FOSA Preamble

[C-Chan]

Very very good.  Â¯v¯
Okay now, moving along to genkier topics....

I figure I should post up the original just to demonstrate how Kissu-san has advanced in his work:



As you can see, I'd say it's a near flawless conversion.  There is some slight loss of spikiness in the hair, but not sure if that's a bad thing -- in all honesty, the angular nature of the vectorized Kiso/Shin makes him look a lot more like someone you wouldn't want to mess with.  The raster version appeared softer and mellow, maybe just a touch insecure.

Only you can tell me which look you were ultimately aiming for, but for all intents and purposes I think it's great.  Not to mention that the vector art lends itself to a more modern Animesque-look, aside from a much greater ease of tweening.

[Kiso]

It is strange that you mention the anime-like flare that I gave to the character... everyone mentions me that after they see some of my actually shaded (a very rare thing to see) raster images... I guess it's in me to make things look more anime like rather than high-end artwork... I like simplicity in the way I do art... at least where there it the only deserved.

Also... I would have told you to pay close attention to the eyes... there I messed with quite some stuff... like turning paths to strokes. I was going to do that very same thing with the hair to make the spiky not be lost... but as mainly unsure of what would happen if I tried it, didn't want to blow up the fill or anything like that.

Anyways... from here on... I will start making improvements... the kind of stuff I am not able to do very well under a pixel environment because the mental image I have clashes with the one I get from the screen... pust it's very tedious a job to deal with due to me having to constantly switch between layers to correct stuff to make it fit within the image.

Now as for my intents... yes, that character is meant to look mean, or at least have a degree of seriousness to him. He, in that image may be considered to be in a good mood in comparison to the other than where it seemed as id he double-guessed himself a lot. So yes, he is the kind of character that the average person would not like to mess with... he's not really a bad character though... probably close to an anti-hero.

[Bella]

Nice job! I like his hair

Did you trace over the raster image, or use the automatic bitmap-to-vector tool? I myself prefer the former...

[Kiso]

Actually... I am the all out believer of doing things myself instead of letting the machine do all the work for me... so... yep, I did the tracing pretty much. i will change the hair though... too messy for him.

Oh, and let me not forget... thank you for the feedback... it is much appreciated.

[C-Chan]

It is strange that you mention the anime-like flare that I gave to the character... everyone mentions me that after they see some of my actually shaded (a very rare thing to see) raster images... I guess it's in me to make things look more anime like rather than high-end artwork... I like simplicity in the way I do art... at least where there it the only deserved.

Ah ha!  Well, if you admire simplicity, then I can see how the Anime style was practically made for you.  A combination of very simple components, effectively placed to generate the most dynamic image possible (and in the least amount of time... ^.^).  

I do believe that, now that you're getting used to vector graphics, shading will become less and less of a rarity.

Also... I would have told you to pay close attention to the eyes... there I messed with quite some stuff... like turning paths to strokes. I was going to do that very same thing with the hair to make the spiky not be lost... but as mainly unsure of what would happen if I tried it, didn't want to blow up the fill or anything like that.

Oh, I see what you mean.  ^^
I'm guessing you did the eyelashes as single stroke lines, converted them to paths, then tapered their ends to give them that characteristic sharp angle.  Basically, a Refiner's work -- good job.  ^.^

For the hair, you can probably just get away with increasing the Miter Limit of the Stroke. A value of 7.0 was enough to get tips out of nearly all the spikes, although there was a really stubborn one that wouldn't pop out until I elevated it all the way up to 20 (but a little rearrangement can fix that).

Anyways... from here on... I will start making improvements... the kind of stuff I am not able to do very well under a pixel environment because the mental image I have clashes with the one I get from the screen... pust it's very tedious a job to deal with due to me having to constantly switch between layers to correct stuff to make it fit within the image.

That includes adding some shading, no?  There are two approaches that you can try out to see which one's easiest/fastest:

- Add shading over your currently flat-colored areas (boolean operations work great here)

or

- Darken all the currently flat-colored areas, and then just draw the highlighted areas on top (best suited if you want to use blurring effects).

So yes, he is the kind of character that the average person would not like to mess with... he's not really a bad character though... probably close to an anti-hero.

Fufu... in a way, aren't we all?  ^___^
But that's great that you can make your characters as expressive as that.

Actually... I am the all out believer of doing things myself instead of letting the machine do all the work for me... so... yep, I did the tracing pretty much. i will change the hair though... too messy for him.

Plus that Trace Bitmap tool wastefully splashes nodes around and does little to take benefit of Inkscape's customizability.  T___T

I only use it myself when I REALLY have to use it.  ^^;