Welcome to Gaia! ::

hey check it out my first try with illustrator! its me back when i had pink streaks.. and it isn't quite finished...

Looks great so far. 3nodding
What's really neat is that it looks like vector art right now.

Sorry I didn't reply on MSN before, I was away from the computer sweatdrop



If it was made with Illustrator, then it is vector art. Basically, rastor based programs (like Photoshop, Paintshop, MS Paint) save pictures as pixels (little squares). So when you make a picture bigger or zoom in, you can really see all the pixels. Vector based programs (like Illustrator, Flash, Freehand) save images based on mathematical relatioships. This means that everything is scaleable; you can make a picture as big as you like, and it won't lose any quality.

But some things are just easier to do in Photoshop, and some are easier to do in Illustrator. Different tools for different things.

The picture is not bad for a first attempt biggrin I haven't had a huge amount of experience with Illustrator, but see where you have all the white areas between the different shapes? Instead of trying to make the shapes fit perfectly together, just layer them over each other. Also, what tool are you using for this? I use the Pencil tool, although the Pen tool is supposed to be better (I just can't use it very well yet sweatdrop )

it looks great right now 3nodding except shouldn't the neck be darker than the face?

It is very good for a first try with a pen tool! When I try it, I draw 2 lines, then get so annoyed with it not going the right way that I end up going back to the pencil stressed Very much looking forward to that tutorial Novocain, I need to figure out how to use it eventually!

a couple more good tips for making your paths look as neat is possible is to use the Smooth tool on jagged areas (each pass over with the tool makes the area progressively smoother while retaining the original shape of the path, though this doesn't always achieve the desired effect), simplifying your paths before you're finished (object>path>simplify, which deletes any anchor points in your object that aren't necessary), and zooming in as much as you need to more easily manipulate the direction points of a specific segment (for people who miss direction/anchor points with their mouse or those who can't tell whether something is perfectly smooth or not, this is a good idea).

i only have one more week of class, so i'll hopefully have my pen tool tutorial out by next weekend