Suzumiya Haruhi - "Girl's Day Out?

[Wandering_Youth]

Hiya, ladies and gentlemen!

I know you hear this a lot but I'll say it anyway. It must of been months or maybe years since I last worked on a wallpaper and after that period of not doing anything, I finally got time to work on one. If you haven't seen the anime yet then do it now! It's a hilarious anime that make you drop on your fall and laugh your ass off, IMO.

Anyways, this is a work in progress as you can see. I have yet to put in shading, highlights, tones and textures etc etc etc. This wallpaper is all vector work with good old Adobe Illustrator CS. I can't really think of a name right now for this wallpaper so maybe someone from the audience can throw a couple of ideas at me. What do you guys think about so far? Critiques and comments are very much appreciated!

[Daniel E.]

Pretty nice, but I do have some comments.

IMHO, it's a bad idea to outline shadows. The ones on Haruhi's shirt look very different from the ones on Yuki and Mikuru's clothes.

Following on that, I can also see right trough Haruhi's shirt; Wich tells me that the base color was not applyed evenly across the whole area. Even if you plan to add shadows, it's best to cover the whole thing with the first color to avoid those 'holes' or 'cracks' when you move on to other elements (the shadows in this case)

I like to "blur" the edges of all shadows, but thats a matter of taste and not something that actually makes or breaks anyone's work.

It would also seem that you are tracing some things manually, Wich I find quite amazing. I could never trace a simple object by hand alone.

I like the background a lot, and the whole concept of "Girls Day out" sounds quite cool on it's own.

In the end, like you just said, there's still a lot of work to be done. Here's hoping to see the finished version soon.

[celcius]

What Daniel E. said about outlines and shadows.
The background is superb. From the looks of it, it looks like it was done from scratch. If it is then, absolutely marvelous work. Great job on that.
The theme is nice, and the source image + background work well for the theme.

My comment is with line width. You should try adding line width to add more polish and finesse. What I mean is that the ends of the lines should be thinner than from the middle, quite similar to the real world since the pen is lifted gradually and not abruptly.

[Wandering_Youth]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Following on that, I can also see right trough Haruhi's shirt; Wich tells me that the base color was not applyed evenly across the whole area. Even if you plan to add shadows, it's best to cover the whole thing with the first color to avoid those 'holes' or 'cracks' when you move on to other elements (the shadows in this case)

I'm not sure what you meant that you could see through Haruhi's clothes unless you mean the shadows looked so bad like they're holes in her shirt. I'll definetly rework the shadows on Haruhi's shirt. Here's the original picture to compare. Thanks for info.

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

It would also seem that you are tracing some things manually, Wich I find quite amazing. I could never trace a simple object by hand alone.

Yep, all manuel with the good mouse and a lot of click clicks.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

I'm not sure what you meant that you could see through Haruhi's clothes unless you mean the shadows looked so bad like they're holes in her shirt. I'll definetly rework the shadows on Haruhi's shirt. Here's the original picture to compare.

Oh dear no, I didn't say they were bad; It's just that you left some places without color and I could see right through them. (hence my comment about the holes and cracks)

Simply check out the shadows on the upper part of Haruhi's arms and you'll see bits of blue that were not colored.

Originally Posted by celcius

My comment is with line width. You should try adding line width to add more polish and finesse. What I mean is that the ends of the lines should be thinner than from the middle, quite similar to the real world since the pen is lifted gradually and not abruptly.

If you are talking about something similar to the "Shape layers" method, then I agree completly. This is how most profesionals do their works and it certainly adds extra value to the trace/vector.

I like to use "Paths", but thats another story for another day I am afraid.

Anyway, the more I see stuff done in Illustrator, the more I want to get my hands on the program. I am particuraly interested in how the program handles colors. They looks kinda different from the ones you get out of Photoshop.