Photorealism Challenge: Glass

[Xaran]

I just drew the outline using a glass for reference.

Christine

[T Paul]

Very nicely done! I need to use things as a reference as well. I'm not as strong drawing images from my head...need to see something to really create an accurate drawing. You should give some of the other challenges a try, hint, hint.

~T

[Mark Adams]

I agree this is a well drawn figure. You've got the outline and shape looking very good. I think that in the interest of "photorealism" it might be improved a bit.

The glass that makes up the object looks really thick. The line that defines the rim of the glass looks very heavy. Also, the highlights and shadows appear to be roughly the right shape and in the right locations. As drawn figures they are fine, but would they look more natural if they were actually produced with gradients and burning/dodging over a 50% gray layer?

Again, I think this is a fine looking figure. You've done a truly wonderful job of rendering the shape and roughing in the highlights and shadows that seem to be the key to making these transparent things. It would thrill me to see you get it looking like a transparent 3D object. How about reposting it with a much lighter line defining the rim?

Just curious.

Mark

[T Paul]

Christine,

Mark has some good suggestions. The dark band around the top of the glass doesn't bother me however, as it could be coloring added to the glass. I have a parfait glass that looks exactly like this except that the band is gold. I do agree that the rim as well as the base could be a little thinner in thickness.

I’d love you to try Mark's suggestions as your image is almost there. You just need to soften up the rough edges and work on adding a bit more transparency.

Keep up the good work!


~T

[Mark Adams]

Good point T. Making that black line a cleverly highlighted/shadowed gold gradient would look spiffy. It might also improve realism in this case. I'd love to see it.

Mark

[Punch]

I didn't use PS for this challenge. I recently purchased illustrator and have been trying to learn to use the gradient mesh. Almost everything was built with this tool.

Kent

[NancyJ]

Originally Posted by Punch

I didn't use PS for this challenge. I recently purchased illustrator and have been trying to learn to use the gradient mesh. Almost everything was built with this tool.

Kent

Absolutely perfect! please tell more about this gradient mesh.

[Punch]

Originally Posted by NancyJ

Absolutely perfect! please tell more about this gradient mesh.

Nancy...

I will try. There are two types of mesh tools in AI, the "warp mesh" and the "gradient mesh" which are the same but different. The gradient mesh tool has been around since AI 8 as far as I can discern. It lends itself to very subtle and natural shading. It is made up of "mesh points" which can be of any color. Further each point has direction arrows which control how far the colors bleed into each other. You can add as many mesh points as you need with the results being simple to very complicated. You can move the mesh points to any position you want.

For the water glass image I used the mesh tool in layers [many many layers in AI]. The bubbles are all done with the mesh tool and turned into "symbols" and added as a "symbol set".

I have seen some artwork on the web where they showed the outlines of the artwork but I have yet to figure out how to do it. I have added another image which shows a simple example of the mesh only on the base of the lightbulb.

Here is a very simple tutorial on the gradient mesh. http://www.magicalbutterfly.com/tuto...eshtutmain.htm If you google 'gradient mesh tutorial' you will find a lot of them.

There are quite a few others on the web from simple to using meshes to do portraiture which I am trying to get down. If you promise not to laugh I will show you a work in progress. The face is made up of several meshes and I am having trouble getting them to seam together without a line.

Kent

[T Paul]

Punch,

Love the glass! Excellent work!!

~T

[goose443]

No a glass exactly but glasses. I took things one step further and not only does it have no photos but no photo references either.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/att...chmentid=25696

I hope this counts.

[goose443]

Originally Posted by Punch

I didn't use PS for this challenge. I recently purchased illustrator and have been trying to learn to use the gradient mesh. Almost everything was built with this tool.

Kent

Great Job Kent. The Gradient Mesh can be a real bear to use. I played around with it for a while but lost interest pretty quickly. This is the best I could do with it. The only advantage I can really see is the editablitly and scalability but I don't know if it's worth the amount of points and tweaks necessary.

Kudos on the glass though. Excellent job.

[oltenius]

This is my glass that was made with no 3D programs. I used pen tool, more and more times, I adjusted curvatures, adding layers style> shadows, bevel and emboss, color gradient on the body of glass, adding brushes to simulate mineral water, textures to background... Regards.

[Punch]

Originally Posted by goose443

No a glass exactly but glasses. I took things one step further and not only does it have no photos but no photo references either.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/att...chmentid=25696

I hope this counts.

Counts... good work.

Kent

[creeduk]

Punch - I have used Illustrator on and off for years I never would have thought to do this glass challenge with it so I have to say hat s off excellent job. Very nice tutorial link as well. I also use 3D render/animation tools so I guess I jump straight to them when doing this kind of thing, sometimes we have to challenge ourselves to use other tools to achieve different results. Excellent work. I think if that was then taken to photoshop and a background added you would get some high levels of realism.

Goose what did you use to do the glasses? Great image.

[goose443]

Originally Posted by creeduk

Goose what did you use to do the glasses? Great image.

Thanks Creeduk. I just used Photoshop. Sometimes I'll start off in Illustrator though if I remember correctly this one is just Photoshop and my head.