Adobe illustrator Vector Graphics (cartoon portrait)

This post will focus on a comparison between vector graphics and raster graphic and how the two are different. The difference between these two forms of graphics are that vector graphics are made up of lines and shapes so that when re-sized will not lose quality whereas raster graphics will lose quality and become pixelated  this is due to raster images being made up of small dots, An example of this will be shown through an example of my work below.

The top image on the was created using adobe illustrator which is a programme that uses vector graphic software, using the pen tool as it abled me to create the cartoon portrait of myself. The image i created is a vector this means that the image can be stretched (made bigger) or shrunk down (made smaller) without the resolution being distorted or losing quality. The original photo on the right was represented through Bit Maps (also known as Raster Graphics) which means that the image is made up of small dots that when resized will lose quality, where as the left image will not. You can see an example of this  in the images below as the first image is the original photo i used which was represented through raster graphics and as you can see when zoomed in losses its quality as it becomes pixelated whereas the finished image below that was created using vector graphics and does not loose its quality when zoomed in. 

The first step to creating this portrait was to take a picture of myself using an application on the Mac called 'Photo Booth'. The next step i took was to upload the photo to Adobe Illustrator and used the pen tool to create shapes to match my face as you can see in the image to the left.

Using the pen tool i can match the curves and lines of my face easily as i just click to where i would like the line to follow. This is how vector graphics works by using lines and shapes this is due to vector graphics being created (made up of paths) and can be used to create logos and go on business cards as images using vector graphics do not become pixelated when resized.

Then once i created the main facial features and face using this method i then started to add more layers and depth to my nose (such as to add shadowing). To do this i removed the layers temporarily so that i could see were the shadowing was.

                                         

Once i had finished the image using Adobe illustrator i had created the image in the top right hand corner which was now a vector image.