May 22 2007Photo-realistic Illustrator art
Yukio Miyamoto creates photo-realistic pictures using Adobe Illustrator. He starts by tracing out shapes over photographic references and then fills them with gradients and blends to create the final product. Keep in mind that Illustrator isn't a 3D modeling program. These were created in 2D using nothing but gradients and blends. And what I can only assume is some form of computer sorcery.
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Reader Comments
1. vanman - May 22, 2007 6:00 AM
All that work to end up with the picture he started with.
2. ojwk - May 22, 2007 6:16 AM
Amazing considering what you can do with that image now it is a vector graphic. Must have taken ages to complete though.
3. wooljay - May 22, 2007 6:33 AM
three words: not. worth. it.
4. Tall Face - May 22, 2007 6:49 AM
one word: prettyfuckingincredibleifyouaskme.
5. Gimpy - May 22, 2007 7:03 AM
It is pretty freakin amazing, never seen something done in illustrator look so 3D. It does open the image up to a large variety of uses. Now you can blow the image up to the size of a building and not loose any resolution...
awesome!
6. chris - May 22, 2007 7:46 AM
This one is the best:
http://venus.oracchi.com/Illustrator/mechanical/nagra.htm
7. Wide Mouth - May 22, 2007 8:32 AM
Full. On. Mentalist.
8. vanman - May 22, 2007 9:09 AM
What a bunch of half-assed pictures.
9. Joe Mamma - May 22, 2007 11:07 AM
What is the point of this? I am not amazed.
10. Tom - May 22, 2007 4:55 PM
My man must really like the pen tool! I can't believe he took the time to trace that texture by hand. I'd like to see the gradient meshes as well.
11. Imagine - May 22, 2007 5:21 PM
Somebody PLEASE tell me that the top pic is not the final result.
I just browsed thru the source website and it shows some ridiculous pics that look so freaking real... there's NO WAY that dude did that with just Illustrator.
The outline is nice and all but I think the actual work this guy does in the picture-like images... this is surreal....
12. Vahn M. - May 22, 2007 5:58 PM
That's f*cking amazing. The only thing I don't like is the shadow under the lense, where two parts merge, since that seems a little realistic, but then again, I don't have a model of that camera to see the accuracy of the peice. Still, that's amazing.
13. so the frick what - May 23, 2007 11:36 AM
So this guy knows a bit about tracing and Bezier curves, no reason to give him the Nobel Prize or anything. Quit wetting your pants.
14. caffeine - May 25, 2007 4:05 PM
that's really good. a very focused artist.
15. BRP - June 1, 2007 12:41 PM
That's pretty good, but I wouldn't call it amazing. Like many people have already said, it's an insane amount of work to end up with the image he started with. Unless the guy is SUPER fast and works for peanuts, there's really very little application for this.
Oh, and if you want impressive, there are images of people that almost reach this level of photorealism (some do reach this level, down to skin texture) that are done with Illustrator as well. Hunt those down.
16. Groonk - June 2, 2007 8:28 AM
computer sorcery.
INDEED!
17. LC - July 24, 2007 4:42 AM
i work in adobe illustrator and unless he's workin with version 8, transparencies and feathering effects makes it actually quite doable. when i was a watch designer i knew ppl who could do some seriously amazing stuff.
but i see no point in replicating an existing object in adobe illustrator to this point either.
18. AquVila - March 6, 2008 8:48 AM
cool, nice work ;)
19. matt - March 24, 2008 6:08 PM
The reason you'd do that much work to replicate the original image is he can now blow it up to the size of a billboard, and it would still look good! No pixelation.