Advice on how to blow this up for side art

[Dervacumen]

I'm interested in using this for the side art on my cabinet.  Just the guy on the left, after removing the call out bubbles.  I'm pretty bad at using graphics tools, but will take a stab at it providing someone can give me some advice on the approach.

I'd like to vectorize and color it, so I tried the Illustrator 30 day tryout and attempted to live trace it, but the results weren't that good.  I then tried to adjust the live trace vectors, and I made things much worse.

I heard from someone that I could trace this on a piece of paper, then scan it in with high resolution (say 1200dpi) or something, and then I could print it out poster size and it would look okay.  Has anyone tried this, and if so is it worth spending the time on, or will it look like crap?

Thanks for any direction,
Derv

[mccoy178]

It may take ten years, but using the vector tutorial at the top of the artwork forum would definitely work for this.  There is no shading, just hours of tracing.  You gotta put the time in.

[Dervacumen]

Okay.  I used my 30 day tryout with Illustrator with the tutorials.  Then, I spent some more time with the tutorials and had no luck...until I had a revelation!

Upon reading again, and again, and...you get the picture, I realized I have to complete loops.  I had trouble before trying to add a vector to an existing vector, but now I understand I should make several layers, and each layer needs to have vectors that complete a path.

I think I can do this, but like mccoy178 said it may take several years.  I'm hoping it's a little less than that.  I'll likely streamline the artwork a bunch to get the feel while at the same time significantly reducing the time.  Effort I don't mind.  Time on the other hand...

I've recently come across Illustrator 7 at a great price (old but free).  Once I get over this flu I'll start working on it.  If I see it being not worthwhile, well then, I'll just cover the damn thing in fur.  Already got that ready to go.

Thanks for making me revisit the tutorials mccoy178.  Wheter or not I'm up to the task is another question.

If I'm way off base, please let me know before I go forward.

Tks,
Derv

[mccoy178]

Awesome!  I taught myself how to use photoshop (for what I needed anyways), and illustrator, and it was a bear at first.  Once I figured some stuff out, I fell in love with it.  We're getting married in June.  My parents say there's no future for us, but I still have plenty of friends and family I want to photoshop, so at least we'll have the honeymoon.

[NinjaEpisode]

Awesome!  I taught myself how to use photoshop (for what I needed anyways), and illustrator, and it was a bear at first.  Once I figured some stuff out, I fell in love with it.  We're getting married in June.  My parents say there's no future for us, but I still have plenty of friends and family I want to photoshop, so at least we'll have the honeymoon.

I didn't know that they allowed polygamy in Ohio.

[escher]

Okay.  I used my 30 day tryout with Illustrator with the tutorials.  Then, I spent some more time with the tutorials and had no luck...until I had a revelation!

Upon reading again, and again, and...you get the picture, I realized I have to complete loops.  I had trouble before trying to add a vector to an existing vector, but now I understand I should make several layers, and each layer needs to have vectors that complete a path.

I think I can do this, but like mccoy178 said it may take several years.  I'm hoping it's a little less than that.  I'll likely streamline the artwork a bunch to get the feel while at the same time significantly reducing the time.  Effort I don't mind.  Time on the other hand...

I've recently come across Illustrator 7 at a great price (old but free).  Once I get over this flu I'll start working on it.  If I see it being not worthwhile, well then, I'll just cover the damn thing in fur.  Already got that ready to go.

Thanks for making me revisit the tutorials mccoy178.  Wheter or not I'm up to the task is another question.

If I'm way off base, please let me know before I go forward.

Tks,
Derv

Any general tips you can give?  I'm also doing some black and white outlined tracing, and I feel like it's beyond me.  I'm not exactly the next Rembrant (hell, the kids next door do better with sidewalk chalk than I could), and I'm trying to decide if this is something I can actually pull off.

The images I'm working with are also very tiny, so even the 1 pixel (or point?) line is quite big.  I feel like that might make it seem awkward when it's blown up, but I know next to nothing about vectors so I may be wrong.

[mccoy178]

Awesome!  I taught myself how to use photoshop (for what I needed anyways), and illustrator, and it was a bear at first.  Once I figured some stuff out, I fell in love with it.  We're getting married in June.  My parents say there's no future for us, but I still have plenty of friends and family I want to photoshop, so at least we'll have the honeymoon.

I didn't know that they allowed polygamy in Ohio.

Good point!  Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free!

[Dervacumen]

So on a whim I downloaded Inkscape and tried it out.

First I loaded the raw image in paint (of all things) and removed all the stuff I didn't want (like the broads on the right.)  Actually, I do want those broads, but that's another thread.  For this project, I had to remove them.  I used the simple eraser to get rid of the callout bubbles, and the drawing pen to draw the piece of the jacket that was covered by the "Pimp Hats" bubble.

Then I loaded it into Inkscape and vectorized it using the automatic vector tracing tool.

Here's my progress so far.  From download to this stage is about 2 hours.  That includes learning the program, fiddling with options, etc.  For my money, it's much easier than Illustrator.  I've got to tweak some lines and finanlize colors / gradients, but it's probably not going to take me 10 years.

[mccoy178]

Wow, that's rather impressive.  Looks like I'm going to have an affair.