Exploring VectorStyler - Part II

 

Introduction
After losing the files I saved on a network drive in VectorStyler, as stated in the previous blog entry, I decided to save them on the system drive, which in itself worked well. The problem is that my computer is too old and lacks the power to properly create advanced graphics - realistic vector portraits - as I found out this time with exporting the various stages of development in the png-file format. My old rig has a first gen i7 Intel CPU from 2008 (....), has dead slow 16 GB 1333 MHz RAM memory and an extinct NVidia GeForce 750 Ti, which in today's world probably is considered to be a prehistoric system. I am therefore considering to upgrade to the Minisforum Neptune HX90G with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, 64 GB RAM memory and a M2 512 GB SSD, that has a dedicated GPU - the Radion RX 6650M, while taking up very little space (2.8 liter case). I prefer this x486 AMD mini PC over its Mac competition, because it offers the right to repair and upgradability, plus the fact that the software I purchased, is written for the Windows platform.

The reason that I continue to experiment in this constantly updated, ongoing blog entry with VectorStyler in spite of the problems I encounter with running the program properly, is that it has an absolutely huge potential and many of its incorporated functions already work excellently, while some still require a bit of tweaking. Its developer - a single person, named Csaba Ráduly Baka has so far done a most outstanding job creating and developing the project, in a way that made me convinced of the fact that at some point the bugs will be written out of the code and even more new features will be added. So, this series of blogposts is an on-the-fly test / review / in depth exploration that will last as long as VectorStyler will continue to be developed into a mature state, even when I may encounter additional obstacles.

Export Problem & portrait stage sequence
Because I was unable to export the vector portrait in png-format properly, I made screendumps so that I can still place the progress sequence of the various stages of development in this blog entry. The most recent one is at the top and the oldest one is at the bottom. Where necessary I will enter a comment below the screendumps in addition to the image captions. One crucial aspect of my drawing technique is that I place the reference image on top of all other objects and make it transparent, so that it is easy to retrieve whenever necessary, while its transparency can be changed whenever I temporarily need a more clear image. This is useful especially when a drawing contains hundreds or even thousands of (clipped: objects inside of other objects) objects. From what I have seen in tutorials on Youtube, most artists place the reference image or photo below all others, but for me this does not work for the reason mentioned here.

When the portrait is completed, I will post the vstyler-file in the VS forum, for fellow users to inspect. Note: all photos of Maria Orsic on the Internet are a kind of grainy and jagged black & white type of images, that probably do not do her beauty justice, but I do my utmost to make the best of it. The lack of quality in the photos implies that I was forced to interpret aspects of her face in order to be able to create a portrait that includes the attributes of a realistic depiction of a person. In addition I permitted myself the liberty to lean towards a personal elucidation of miss Orsic' stunning appearance, that also is known as 'artistic freedom', which is a style signature that is present in all the portraits I create.

Tools used in VectorStyler
An other thing is that I did not draw this portrait using the Mesh Gradient tool, which I feel is tedious and time consuming to work with, but I drew separate objects (most of which are clipped several layers deep and blurred, that I named accurately in the Layers panel so that I can find them back at a later point in time for further editing. Also, all objects that are drawn are vectors that will rescale and remain sharp in every size into which the image is rescaled, while the mesh tool is a simulation of pixels in vector format that requires a great amount of calculation when rescaling the image. For instance: many of the shadows consist of a single line with 2 (or in some cases a few more) nodes that probably require less computing power when the image is being rescaled. Editing objects at a later point in time, I find easier also when they are separate objects, each of which can be tuned to what it needs to be, which is especially useful when balancing shapes and colours when an image is in the final stages of the design process.

Brief tutorial on creating objects with varying blur levels
I uploaded a brief tutorial on the VectorStyler forum on how to create objects that have areas of varying blur level ratios along their circumference, that is a technique I often use in drawing realistic vector portraits. The usual type of vector portraits created in Adobe Illustrator almost always have hard edged areas (shadows, creases, hair, facial parts like eyes, ears, nostrils, eyebrows etc.) that make them unrealistic, even though they are presented as realistic vector portraits. Adobe's marketing department has managed to successfully sell Illustrator's shortcomings as a feature and, as commonly is the case, the ignorant majority of the market fell for the carefully concocted scam. An example of such an awful portrait you find here. No offence, but I don't think these portraits qualify as realistic, nor do they deserve to be the maistream standard in that conjured category. But as long as most people prefer to think with their spinal cord, such basically ridiculous type of 'artwork' will be considered to be 'great' by those that have no clue of what greatness is. I have been creating realistic vector portraits for years now and examples of what I mean by that can be found in my website; those portraits hardly have any hard edges, which is exactly what does make them realistic. The process described in this blog entry is the first realistic vector portrait that I drew in VectorStyler - the ones on my website were created in Affinity Designer. I am seriously considering switching from the latter program to the former one mentioned in the previous sentence, which is why I am creating the portrait shown below as a test.

Added the darker areas in the hair and began drawing the left ear

In spite of the calculation / rendering problems my computer presents me, I decided to do a little more drawing. The old machine causes the program to freeze often and say that it is not responding (which lasts up to several minutes at best), but I was dissatisfied with the appearance of the previous stage. In this 12th stint I drew some darker accent areas in the hair, so that at least there is a hint into which direction I am taking this 100% vector portrait. Also corrected the lower eyelid of the right eye. I still need to tweak the colours, intensity, gradients in these areas and add more detail, but I'm afraid that would be challenging this archaic device beyond its limits. After the Minisforum mini PC has arrived and has been set up, I will continue to explore the superb Vectorstyler by way of this project.

Added some more shadows and drew the hair base

At this point the program on this very old computer is behaving very strange, which probably is the result of a dramatic lack of computing power, even when all other programs were closed. I ordered a new computer as described above and will continue when that one has arrived. The hair was done according to the technique I described in the seventh stage. It allowed me to draw a gradual transition area between the hair and forehead. The accents in the hair could not be rendered, which confirmed my suspicion that my machine simply was unable to handle the computations.

Tinkering with shadows on the face

Applying subtle shadows on a face, probably is one of the challenges of creating portraits. If a shadow is off just a minute amount in colour, intensity or blur ratio, there is a risk that entire portrait goes down the drain. So, this took me longer than I expected and I still am far from done. I discovered that in the gradient colour tool each node can separately be given a colour but also an opacity level. Nodes can be added by clicking on the gradient indicator line and typing '+', they can be removed from it by simply dragging the node off the line. Very intuitive. The easy way to draw subtle accents probably is to clip one area into an other (several layers of clipping) which also works well and is easier to control. I will try that in the next stage. In the previous stage I wrote that I wished the blur ratio had a bigger range until I discovered that the interactive tool includes nodes on the top and bottom of the reference circle to adjust the range, which is virtually without limit, unfortunately only in one direction. The developer Csaba Ráduly Baka must have advanced artistic skills besides being a brilliant programmer, because these functional details would never have been considered for implementation by a brilliant programmer who has no artistic skills or too little of them.

Added base shadow on mid and left site of the face

This is the seventh stage already. Edited the mouth somewhat. Tweaking the big shadow until I became senseless - with the blur ratio tool (which I wished would have a more extended range), opacity and gradient colours with a proper number of nodes. Probably some clipping of additional objects will be necessary to get things right. I uploaded a tutorial on how to create objects with a varying level of blurriness along their edge in the VectoStyler forum. Had I been more proficient with gradient colour editing (which is present in VectorStyler) I would probably have used it, but to be honest I dislike that tool from my experience with it in other drawing vector programs. I do like the mesh gradient transparency tool, but I still need to  practice it more in order to efficiently use it. I have to leave the image alone for a while and return to it at a later point in time. I'm sure artists are familiar to this type of situation in which the proper settings just elude them, while that seems to be no problem further into the future (I hope). Part of this problem is caused by the fact that I drew the shadow in one piece, in order to minimize the number of objects, which does not always work...... Also, my ancient rig is beginning to struggle, so purchasing a new, more powerful one kind of climbed on my bucket list. First I have to check the budget though, since being able to buy food is important.

Experimenting with dark background

Editing colour intensity of the blurred shadow area at the right side of face mainly to see how that would appear against a dark background. Most of my vector portraits have a transparent background so that I can place them before any type of background and change my mind whenever it seems appropriate to do. Colour balancing therefore is important.

Added mouth and chin line

Besides working on the mouth and chin area and correcting mistakes in the eyes area, I have begun experimenting with mesh transparency, which is an absolutely brilliant function that is present in none of the programs competing with VectorStyler. I will need this function at a later point in this design, but I don't feel familiar enough with it to apply it already. It is just one of the many functions offered by VectorStyler that devs of its competition have not figured out yet how to code. Still a heap to learn for me!

Added shadow to the right side of nose

While tweaking the left eye VectorStyler froze and offered a weird message without saying what was wrong. After closing the program and restarting it, I was offered the option to retrieve a back up, which worked just fine. Immediately the developer responded on the forum and reported a bug. This type of swift support I have never experienced anywhere in my long involvement with software. Great!

Added shadow on the right side of face

Besides adding the shadow on the face' right side did some tweaking of the right eye. Shadowing requires a subtle approach, both in intensity, giving objects a blur ratio and applying colour accents. There still are details that bug me, but I am sure that I will get them sorted out at some point, as I become more familiar with VectorStyler.

Added right eye

Copied left eye to the right. Reshaped elements with the move- and node tool. Adjusted colour accents and lighting, mainly in clipped objects. Renamed copied left eye objects to right eye parts in Layers panel, this because there already are many objects in the drawing that I need to retrieve at a later point in time for further editing, when looking to rebalance colour intensity, because in portraiture moving and reshaping (parts of) objects just a few pixels determines the quality of the likeness, as do do colour accents.

Added shadow behind the left eye

So far, I have mainly been using the Gaussian blur function, object clipping and interactive transparency, all of which work superbly. Many image effect functions - such as blurring - can interactively be fine tuned on the spot, which offers artists the option to exactly and instantly see the result of their tweaking.

Started drawing the face contour and left eye

When drawing realistic vector portraits, I always start with the eyes, because they are the dominant factor in facial features. For drawing I use the pen tool and the node tool to fine tune. Most objects are given a Gaussian blur effect. Colour management in VectorStyler is very easy to use with great precision.

Stage 15 - vector outline

Vin Diesel vector portrait drawn in Affinity Designer

 

This is a work in progress as of November 10 2020 that I began to create in November 9. I'm in the process of drawing a vector portrait of Vin Diesel, the ultimate cool guy in movies, probably because he's cool in real life as well. It is in the process of being created in Affinity Designer (because it's not finished yet as of November 27 2020), aiming to use as little as possible objects (curves and shapes) as possible in this complex work. Purpose for the time being is to create a graphical image that will be used in a T-shirt design. Like the previous portraits I posted in this blog, I may at some point continue to work on the drawing in the future to make it more realistic by adding textures and more detail (by adding custom made vector brushes). For T-shirt design adding too much detail basically is a waste of time. Check out my vector portraits in my webstite and in this blog. The T-shirt designs I submitted to Redbubble. Stay tuned to see updates leading towards the final product. Oldest stage at the bottom, most recent on top.

A few hints

Many shapes are made of curves - (open ended) lines drawn with the pen tool - to which I added various thicknesses, Gaussian blurs, more or less complex gradients, also for strokes, and gradient transparencies. I also applied multi-level clipping (i.e. object in object in object etc.) of objects which allows to go beyond the the complexity of standard gradient fills. Also HSL hue shifts and Brightness & Contrast effects were applied to them. For more complex shapes I drew the closed line objects and applied the same effects to them as mentioned before. In using these techniques the number of objects can be reduced and all that can be done in pixels that can be done in vectors too. In addition, contrary to bitmap images, vector images can be re-scaled to any size without loss of quality. 

Stage 14

Vector outline of portrait

Stage 13 

Stage 11 

Stage 10 

Stage 09 

Stage 08 

Stage 07 

Stage 06 

Stage 05 

Stage 04 

Stage 03 

Stage 02 

Stage 01 

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 

Vector portrait of Mike Ehrmantraut (Breaking Bad)

This is the vector portrait of Jonathan Banks who played Mike Ehrmantraut in 'Breaking Bad'. The portrait was created in Affinity Designer in which I still am experimenting because I continue to discover different ways to create certain effects. In this particular work I often used the clipping of strokes, (custom made) brushes and objects (shapes). I used Gaussian blur a lot on both the clipping objects as the clipped objects, which can go several levels deep without a problem. ALL objects are given the parameter: scale with object, so that the image can in theory be re-scaled to any size without loss of quality.

February 18 2022 - Stage 20 - 20 hours

Some details, like the eyes, are intentionally drawn differently from what they look like in the reference image to enhance the visual impact of the image without giving up likeness. In every portrait the eyes determine 'the look' of the artwork. The choice of more or less differing colours can also be used to create a more dramatic effect. These are among my most used tricks to draw portraits that are more than just accurate copies of photographs. I prefer to create some sort of visual metaphor that reflects the way I perceive characters in an attempt to highlight the essence of their personality by revealing what (I think that) hides behind which is obviously noticeable at first glance, because everyone wears a mask, a fact of which some are not even aware that they do. I like to suggest to the observer to look beyond without encouraging to dissect in an invasive way, because when observing becomes judging one can no longer enjoy art. 

Custom designed vector Brushes can be used as textured shapes in various ways that I may explain in a video tutorial when I have enough money to by a decent cam and get the hang of video editing software. It is a very interesting option for artists that use a lot of organic texture in their artwork, but it is not an obvious thing to do. Affinity Designer is able to handle the unusual array of functions applied quite well; it doesn't crash. This currently (May 09 2020) is a work in progress. It is still far from perfect, but I learned a lot. Again (seems to be a never ending process). The various stages of development you see below - the oldest stage at the bottom, the newest one on top. At the bottom of this page is the vector outline view of stage 13 for the vector initiates. Click on one of the images to enter Google's Lightbox that allows to quickly scroll through the images with the mouse wheel (for those viewing this page on a PC anyway).

May 19 2020 - stage 19 - 19 hours

May 09 2020 - Stage 15 13 - 14 hours of work

May 08 2020 - 13th stage - 11-12 hours so far

Stage 19 vector outline view

Realistic vector portrait of a beautiful woman

After having mostly created logos lately, I finally got to doing what I love most - making vector portraits. In the magnificent Affinity Designer of course that is way ahead of its competition where creating organic images is concerned. Its Gaussian blurring of vector shapes is unsurpassed and the custom gradient colouring and applying of transparency are unmatched, allowing artists to have almost complete control over creating subtle transitions. Illustrator and CorelDRAW don't even come near and I've worked with those programs for decades both professionally and privately. Only the fantastic open source program Inkscape is capable of doing the same, but its UI is still somewhat enigmatic, although its developers have made a lot of improvements in that field recently.

Below you see the progress sequence. The oldest stage at the bottom and the newer ones above that. This currently is a work in progress and I have only began drawing today (March 2020). I am trying out a new style (for me at least) and use techniques that I haven't used in creating vector portraits that I made before. I plan to make tutorials, but have only recently started fiddling with the video editor Olive. I hope to find the time to familiarize myself with this program and compile a tutorial about how to create a realistic vector portrait in Affinity Designer. I've written about this in previous blog posts, but I will present a short recap here of why Affinity Designer is better than Illustrator and CorelDRAW for making realistic vector portraits.

Realistic vector programs can be made in those programs, but only when using mesh-fills, which is a horrendously tedious business. The Affinity Designer functions I mentioned in the first paragraph allow to create realistic portraits AND allow to quickly tinker details afterwards, which is something the competition is unable to do. Creating realistic vector portraits is all about tweaking, so you've come to the right program with Affinity Designer. This is a huge time saver and it prevents headaches. Check regularly to see the progress I will make with this portrait after this day. By the way, the reference image was a rather average photo of the stunningly beautiful artist Monique Klemann who sings in the duo Lois Lane with her (also beautiful) sister Suzanne.

Tip for watching
Click on an image to see it in Google's lightbox. It allows you to flick between stages by using the scroll wheel on your mouse (assuming you're on a PC or Mac). This makes it easy to compare the difference in the stages. Some progress may seem small, but involved much work, which is a characteristic of creating portraits. Tablets and smartphones unfortunately do not allow to scroll in the lightbox.

12th stage March 25 2020

10th stage March 24 2020

9th stage March 22 2020

8th stage March 21 2020

7th stage March 21 2020

6th stage March 20 2020

5th stage March 20 2020

4th stage March 19 2020

3rd update of March 18 2020

2nd update March 18 2020

First stage March 18 2020

Vector outline view of the 12th stage

Notes March 22 2020

The real complexity is in tuning the gradients of each object where it concerns, colour, intensity, direction and positioning. Affinity Designer's approach is however far less tedious and time consuming as Illustrator's and CorelDRAW's that use the mesh-fill technique to create realistic portraits. The portrait on this page so far cost me four days of working on it and off (more off than on actually). Had it been constructed with mesh fills I would have worked on it for a month or longer. The mesh-fill drawing method is translating a cluster of pixels of a similar colour into a vector shape or stroke. This means gradients are all different clusters. Colourful images therefore have an absolutely huge palette. Depending on the subject being drawn, this can require a tremendous amount of drawing. Making changes afterwards as a result also require a shedload time and effort. Due to its available functions Affinity Designer does not force artists to struggle with these particular chores.

The 'new' techniques that I referred to in the second paragraph are textured custom brushes to create and edit irregularly shaped strokes that are too complex to edit with the stroke panel and blurred strokes clipped along the irregularly shaped edge inside an (also blurred) shape to apply a shadow effect. Clipping blurred shapes into other blurred shapes allow to create objects that have a varying level of blurring on their edges, which is quite useful when drawing portraits. It would of course be more clear if I were to demonstrate this is a video clip, but at this point I am still learning to use the video-editor Olive. Once I've mastered that I may create a video tutorial on these techniques.