Finished a new photo-realism piece! 100% Inkscape

OMG, that is absolutely amazing! The smaller size is almost indistinguishable from a photo. I think it's the best photorealism piece I've ever seen with Inkscape! In the larger size, some areas of the skin could use a little more blending (blurring?). But that's just a simple matter. The hair is simply stunning! You have a real gift for drawing hair with Inkscape, snel

Have to echo brynn's comment about the hair. I would love to know how you achieved that look.

brynn wrote:OMG, that is absolutely amazing! The smaller size is almost indistinguishable from a photo. I think it's the best photorealism piece I've ever seen with Inkscape! In the larger size, some areas of the skin could use a little more blending (blurring?). But that's just a simple matter. The hair is simply stunning! You have a real gift for drawing hair with Inkscape, snel

Thanks so much Brynn! I agree with the comment about the skin. There are always spots that could use work.

llogg wrote:Have to echo brynn's comment about the hair. I would love to know how you achieved that look.

I achieved that look by coming to terms with the fact that there is no easy or quick way to do the hair. I just use the and try to make it as clean as possible. The hair takes much longer than any other part. When I started doing photo realism I used with my tablet, but it just isn't nearly as nice. can't do tapering very well.

Boy, oh boy.... I was sure you`re using

But now, after your explanation... chapeau bas.

*edit
Have you tried ?
I`ve managed to tame Inkscape while using a shape from clipboard.

Great.

I'll probably be the only one criticizing some aspects of this image... but anyway, thought I should mention them nonetheless.

Two things caught my attention. One, the differences in "blurriness". The skin/face looks heavily blurred while the glasses, hair, feather, etc. look rather sharp. The second "problem" I have with this image is the hair (yeah yeah people, I know :D ). I think it looks kinda messy.. as if she hasn't seen a comb in quite a while. Makes the whole mass of hair look too twitchy and turbulent (? don't know how else to put it). A more systematic and structured look (like the feather) would probably have looked better (unless this wild look was desired).

Apart from this (and the fact that I'm not much into photo-realism at all ^^;), all I can say is Thumbs up! An attractive subject, nicely ported over to vectors.

Amazing. It all depends on the size in the end on whether it needs any more fiddling with. I say leave it alone, it's the best I've seen. I love the 'uncombed' hair, it looks styled, and realistic. I love the expression in the eyes especially. Did you use a real model (pretty girl if so).
keep up the amazing work, and thx for showing us!
dee

wow, that shows real skill and talent, Thank You for posting it up.

I gotta say this is Amazing! I agree the first smaller image really looks like a real photo! How di you get the effect like that on the hair? Nice job!

super - awesome piece of art!!!

I dont know how I managed not to find this topic before now,,,but wow! Really amazing work.
Hope you Ignored any cristcism about the hair, it's super and looks exactly messy enough.
How long did you spend drawing this?

Really beautiful snel.

hi, do you mind to show the outline-only of this vector?

I always want to know of how most people trace a photo.
I want to know their style of tracing.

thank you.

I'm not sure if snel hand traced the photo or not. Maybe just the outlines, but I really don't know. The outline view will only show how it was traced, IF it was traced. It will show the outline of everything, whether traced or not.

snel has been fairly private about the methods and techniques. Search the forum to see others! I know several people have asked how the hair is done. I think snel has a real gift for drawing hair! (also must have a super fast computer!)

Here are the outlines of the image. Hid some of the background layers. I don't just trace the image, because that doesn't usually capture the essence of what is being displayed, For example, if you look at the eyes, there are a lot of vectors there because if you simply trace you won't get the texture of the iris and the specularity of the light on the cornea. The eyes are always what I start with because that's "the essense" of the human being in my opinion. If you get the eyes wrong, it's not going to be believable. The skin is always tough for me because you have a lot of different variations in color and yet they all look very close in color to the eye. It's really difficult to make it look real and smooth, but not too smooth. The hair is mostly tracing, and that takes lots of patience. In zero six's work, the subject has black hair which makes it a little easier because you only have to worry about the hair that is reflecting light. With other color hair, you have to maticulously reproduce the texture and direction of the hair. Clumps of hair are easy to do with the tool, but the long thin strands are a bit tougher. Something I think zero six did especially well were her eyebrows, and you can see in the outline, the eyebrows have the most vectors. Something I've come to realize is that more vectors corresponds to more realism.

Note that zero six posted a message in this topic, to which snel refers in last message. I thought it deserved its own thread, and split it out to start a new topic. It's here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13627

snel wrote:Here are the outlines of the image. Hid some of the background layers. I don't just trace the image, because that doesn't usually capture the essence of what is being displayed, For example, if you look at the eyes, there are a lot of vectors there because if you simply trace you won't get the texture of the iris and the specularity of the light on the cornea. The eyes are always what I start with because that's "the essense" of the human being in my opinion. If you get the eyes wrong, it's not going to be believable. The skin is always tough for me because you have a lot of different variations in color and yet they all look very close in color to the eye. It's really difficult to make it look real and smooth, but not too smooth. The hair is mostly tracing, and that takes lots of patience. In zero six's work, the subject has black hair which makes it a little easier because you only have to worry about the hair that is reflecting light. With other color hair, you have to maticulously reproduce the texture and direction of the hair. Clumps of hair are easy to do with the tool, but the long thin strands are a bit tougher. Something I think zero six did especially well were her eyebrows, and you can see in the outline, the eyebrows have the most vectors. Something I've come to realize is that more vectors corresponds to more realism.

wow, that's really something.
Thank you for your explanation and the outline, snel.
So many objects and paths, I don't know how many hours you spend on it but the result is really great.


I should have more patient on vectorize and see the big picture of a photo for creating its vector.
Hope that I can create something as great as your work one day.

unbelieveable, i didnt know if inkscape can do realistic photo!

A MAZ ING
To say the least.

So is Inkscape really not even at version 1?
Hard to imagine.

If you did not say, and you might have, how big did you draw this?
Meaning in Inkscape? (not file size)
Is that a real question?

I am about to post a new drawing of a city park drawing (does not look photo real). What I pondered all day is size of drawing vs size and res of underlaying image and what really works.
A side note for sure on my part. But wow, nice job on your drawing!
My oh my....

VitalBodies wrote:A MAZ ING
To say the least.

So is Inkscape really not even at version 1?
Hard to imagine.

If you did not say, and you might have, how big did you draw this?
Meaning in Inkscape? (not file size)
Is that a real question?

I am about to post a new drawing of a city park drawing (does not look photo real). What I pondered all day is size of drawing vs size and res of underlaying image and what really works.
A side note for sure on my part. But wow, nice job on your drawing!
My oh my....

The document size is 2525x3888. The photo was 2448x3888. I helps to have a super high res photo Thank you for the very nice compliments, zerosix, ghprod, and VitalBodies!

Thanks for your update! It helps.
So what have you learned about res?
Yes higher is better for the most part.
...And yet there is more to it than that, or is there?
You have to stop somewhere.

Your comments on the res of your illustration shows you choose pretty darn high.
And for what you are doing, a face, really quite high.
Of course that is relative to your final, but then again, with SVG not really.
So the high res is to match the detail right?

That res would tax an Apple retina screen for sure.

If I was doing a face I would likely choose "there abouts" what you did.
Or whatever provided the detail I needed.
Your drawing is set to go for realism.
So detail is key.

So why do I ask?
I have a park drawn in FEET. Yet I can not even zoom out to the point of seeing it all.
I would like to add the park near by.
Yet, it is a real hassle to not be able to ever SEE the whole illustration WHILE drawing.
And the park is small - for a park.
FEET is an option in Inkscape - not something I made up on a whim.
Yet it all seems to be tied to pixels, yet the point I thought/hoped was SVG?
Perhaps I am missing something?

Comments welcome of any kind really. But be NICE!

And a question, did you SET your illustration to something?
Pixels, points, MM, feet or whatever?
Did that matter or not?

anyhow, love to see nice Inkscape work for EVERYBODY....

VitalBodies wrote:Thanks for your update! It helps.
So what have you learned about res?
Yes higher is better for the most part.
...And yet there is more to it than that, or is there?
You have to stop somewhere.

Your comments on the res of your illustration shows you choose pretty darn high.
And for what you are doing, a face, really quite high.
Of course that is relative to your final, but then again, with SVG not really.
So the high res is to match the detail right?

That res would tax an Apple retina screen for sure.

If I was doing a face I would likely choose "there abouts" what you did.
Or whatever provided the detail I needed.
Your drawing is set to go for realism.
So detail is key.

So why do I ask?
I have a park drawn in FEET. Yet I can not even zoom out to the point of seeing it all.
I would like to add the park near by.
Yet, it is a real hassle to not be able to ever SEE the whole illustration WHILE drawing.
And the park is small - for a park.
FEET is an option in Inkscape - not something I made up on a whim.
Yet it all seems to be tied to pixels, yet the point I thought/hoped was SVG?
Perhaps I am missing something?

Comments welcome of any kind really. But be NICE!

And a question, did you SET your illustration to something?
Pixels, points, MM, feet or whatever?
Did that matter or not?

anyhow, love to see nice Inkscape work for EVERYBODY....

Resolution is mostly irrelevant. It's only relevant in certain situations:
-When you use bitmaps or reference photos etc. (because bitmaps lose quality when you scale them)
-You use the calligraphy tool with absolute units (because the absolute units have a limited min and max size)
Otherwise, you can work small or large depending on your preferences. If I didn't use a reference photo, I could have worked on a 500px by 500px canvas. It wouldn't matter because I can export much larger.
There is a difference between the document you're working on and how large you export your image as a bitmap. Your exported bitmap should match the detail of the drawing. The working document size doesn't matter as much. So I would suggest to you, scale down your park. If you are using the feet units intentionally to help measure your park, then change units to inches and scale down your park so that 1ft (actual) = 1inch (canvas). You can always scale back up when you're finished.

The document is SVG, but it helps to have a reference point how the SVG can be converted to a bitmap. For example if you're creating an image with specific dimensions in mind, you can size your document to reflect those dimensions. You can then place elements so they are aligned on pixels. If you were designing for print, it might be more useful to measure your document in inches.

I always use pixels because I don't typically print. All the images that I export are specifically for display on monitors, and I know how big 1000px will typically be on a screen.

Thanks! I read and re-read what you wrote.
I will do some testing. Likely will go with a foot is an inch.
Not sure though, this drawing is big. ; )
Even a reduction of 12 to 1 might not be nearly enough.
But in general I get what you are saying and appreciate what you wrote.

The small version made me think it was a real photo. X]
Impressive! :]