Vector Versus Vexel Illustrations: Awesome Portraits for Inspiration | You The Designer

Vector Versus Vexel Illustrations: Awesome Portraits for Inspiration

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 07:31 PM PDT

Creating vector and vexel artworks takes up a lot of time, depending on how much one is accustomed to the craft. An artist needs to know how to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop quite well to be able to create such pieces. Not to mention, artists need to have a lot of patience.

So what’s with vectors and vexels, anyway? What makes them both important to the world of illustration? Let’s find out.

Vexel Illustrations That’ll Blow You Away (Figuratively)

The word vexel has been derived from the words vector and pixel and are primarily done in Photoshop. One needs to master the use of the pen tool to be able to come up with the desired shapes and lines. These in turn are created on raster layers through a technique similar to a vector technique. It is expected that one stays true to the use of the pen tool and less (or none at all) of the brush tool, smudge tool, or other tools in Photoshop, though some artists have their own way of doing things, still. What we are sure of is that vexel artworks should be created in a larger canvas size, ideally larger than 700px, since these artworks are not scalable.

Here are some awesome vexels. They were originally created by their respective artists in far larger sizes. To check the original work (at least as they have been originally uploaded by their respective artists), please check the links as indicated below each image.

View Source

Vector Artworks That Rock

If vexels are hard work, then we don’t know what vectors are.

Vectors are based on mathematical equations so complex that they allow your work to be scalable to whatever size you wish, thus, making it easier to reproduce. It is for that reason that many artists prefer vector over vexels.

Here are some awesome samples of vector portraits: