What the hell is wrong with me? I'm referencing my favorite spread of Tamino, the prequel, sorta, to City Silent. While it's been fine so far to simply draw over the original scans of the elements of those pages, I've always wanted to be able to make a print from that spread but have never got around to stitching the pages together to be able to do it. For some reason, I decided to do so tonight. Since I have all the original elements, I thought it would be easier to just vectorize the original scans, which were made at 300 dpi and go from there. And only now do I see the limitations to that program. The top image is a screen shot of the original drawing, livetraced in AI back when I used it. The bottom one is the best I could get it in SuperVectorizer. I was a bit disappointed. Might be that I simply don't know how to fine tune the results from that program as its smoothing of my work has become part of the process as I make comics now. The bottom image was just too muddy and I couldn't deal. Problem was, the originals scans are all cut into four parts to spread over four pages. What's worse, I cut sections out of the drawings corresponding the space between said pages. What to do? Take each section of the outlines, which AD has decided must all now be totally separate bits with their own separate layers, copy them over and try and stitch them together by hand. That ended up looking like this:
It worked out pretty well, and the lines for the buildings, because they're so much more squared off, look fine as they are, so I won't have to be messing with those. The entire panoramic background is one big piece. I'll recolor the whole thing and then think about how I can make a print out of this. I might tweak the colors somewhat as the old version was a bit monochromatic. All in all, even though there's no real reason for me to do this, I'm pleased with the results. I'm just glad that I can still work those files. Someday, I won't be able to any more.
3 comments:
I was thinking how i would do this as i read and its pretty much the same as you. Even working on a new drawing in designer now i often expand the separate lines and merge them into one outline because it simplifies things so much in the end. The vector fill is pretty useful as well. Then i take the coloured fills and add gradients or add shadows and highlights with other techniques. Updating older artwork is always a challenge!
My process really hasn't changed much in over 20 years. It's a good thing and a bad thing, I suppose. But it does mean that I'm able to go back and do stuff like this because I keep all my reference and original scans as well as the original art. I could have just recreated this all from scratch, much easier not having to do that.
My non vector process is still almost identical to my drawing on paper process except for the addition of layers and that stuff. I hated Illustrator, freehand was easier to use but Adobe bought them out so I didn't use it for more than logos for years until you introduced me to Designer and now I use vector a lot so my process with that is pretty new. When I have to recreate a logo I do it from scratch because vector tracing in general just isn't precise enough for a professional client project. I actually enjoy vector work now!
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