Alex West

This is the tom cruise guy, right? Or is that Richard Nailor. Wait was this clive owens? Anyway =x Me likey! I do prefer the lighter blue though. The darker blue doesn't look realistic at all - little flat as well, but the light blue seems easier on the eyes, so to speak.

The shading is sexy. The weird angled cut on his right looks weird, near his head but its cut off in the av so no biggie. Love his shirt lines and his lips, /purr. :thumbsup Kick ass, mai!

Awesome!!
You and Billie have really piqued my interest in this type of art, and I'm going to give it a try. I just love the effect, and clean lines! I've been trying to come up with ideas about t-shirts, for some personal things, and know this would work perfectly. If I can do it, that is ;)

For the type of picture, I like the darker blue personally, but think the lighter blue would work as well.

Any tips you could offer on how to start a piece of art like this? Do you still sketch it out, and then refine, or do you actually vector it all? Do you look at the picture, or vector over it? Any insight would be greatly appreciated :D

/chants

TUTORIAL TUTORIAL TUTORIAL!

*points to Billie for the tutorial*

This is the one with Clive Owen as his av at the moment. The cut of his jacket was at a weird angle? Is that the one you're talking about? I think I know what will fix that. Yeah the bright blue isn't very realistic but like Sin City there are splashes of vivid colour in the black and white for emphasis. I'm still torn on the colour maybe I do av with each and see which is liked more. I kind of like the light but then think the vivid blue interesting...so I dunno.

As far as tips go. Use Illustrator. Photoshop will work if you really must but Illustrator is better tailored to vector artwork, in my opinion. Some pieces I have done freehand. I've done one totally in Illustrator with no sketch or reference and I've done at least one with a sketch in photoshop first. Others, like this one, was done with a photo reference.

For me the sketch or reference is just a place to start from. It is all vectored and tweaked from there. I believe Billie does the same thing and with far more uberness and probably a lot less cursing :X

I wouldn't know where to begin doing a tutorial, mostly because if I explain from the beginning I'd be writing a book, but if I can leave off how to do the pen tool I'd be writing something pretty brief, but for only a limited amount of users.

I vote for the pale blue eyes meself - posted on smmo with other stuffs.

Okay, pale it is then. Woah there is a comment on SMMO? I shall go look.

You use a pen and tablet?

Er, me? Yes, sometimes I use a tablet to map things out, but then I go back and edit the anchor points, or use the drawing I made with the tablet as a guide for using the pen tool. It's kind of a different process from traditional drawing but you get amazing control over each line and shape. You just -have- to know how to control the anchor points. *frowns* am I making sense? I dunno how much you've played with vectors.

Yea, I understand about anchor points and vectors...though I've not really done much beyond using it for hair...but I get the idea. I'm stopping by Compusa tonight on the way home to buy a tablet though. I've been wanting one for the past several years and just kept putting it off. But now I'm really going to do it! lol

Ah, cool beans. An' do you have illustrator, freehand, corel draw, something specifically for vectors? Can't say I'd be much help with the latter two but I think they're probably about the same.

I've got PSP and PS...I've done vectors on PSP...for now I'm going to work on getting used to the tablet, and if all goes well I may get illustrator next.

he is handsome! i do like the LB eyes too. I'm always amazed with vector stuff. I can grasp the use of the tools worth crap so i stay away from the headache

/applaudes you

Yes to the question also. I use a tablet for just about everything. I sometimes forget and even browse with it...which it isn't so good for. Sometimes the points seem easier to pick out with the mouse though.

Thanks Dia =)

okay updated

Light eyes, more shadow on the right, hopefully funny angle is gone and I changed the border, oh and added a tiny blue outline which may or may not add to it. Not sure what I think of this border but I was thrilled with the other either.

I do like the light blue eyes, and never did see anything weird about the angle...in that I thought it looked like the one in the pic. However, I like the other border better...this one kinda seems like it's still 'selected' ... ?

Question on the tablet...hope you don't mind me asking here :S ? But is there some way I can get it to transfer onto the computer page to scale? It seems to want to draw so huge! Does that make sense?

Well I'm not sure on that. I have a tiny tablet so I kind of want it to draw bigger than it is. It fits the size of your screen so either zoom in draw smaller or draw it huge and then scale it down? I will say that a tablet takes a while to get used to but once people start using it they rarely go back to the poor neglected mouse.

Okay, ninja edited the border because Shay was right it did look like it was still selected :X

I meant the top of his hair, not his shirt - but nevermind lol, it's a nit pick not a flaw or anything =D Light blue eyes 4tw!

i like the blue outline!

I'm curious as to what the blue outline looks like on the av

I like the blue too...and the different border :)