Vector self portrait

This is a work in progress (as per May 21 2020), created in Affinity Designer from a photo shot at X-mas eve in 2014. In the meanwhile I've grown too old and ugly to have (versions of) my mug clutter up my blog entries. It explains the choice for this old image that won't hurt your eyes. The long hair is the biological antenna field on top of my skull that allows me to pick up impulses from elsewhere and elsewhen. It also reduces hairdresser costs and distinguishes my appearance from the trendy yet boring standard look that proves people have a mindless herd mentality, which makes them as predictable as f××k (pardon my French).

This work does not contain a single pixel; it consists of 100% vectors. There is virtually nothing that can't be done in this vector drawing program that bitmap editors are capable of, with the distinction that the images created with it can be re-scaled to any size without loss of quality. It is why I draw realistic portraits exclusively in vectors. Still experimenting with different techniques to create a realistic vector portrait after some four years of doodling in Affinity Designer. The functions offered by this program to draw such a work are many. It suits portrait artists like me magnificently. This time around the challenge I set myself, was to get the maximum result with as little objects as possible. I may fail miserably, but would it kill me? Nope, I guess it won't. 

I work on this portrait intermittently because I spend time living as well. The oldest stage at the bottom, the newest on top. At the very bottom is a vector outline view of the eleventh stage. Click on one of the images to see them in Google's Lightbox. In the Lightbox the mouse scroll wheel can be used to flick through the images quickly. This is possible on a desktop PC and probably also on a Mac. Unfortunately Google in its infinite wisdom (and its desire to make huge profits) recently decided to allow only small images in the Lightbox. So, here's a properly sized version of it on the server of my website. Bear in mind that it's not yet finished, I still need to do some more work on the portrait. Stay tuned.

Shades & goatee added

Stage 13 May 24 2020 - 23:15 hrs 

Stage 11 May 22 2020 - 19:46 hrs 

Stage 10 May 21 2020 - 20:01 hrs  

Update May 21 2020 - 01:28 hrs 

Update May 20 2020 - 23:23 hrs 

Update May 20 - 21:20 hrs 

Update May 20 2020 - 19:00 hrs 

Update May 20 2020 - 17:45 hrs

Stage 11 vector outline view 

Range Rover Evoque - vector drawing

I was blown away when first seeing the Range Rover Evoque. Its design is stunning. Perfect in every detail. The designer obviously is brilliant and the fact that the car turned out so beautiful is probably the result of the marketing department not getting in the way. These blokes often are responsible for ruining designs that are a caress to the eye, because they want to please as many (potential clients) as possible. But with a designer capable of creating such a mind-blowing car, Land Rover did well to keep its marketeers on a short leash.

Stage 20 - Dec 11 2019 - 22:11 CET
with transparent background

The drawing in wire-frame view looks quite simple; the bulk of the work is to get the gradient colours right and the gradient transparency. They could of course be eye-dropped from the reference photo, but like in my portraits of humans, I like to put more drama in the images I create by altering details in which colours are very important. Another 'problem' in Affinity Designer is to get gradient shadows and reflections right, i.e. when gradients extend in more than one direction. I usually duplicate such an object and change the colours and gradient direction of the duplicated layer (and / or consecutive layers). The unwanted parts I 'remove' by applying custom transparency or by altering the shape of the object (adding or subtracting parts of the object area). B.t.w. all objects are given a Gaussian blur to make the image more realistic. Objects drawn in CorelDRAW or Illustrator often look unrealistic, because of (the object's) hard edges. Artists won't have this problem in affinity Designer.

Drawing such a subject results in many layers. Each object is a separate layer that I gave a specific name in order to make finding a particular object in the layers panel less of a hassle. I lock the reference image on top of all layers and make it transparent, so that I can always choose to see the reference or not while not interfering with other layers. Mind you, you can make the semi transparent reference layer visible, while still being able to draw on a selected layer below it, which is brilliant. I also use the outline view a lot which I gave a custom shortcut to make it possible to quickly switch between normal view and outline view. When having created a bundle of objects it is often quite useful to select the object in outline view (wire-frame view).

A feature not yet included in Affinity Designer is the feather function which would have been quite helpful (and time saving) in creating this image. But I saw Serif put it on the road map of future functions to be added. Although I'm not overly enthusiastic about mesh-fill function (like in CorelDRAW and Illustrator), it may have been useful at some points during the drawing of this car, but again, I saw this on Designer's road map of future functions. Other than that, Affinity Designer allows me to do things very quickly and precisely that I was not able to do equally fast or precise in the programs of the aforementioned competition, which becomes clear in particular in the vector portraits that you find elsewhere on this blog.

I just had to make a drawing of this eye caressing creation. It is a 100% vector drawing made in Affinity Designer. I bundled the first 12 stages in one image to get past the boring level and placed some later stages above that. Click on one of the images to see the stages in Google's Lightbox in which you can scroll through the stages swiftly by turning the scroll wheel of the mouse (on a PC anyway). Oldest stage at the bottom, newer ones above that. I've also made a short clip of this sequence that you find here.

Stage 20 - Dec 11 2019 - 22:11 CET

Stage 19 - Dec 11 2019 - 14:23 CET

Stage 18 - Dec 10 2019 - 19:06 CET

Outline view of stage 18

Stage 16 Dec 9 2019

First 12 stages

Here is an experiment with the video editor 'Olive', my very first try, so bear with me. You may want to take a peek at this video in full screen mode.

Blender 3D re-invented itself

The 3D design world has almost completely been monopolised by Autodesk and their subscription fees have since soared beyond the spending capacity of by far most people. One could comfortably buy, drive and maintain a properly ensured car for that kind of money. And whereas the opportunity to travel is a basic need of life, leasing a 3D package for an extremely steep rental fee, certainly is not.

Donating a voluntary modest monthly amount of money would greatly help to continue the development of Blender that has finally made its UI more accessible to a larger number of users. Expanding its contributing user base would allow it to remain competitive.

A truly open source model without donations would make it difficult to survive for complex and regularly updated programs in a market aggressively attacked by corporations such as Autodesk. The Blender organisation offers a way for many users to benefit from far more reasonable terms than the corporate products, while by no means sacrificing functionality.

In addition, the recent alliance with Ubisoft has the potential to counter Autodesk's monopoly, especially since Blender in fact offers more than the average 3D program in terms of versatile capability. Blender offers advanced modeling, rendering, sculpting, 2D vector drawing and animation / screen capturing in one package! In more than one way, this is a magnificent development!

I would therefore urge 3D artists that formerly found it difficult to wrap their mind around Blender's UI, to check out the 2.8 beta release candidate that features many significant changes that make it a lot more user friendly - nowhere near the puzzling shortcut key driven workflow of previous versions. It truly blends all above listed options into one coherent and relatively easy to learn application.

I get it that hardcore Blender users find the changes annoying, but I think there are at least equally as many artists that could never get on good terms with the old UI. For the latter group and new users the renovation of the interface will probably feel as a blessing. In view of Ubisoft's involvement the aim most likely is to grow, which means that some of the functions that were hidden within Blender's former niche interface, needed to be altered to suit a more common understanding of how to operate the program. Which in my view the developers did in a wonderful way.

If Blender would have continued its niche approach of its interface, that may have hampered their aim to expand its user base and make its program more attractive for developers in the gaming industry (and in doing so for a great number of other users as well!), which would be a pity since the program has so many awesome functions, that put it on par with its hugely over priced commercial competition. This undoubtedly is why Ubisoft sought collaboration, that must have seen this is potentially a match made in heaven . . . .