UPDATED: 1st time Illustrator user and I designed this.. what do you think?

[GGKoul]

Hello

I have no skill in creating artwork or drawings  And I just got Illustrator from a friend of mine.  

Having never used Illustrator before, the image below comes from me playing with some images I've collected and merging them together and playing with some of the different effects settings within Illustrator...  It's part Tron, part Fusion & part Frosty.  

What do you think?  

Also, how do you check and modify the size (Width & Length) of an image within Illustrator?  As I see the ruler option but I'm not sure how I can resize the image to fit my measurements.  Will I lose anything in terms of image sharpness if I increase or decrease the image size?  If so, is there a way I can resize the image without losing sharpness?  

Many Thanks!
-GGKoul

[Felsir]

I really like the background picture! The floating-spiral of hexes. Neat!
I would do away with the 'tron' lines, they disturb the image and do not really fit the colour scheme.

[GGKoul]

I actually like the tron lines.. since it matches what I have painted on the side of my cab.

[BobbyG66]

Yea, that green line is kinds freaking out my eyes. It is a little distracting, I saw it then followed it to see here it went...

As far as resizing and stuff, start with displaying the rulers. Change the rulers to show inches or whatever you're comfortable with. Then set up guides and created a box the size you want.

The next thing to do (Which I just learned from Stingray, thanks ) is to "Scale Stroke Weight". Go to File > Preferences > General, then put a check in the box next to "Scale Stroke Weight".
This will keep the lines you've drawn to the right scale. Otherwise they will become thinner if you increase the scale and fatter if you decrease.

After all that make sure everything is unlocked, then select all. You can then resize by holding down the shift key and clicking and dragging a corner. This keeps everything at the same scale.
You can then modify as needed to fit your box.

Hope this helps
Bob

[Stingray]

LOL! I just started to suggest that you set your prefs to "scale stroke weight".   To add to what BobbyG66 said, no you won't lose any sharpness when you scale vector art. That's what's so great about working in vector format.

I like your design lines and all. Goes well with the racing stripes on your cab.

-S

[nipsmg]

I like the MAME logo.. -- looks great.

The background, however, is prior art (Although you never claimed it to be *yours*, you never gave credit where it was due.  It's always good to do that)
 

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=13;action=display;threadid=7412

Not bad tho for a first time illustrator user.

--NipsMG

[GGKoul]

Thanks for the feedback.  

In my orginial message,  I stated that this was created using a collection of images and I merged them together... Also stated that it's part Tron ( Tron Lines)  Part Fusion (Fusion's wonderful background that he sent me and I hosted for him) and part Frostys'  (As Frostillicus created the Mame logo)

So I did give credit and by all means did not state that I created all this images.  I just merged them together and played with some of the features with Illustrator.

-GGKoul

[nipsmg]

Oh I know, trust me I wasn't accusing you of plagarising and stealing.. note:

The background, however, is prior art (Although you never claimed it to be *yours*, you never gave credit where it was due.  It's always good to do that)

Not like you HAVE to do anything, but this also helps other people who would like to use the original artist's graphic.

Just making a statement, not meant as an attack.

--NipsMG

[GGKoul]

Hello All,

I just wanted to Thank everyone in this forum for assisting me in creating my cabinet artwork.  As there was always someone around to answer my Newbie Illustrator questions & help with my problems.


And to all those people who are scared of using Illustrator & Photoshop.  The programs are very simple to use. Just start by working with an existing AI file from the Vector Library. And play with all the layers of that image and try out some of the functionality in the various menus. Once you've discover how easy it is to modify and existing images.  Then you can branch out and add your own flavour to the artwork.  

I've spent many long hours playing with Illustrator, but now I have a general knowledge of the product and I'm capable enough to do some damage.  I'm no Pixelhugger or Frosty yet, but you never know it the future...  

The final images of my artwork can be seen via this link:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=17735

Thanks!
-GGKoul

[patrickl]

As to the resizing question, this artwork looks for the most part based on the raster image background. If you didn't get that at a really high resolution you might have some problems scaling this to a full size print, but if I remember correctly the orginal art was pretty high res.