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drownsoda — Defense and Guide
Published: 2004-02-13 06:27:12 +0000 UTC; Views: 6639; Favourites: 55; Downloads: 4515
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Description
This is for everyone who ever accused me of being a trace bitmapper
and hopefully people will learn something about how to do vectors or something.
Freehand MX and Photoshop (for compiling)
(edit)
stock from sxc.hu the artist's username is Seer.
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Comments: 71
You can tell that you don't use trace bitmap or any cheat tricks with your work. But, it's always cool to see another artist's working process.
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a) I'm not even sure what "trace bitmapping" would be, and b) I'm stunned that anyone would ever accuse you of " cheating.
Of course this is an awesome primer. Have been teaching myself in Flash and gradually getting the hang of it, though it's been incredibly time-consuming. I'm pleased that nothing you illustrate here makes me feel like a dumbass. Rather, you've just clearly got the feel of it and know how to do it time-effectively. Adding your time notions to your progress was a really nifty touch.
When you say "delete all the lines" (when you're checking your progress), do you mean Cutting them and then Pasting them back? Or does Freehand give you a way to do this more simply? And are you using many open paths, or by necessity are they all closed? (I.e, I know they " end up" closed so you can fill them, but do you have to make a completely enclosed shape at a time, or can you just keep connecting different shapes with segments?)
In any case, this is great! I think it's a great practice for many of us to include these "over-the-shoulder" views. I've done one for my development methods, for instance. It's wonderfully dual purpose to do this: It deepens the appreciation of our work for those who are interested (or need to be TOLD 
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Trace Bitmapping is a feature in flash that gives you the option to automatically convert the image to vectors. it approximates colours and looks shit. don't do it. Illustrator and Freehand also have an autotrace feature, which are equally shite. don't even bother.
what i mean by delete the lines, in freehand, you can delete the stroke (line) or the fill (er, fill!),separately so you don't have to delete the whole bit and redo it
taking away the lines gives you a great boost when you're doing a vector because you can see it transform from something that looks kinda weird with all the lines all over the place, to something smoothe and awesome.
what i do is i just select the whole picture and then delete the lines by just getting rid of the stroke option in the options palette.
then once you have had a look, you can select everything and then just add the lines back! wewt!
i don't use any open paths. i like to keep them all closed so it's easy to colour. if you're doing that, it's best to colour the small things first, and then the big shapes, just because it's easier haha. i'm all about making life easy you see.
through doing vectors a LOT, i've got my time down pretty well. i can't be bothered sitting there for hours on end doing vectors (i am fidgety) so if it takes too long i just get tired of it and go onto something else heh! but when you're first starting out, it's good to spend good time on it to get the hang of how everything works, how to get lines smooth and all that. it's worth taking the time. you don't have to do it all at once! (though i like to get things over and done with. i've only done one piece that ever took more than a day)
imo theres nothing wrong with things looking a little y'know, messy, with corners jutting out and little gaps between colours. it gives it character.
of course when i'm doing something for an ad or a logo or something, THEN you ahve to be careful, but thats just common sense
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i think like 2 people accused you on a forum like a couple of months ago?
nice guide.
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it's been invading my site, messages left in blogs as recently as yesterday. signed anon, (gutless wonder).
i get emails too. it's disheartening.
so it's not just a few people in a forum a few months ago.
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Well, sorry you've had to feel the need to defend yourself. It's just jealousy.
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great work Sarah...may be people will learn something from this.
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I've always admired your work and never thought you didn't do it yourself. I'm just starting to learn to vector and your technique was helpful to me. You were using freehand? I have illustrator, freehand and flash, but since I have gotten so used to illustrator only use it. If you could tell me more about what you like about Freehand or Flash when you get the time that would be very nice of you!
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i don't really know why i don't like Illustrator. i just don't. Freehand is just.. nice. And we use it at school, so i'm using it ALL the time, so it's just easier for me to use it at home also.
i liked flash because i dunno, thats the program i really found my feet with vectors ( i didn't have illustrator or freehand back then, and i sure as hell wasn't going to use photoshop for vectors)
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nice and clear. to be honest, one time the idea just crossed by my mind, but i see things on your vectors that the program do otherwise. i know u r fuching good, u r the one, by you I'm in vectors.
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TRACE BITMAPING??!?!?! Oh cmon. There are some dumb people around.
I don't believe you do that drownsoda.
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Would you like to share the most possible your tutorial? Visit ~tutorial and, if you like, post alsto there your work. So we can do a list of tuts and divide in category and so on. Hope you like.
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you know you're still the only vector person I really like. screw haters, keep up the good work
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nice.. i like ow you do it.. it makes it alo easier, i start with grey scale then i color mine.. haha
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I soo feel ya!
I hate it as well when dumb peeps accused me of trace bitmapping my vector works.
Plus your vector rocks and only dumbasses cant tell the difference between a real-done vector and a trace bitmapped one.
I think i should do something like this as well for my style of vectoring just to clear the air about it.
This is going into my favs so those morons can see the difference.
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we need to email that guy and cyberfuck him
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