Practice with the pen tool

Having been too poor to buy and too paranoid/lazy to pirate Adobe Illustrator for personal use, I was thrilled to discover it pre-installed on my work machine a few days ago. Since it was a particularly slow week with very little work, I decided to have a go at vector tracing..something I've watched others do all the time but have never done myself. Now it was my turn.

And it was much harder than it looked. Apparently, Illustrator handles lines MUCH differently than Macromedia flash and I spent the majority of the time trying to figure out how to point anchors and pull directions exactly, instead of just dragging the line directly like I do in Flash. It was hell the first days, but eventually I started getting used to it. My first attempt was, mostly obviously, a trace of my favorite Momoi picture. I am not too satisfied with it, but I will try again with my next picture. I will probably also redo this image in the future when I actually become an expert with Illustrator. Eventually I hope to build up a nice collection of 1600x1200 vector wallpapers for personal use. Meanwhile, I shall make do with this.

Posted by Paranda at August 13, 2005 1:39 AM

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