Wednesday, February 8, 2012

WEEK 5: Layers- 1st Trace


Craft: The tools I used to trace this photo were the pen, eye dropper, and layers tools in Adobe Illustrator.  I saved the picture of the wolf and placed it in the adobe file.  From there, it was a matter of tracing the outline of the wolf.  Tracing the whole wolf with just one consecutive outline was not the most effective approach.  Therefore, I would work from background to foreground in order to make several layers that would help overlap certain aspects.  I would start with the body, neck, and ears and place the face, mouth, eyes, and nose on top of those in a specific order, so as to not overlap the face over the eyes.  I also used a different arrange of hues and values for both the fill and the pen stroke

Composition: In order to overlap the layers and still bring out the accurate image representing the wolf, I had to trace the outside.  Some segments are made a little bigger in order to avoid overlapping lines.  After accumulated a lot of layers and sublayers, I went back and tried to find the color that best defined the photo's color.  With the eye dropper I managed to give fill to the shapes I had traced out with the pen tool.  The one notable thing I tried to mess around with was the gradient tool to transition from a dark color into a light color.  This transition is in the wolf's face, above the eyes and down towards the nose, expanding out-ward toward the exterior fur.  At this point, I really wanted to bring the wolf to life by making a lot of layers for the eyes.  This detail in the eyes really brings the attention of the spectator.  From the eyes I think the viewer might look at the nose, and how it has shine on it.  The last thing I wanted people to notice was the smooth transition from one color to the next by using values of different hues and gradients.  Mixing different grays allowed me to make a soft blend between hues.




Concept: Screen shot comparing both photograph and trace drawing
Concept: Trace-drawing of a wolf

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