Self Portrait:
For my self portrait, I started with an image of myself, then I vectored my whole face and neck. I chose vectoring because I like the style, I think it gives it a great sort of lifelike but simplistic image. By chance, the original lighting kept one half of my face lighter and the other darker, which I really liked because the split lines up with my hair part, which I utilized in the background. For the background, I decided to chose two things that make me think, that being space and music. The division of the background is dictated by the parting of my hair, with a galaxy on the long side, and words on the short. I pulled the image of the galaxy from NASA and used Photoshop filters to make it more simplistic, and fit with the vector style. The lyrics on the right side are from “We Don’t Believe What’s on TV” by twenty one pilots. I’m not the biggest twenty one pilots fan out there, but I’ve always really liked the lyrics to this song, which describe concerns about the failure /changing of our dreams and the support and love of those you care about (If you’re interested you can view the lyrics here: https://genius.com/Twenty-one-pilots-we-dont-believe-whats-on-tv-lyrics). For my hair, I sampled a drawing of the texture of wood. This is just a visual I really like, but my childhood home, that my family no longer owns, had a lot of wood in it, and I always loved the patterns as a kid. I was really interested in how the texture could be used here to mimic that of hair. For this I adjusted the hue and saturation of the wood to give it a brown purple tint (brown for my hair, purple for the image theme (also my favorite color)), then I created a clipping mask to encompass my hair. Finally I vectored the jacket I’m wearing, and placed a sampled and altered image of vintage flowers on the jacket. I changed the coloration of the flowers and used a filter to adjust them to fit the theme I set for the photo. Then I overlaid it on the jacket. I chose flowers because anyone who knows me knows I wear way to much floral, and I liked how it added to the bottom half of the image.
Sources:
Galaxy: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/fireworks-galaxy-ngc6946.html
Wood: https://www.vexels.com/vectors/preview/76794/wood-texture-drawing
Flowers: http://moziru.com/explore/Vintage%20Flower%20clipart%20transparent/
There is an impressive contrast between the lightness of your face and the background, with your hair as the middle ground. I believe the image is balanced in a cool asymmetrical way. The density of the words in the right side of the background balances with the way your hair is parted.
This is a very impressive vector tracing portrait and shows a real dedication of time! I really enjoy the color scheme you have chosen to use throughout the piece because it creates a real sense of unity. I like how at a first glance you don’t notice the text because of how the color is balanced with the space background.
The background is always the hardest part for me when I’m creating something. You did a great job at picking the colors and patterns for the background and it really allows your face to stand out, yet still has significant impact on the meaning of the image.
You can clearly tell that a lot of time was spent creating this piece, and it definitely shows! You handled translating the various shadows on your face into vector tracings very well. I think the leftmost part of the words could be faded a bit into the starry background. Otherwise, this is a great piece!
For me the most striking component of the image is the balance across it in different ways. The hair and lyrics are very linear and regular, while the floral shirt and the galaxy are more erradic. This frames the vector face in the middle, which is simplified but clearly the focus of the piece. Well done!
Your work is very impressive. The detail on the hair is very subtle but also not. I really like how you did your shading of your face and how it is not a smooth gradient. Well done
You did a great job incorporating all of the techniques we learned into one cohesive piece. The texture on your hair looks great and contrasts the simplicity of the vector art.