10.8.08

Etoile de la Mer


Here's another Adobe Illustrator work. I used Illustrator for 100% of it except for one stage during the creation of the face. I drew the face in Illustrator, airbrushed it up using Photoshop, then returned it to Illustrator and used "Live Trace" to get it back to vector where I played with it a little more.

What I was surprised/happy with was the pattern on her dress. I made a little pattern and used the "Envelope Distort - using mesh" option to get it to form around the folds. It turned out way better than anything I'd done using the mesh tool before.

What didn't turn out so well would be the type. Not only did I not plan out the design well enough to account for such a long line of text, but Illustrator isn't great with it's "Envelope Distort - using warp" when you're looking for an arc at 100% (Illustrator type on a path gives odd results as well) so I had to do a lot of fine tuning and it still isn't completely right.

The copy is from the last lines of Spe Salve and the angel on the right was ripped off from a bookplate that I like. The rest was "inspired" by lots of stuff...

Comments/suggestions welcome!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

John Brown, this is fantastic work, I am so impressed and a bit jealous!

theodore said...

This is nice as well. I usually use type on a path for this kind of thing... or is that what you meant?

Jesuit John said...

Type on a path is not what I used here because it spaces letters out in a strange way. But I'm not happy with the spacing here either using the warp (after converting the text to outlines).

It looks a little better when it's in Latin, just because "Maris Stella" lines up smack dab in the middle. Seen here in Latin

Margaret Mayer said...

Jesuit John, this is very nice work. I'm amazed that you did most of this in Adobe Illustrator. This reminds me a little of Icon artwork. I've enjoyed looking at your work.

regina doman said...

Really, really fantastic! I love it! I would buy a print of that one!
Do you publish your stuff? That one would make a great print on Lulu.com.

Jesuit John said...

Thanks, y'all, for the kind comments.

Regina, I don't have a problem with you printing this out. I'm not sure how it will look printed but your are welcomed to use it however you see fit!

Anonymous said...

Hi Jesuit John,

A great piece of Illustrator artwork you've got going here. Type on a path does do some odd spacing to letters but you just need to kern between letters to adjust the spacing when it becomes odd. Just put the text insertion point between two letters and hit the option (or alt) key and the left and right arrow keys to increase or decrease the spacing. The increments are controlled in the preferences Type > Tracking value. I set mine to 5/1000's of an em.

If I was to make one suggestion towards your illustration I'd desaturate the dark blue background a little towards gray. At the moment it's fighting with Maria a bit. Otherwise a stunning piece of work!

Pax Vobiscum!

Meredith said...

I absolutely love all the patterns you made for this image! It's so intricate. However, the face of Mary does not quite match... The strands of hair around the face are not quite right. Thickish strands like that tend to suggest that the hair is greasy. Otherwise, I find the picture very graceful.