Illustrator Pen Tool Assignment

Illustration

Original Image

Above is the design I did in Adobe Illustrator of a trumpet. To achieve the most accuracy of the shape, I took an actual photo of a trumpet and then traced over it. To create this image as an accurate representation of the original image, I first opened the image in Illustrator. I used the Pen tool to trace the lines of the trumpet, and used the Convert Anchor Point tool to create smoother curves and to reduce the amount of anchor points. After creating all the outlines, I added a gradient fill to the whole shape to give it more depth. To create the illusion of shine, I added ellipses with gradient fills as well to make it seem as if the instrument is reflecting light. To make the image more realistic, I made the outline  a similar shade to the fill of the instrument instead of a bold black line, which would make it look more like a cartoon. This made it more realistic because when you look at the original image, the outline is defined by a darker shade as it curves away from your view. Just by adding some discreet gradience to the image, it becomes so much more realistic.

For uploading the image to my blog, I wanted to maximize the image quality. I examined several image formats that seemed best for online sharing- JPG, GIF, and PNG-, and narrowed down my decision from there. I looked at GIF as a possible format to use, however, it reduces the richness of colour when compressed. I did not want this because the colour of my illustration is one of the most important aspects because of how heavily the realism depends on it. I then looked at JPG, which also seemed promising because of its ability to support colourful images. One large problem with this format though is that it does not cover sharp edges (vectors) well, so my image, a vector drawing, would turn out blurry. The final format I looked at was PNG, which was what I went with in the end. I chose this format because it supports colour and sharp edges well, meaning that the uploaded image in this case would be the same quality as it is in Adobe Illustrator.

While making this image, I did come across some small problems that I was able to fix. One problem was creating the curves with the Convert Anchor Point tool. When I went to add a curve to a line, I would curve the other line attached to the one I was trying to manipulate as well, but I did not want to. I figured out soon after that I just had to manipulate the line I was originally working on and then fix the other with the handle attached to it. Another minor issue I had was trying to add colour to a gradient fill. After researching it I learned that I needed to double-click on the pointers that adjusted the gradience under the Gradience panel to select colours from the window that would pop up. Besides those, there was nothing else that I had trouble with.

Overall I am very happy with my final result. There were a couple points throughout the project when I doubted that the final result would be this good, but I kept going and was rewarded with this. The things I am most pleased about are the accuracy of the lines compared to a real trumpet, the illusion of shine that I was able to create with the gradient tool, and the 3D illusion of the whole in the bell of the trumpet. The reason I am pleased with these aspects of the drawing the most is because they were the hardest to accomplish, and being able to do so left me fulfilled afterwards. The only thing I think I could have improved was the curvature of the shape, because at certain points the curves are a bit pointed, wobbly, and awkward. I am not too unhappy about them though because this was my first time using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.

More info on file formats

Pixel Portrait

GIF

PNG

Here I did a pixel portrait of myself. I uploaded two different file formats of the image, GIF and PNG. Although I've been asked to identify the visual difference between the two file formats, I don't see any difference in colour, value, or line. If there are differences, I cannot see them at all.

For this self-portrait I intentionally made it have noticeable pixels, like in 8-bit gaming. Because the quality of the photo is so low, making a portrait that accurately represented myself was a challenge. To do this, I made sure to accentuate my hair and eyes because they are my most unique features. I made my eyes black in the portrait even though they are actually dark brown in real life. However, unless you are up close to my face, my eyes look black. I also made sure that the shape and colour of my hair matched reality. I made my hair slightly darker than it actually is as well to get the idea across that it is dark. I also did it because most people think my hair is black, so I made it almost black to represent how other people see me. For my colour palette, I tried to limit it to a few colours to keep the cartoon effect of the picture. Although my face actually has small gradient hues and values, I made it one solid colour in the portrait that I felt was the average/overall skin tone. I did the same thing with my hair as well to reduce the amount of colours used.
 For my shirt, I made it a red blouse because I often wear blouses, and my favourite colour is dark red. Although I have only one shirt like this, I think it represents me the best.

To achieve this picture, I took a quick photo of myself using Photobooth on the computer to work off of for a more accurate result. I opened a new file in Photoshop at the size of 100x150 pixels and 72 pixels/inch. I then dragged the image into Photoshop and re-scaled it so it filled the frame.
After that, I created a new layer on top of the photo and drew on that with the pen tool.
During the actual drawing process of the image, the only part I traced off of the background photo was the hair and the eyebrows. Besides that, I drew the image by eye because I found it easier to capture my overall appearance by drawing myself how I see myself instead of tracing the actual photo.