not CS2 suite has a similar function called Live Trace which can convert an image in to a vector with a selected number of colours or tones. Pretty useful but as will all design packages it's trial and error and still takes some skill from the user to make things look perfect. There is never a magic button that just designs. Though sometimes I wish there was.
Not quite the same as the PS lasso tool but each has it's benefits and drawbacks.
The pic below took 30secs to fo in illustrator, not quite same as the style that started this convo but will give u an idea of what cs2 can do. Again if tweaked and time spent it coould look so much better. It's vector so scalable too.
yeah similar effect, but the benefit is it's vector so scalable with no loss of quality. One of a number of styles the new CS2 illustrator can do, but was the quickest to render hence why I used it.
I love the style of your images, may take a little bit of practice and maybe a little longer but worth trying a similar style in illustrator. Either way, great sig and illustrations, very impressed.
I love the style of your images, may take a little bit of practice and maybe a little longer but worth trying a similar style in illustrator. Either way, great sig and illustrations, very impressed.
gonna look into getting illustrator and give it a go.
sold the t-shirts at a few vw shows a couple of years ago..bug jam and vwaction and some more was a good laugh and i loved doing it but needed a steady job so fecked it off.
sold the t-shirts at a few vw shows a couple of years ago..bug jam and vwaction and some more was a good laugh and i loved doing it but needed a steady job so fecked it off.
Yeah it's not the easiest program to master, taken me over ten years to get really really good in it, and even then I'm still learning in it each day.
PenTool, how to adapt curves and pathfinder are early essentials to learn. If you have any major issues give me a shout but I do find the online tutorials pretty good, still use them every so often myself.
You can of course take illustrator files in to PS, for example do an outline in illustrator, copy or import it into PS for fancy effects.
Am sure with a few hours of practice you'll be a bit more confident, alot of it is similar to photoshop and it's obvious you're good in that so keep at it!
PenTool, how to adapt curves and pathfinder are early essentials to learn. If you have any major issues give me a shout but I do find the online tutorials pretty good, still use them every so often myself.
You can of course take illustrator files in to PS, for example do an outline in illustrator, copy or import it into PS for fancy effects.
Am sure with a few hours of practice you'll be a bit more confident, alot of it is similar to photoshop and it's obvious you're good in that so keep at it!
yeah learning to use the pen tool now, got the curves down and doing outlines,filling and such but some of it's just daft, when i have an outline and i use the erazer it puts an outline around the erazer tab where i just rubbed out...!?!?
might be the way it's set up but thats plain crazy
looks like my week off will be fun
might be the way it's set up but thats plain crazy
looks like my week off will be fun
i don't think i've ever used the eraser tool! it's rubbish.
delete individual points when they are highlighted or use pathfinder tool to chop areas out.
Eg, draw a rectangle, then a circle partly overlapping. Select both and then click on the second icon in pathfinder palette. Then press expand. That will take a circular chunk out of the rectangle leaving a new shape.
Use the first icon in palette (THEN PRESS EXPAND) to Join two shapes together. I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs here but have a play with the pathfinder palette using over lapping shapes, each icon creates a new shape using the first two in a different way. Dead useful
For example draw a nice swoopy car type shape, draw two circles, use pathfinder tool, then you have side of car with wheel arches. Hope you get my point, obviously you can do it far better than that and judging by what you have achieved so far you'll soon be a whizz!!
delete individual points when they are highlighted or use pathfinder tool to chop areas out.
Eg, draw a rectangle, then a circle partly overlapping. Select both and then click on the second icon in pathfinder palette. Then press expand. That will take a circular chunk out of the rectangle leaving a new shape.
Use the first icon in palette (THEN PRESS EXPAND) to Join two shapes together. I'm probably teaching you to suck eggs here but have a play with the pathfinder palette using over lapping shapes, each icon creates a new shape using the first two in a different way. Dead useful
For example draw a nice swoopy car type shape, draw two circles, use pathfinder tool, then you have side of car with wheel arches. Hope you get my point, obviously you can do it far better than that and judging by what you have achieved so far you'll soon be a whizz!!
Illustrator is all about layering vector shapes to create tones and textures, the image below may help show what I mean. To get the headlight to look real it's just a series of 'blobs' but together they add detail. Image still not finished but gives you an idea hopefully. Very off original topic now, sorry!
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My grandad had one then pased it on to my mum. First car I ever remember my parents having. Spent the eighties being taken to and from school in it. Everyone knew who drove the funny old car in my village. Haven't been in one since and probably shouldn't to preserve my happy memories of them.
So Ras, are we going to see your new wheels soon?
So Ras, are we going to see your new wheels soon?
cool look forward to seeing them. Try and get some wheel wax on them too to keep the brake dust from sticking to them in the future.
Bit of both, body was traced over and then bonnet and mechanics added. Was a rubbish image so all the highlights and shadows had to be imagined or guessed in order to give the image depth but only using a limited number of shades. Not totally finished yet. But gives you and idea of how you can place pics in illustrator, trace off bits you want, style them then add subsequent shapes or layers to build up a pic.
Years ago I used freehand but then the agencies I worked for had illustrator so stuck with that. Now it's industry standard and you won't find many design agencies using freehand anymore. I don't think freehand has kept up with all the improvements illustrator has and is less industry biased but am sure it's pretty good if you know what you are doing.
show us some stuffCool pics.
I'm a Freehand man myself. Could never get on with Illustrator.
see I told you it was easy! That looks great mate, start of something really good, few hundred more vector shapes and it'll be finished!
I can't zoom in enough on this laptop, are the wheels placed images or did you recreate those too?
I can't zoom in enough on this laptop, are the wheels placed images or did you recreate those too?
all you can see there is done by me..did it by tracing but it's all vector..ha ha few thousand maybe,
Nice one, the wheels and brakes look great. Start of something really good there, more you work in to it the better it'll be, soon the outline can be deleted too. Make sure you post up the finished result, or failing that the next step. Like you say a few thousand more shapes needed!!
Have you mastered the pathfinder tool? Essential to get shapes working together I find and to cut bits out accurately.
Have you mastered the pathfinder tool? Essential to get shapes working together I find and to cut bits out accurately.
to be honest i ain't touched it in weeks just got a bit bored of it cause i realised it won't look that good at that angle, should have gone for an angle like my audi i did. with pathfinder it was a case of press a button and if i didn't do what i wanted,go back a step
Make sure you post up a pic when you do one you are happy with. Nothing wrong with going back a step, how I learnt. Multiple un-do's are great in illustrator!
