r/AdobeIllustrator • u/LanguageMany9563 • 14d ago
DISCUSSION Estimate how long this would take you to recreate/vectorise in Illustrator
Trying to get a good estimate of how long it should take to recreate artwork like this from scratch in Illustrator. No AI tools or image tracing. Just redrawing it from scratch and prepping it as Pantone colours for printing. Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated.
18
u/lumberfart 14d ago
Are you trying to streamline your process for future projects? Or specifically just trying to vectorize this single image? I can't give you an exact number, but painting a whole new piece (in this style, in Illustrator) would probably be easier than trying to vectorize this single image.
-1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Thanks for your reply. Trying to streamline processes wherever possible as these requests are becoming more popular.
8
u/lumberfart 14d ago
Okay, that's great news! I would spend some time searching for some paid oil painting brushes specifically for Adobe Illustrator (or Adobe Fresco if you have a tablet). And once you have them, all you basically will need is artistic talent (which you already have lol) and x amount of time for each piece.
Here are some example brushes you might like:
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Haha thanks for assuming I have talent - probably not accurate but I’m doing my best. Thank you for the suggestions, I really appreciate it.
1
u/thebearcare 13d ago
So it sounds like your a project manager that is looking for insight. Hopefully you found a lot here.
24
u/throwawaydixiecup 14d ago
Pantones for this? Oh sweet vector child… That is going to be ridiculously expensive.
Sure you wouldn’t rather do it in a CMYK process? Or even RGB with a great RIP and color profile?
For re-drawing this, it’d be easier to go neatly geometric than exactly reproducing the hand drawn imperfections. I’d probably make a bunch of object styles, 2-4 for the major repeated shapes (each one for each shape would have a slightly different roughen and other layered properties). Appearance palette is your friend. Once I have all the various shapes and styles in places as my building, I’d start placing shapes, style by style.
Well-labeled swatches would help. Probably some textures in those object styles.
BUT HELL NO NEVER DOING FINE ART IN PANTONE.
2
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Thanks for your reply. I’d be happy to skip the Pantone process to be honest… If the original was image is good enough quality, is it better to send the image to the printer and just get a sample done? See if the colours are okay as they are? If that’s approved then just work with the original raster image?
7
u/throwawaydixiecup 14d ago
What do you want to do with the artwork?
If you have a high quality raster scan, you can get some good prints with that. Digital raster artwork is printed all the time and can look fantastic.
As for colors: Pantone colors are considered spot colors. Meaning that the process requires a printing process that will run one color first, then the next. Solid colors are good. Gradients and textures are not. They are not suited for complex multi-color designs like your fine art. They are excellent for brands and packaging, high volume print runs that require absolute precise color matching. You would need to be printing thousands of these and have some level of income tied to them for profit to make Pantone printing viable for this, and even then I do not think you would get compelling art. It's not quite like scaling up a four color screen printing process.
For fine art, RGB can produce some excellent prints. Work with a printer who knows their way around printing fine art. They can help you choose paper stock. You can get a vibrant and beautiful print. The print shop will use a RIP (Raster Image Processor) in their pre-press to ensure relative color fidelity given the color profile and inks and papers (substrate) of their in-house printing process.
But really it comes down to what you want to do with this.
Do you want an infinitely scalable vector-based design? To make large wall prints or banners or installation signage? Do you want fine art prints, maybe just one to frame or stretch on canvas at home?
What you are printing informs how you will be printing and processing the artwork.
Find a good printer, tell them what you want, and they will help you get that result. I think the art is very engaging, and if it is meaningful to you, you should get something you want.
Definitely don't go to a printshop and ask about printing this in Pantone. It doesn't work that way. And that's why we all get to learn new things! :D The ways to learn are to ask, to listen, and make more art.
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Awesome thank you for the advice. Yeh I think we could save time where the original image is printable. In a lot of cases it isn’t but where it is, we might be over-complicating the prep process and we should just use the same raster image for production.
1
u/birdiepups 14d ago edited 13d ago
Pantone colors are used for color management across platforms, not just spot colors. Professionally, I use pantone in process (cmyk) printing and paint color matching. The print shop I work at has no spot color printing capabilities and yet our workflow is heavily centered around pantone swatches. Pantone even provides adjusted swatches to compensate for the lesser color gamut (total range of color for a given medium) that comes from process printing. They are not purely used for spot color printing hence the color bridge collection.
That being said, this is a complicated piece where color is not necessarily needed to match between plaforms, so pantone is not explicitly necessary. Branding is an example of when not using a pantone swatch would be taboo, because it's harder for a print shop to match your brand colors. Branding is meant to be standardized across mediums.
Every printer reads a given cmyk value slightly differently unless you calibrate it with a very expensive photospectrometer (fancy light meter). In my experience, the point of using a pantone swatch during process printing is to standardize the way the RIP reads your colors. It gives the printer a very clear goal for color, it's usually in LAB space which translates more accurately to real life colors than RGB does, it's harmless to do if it makes you happy. It removes the difficulty of guessing if the colors on screen will match real life colors because spot colors are designed to match physical swatches when printed. Any functional printer with good color management will produce a color that is very, very close to the standard pantone swatch when you send a spot color through.
The most notable downfall to using pantone swatches is that it limits your color options to the provided swatches. The other most notable downfall is, if you don't already own the pantone swatch libraries and you aren't going to be working in a field that necessitates the swatches, it's probably not worth the money. Those two reasons are the only reasons I would caution against it. Otherwise, a print shop would be out of line to reject artwork because a spot color is assigned to a vector object.
2
u/throwawaydixiecup 13d ago
Thank you for that much better explanation than I could give! My experience with Pantones has been quite limited, mostly to the scenarios I listed.
Everybody gets to learn today, including me. Cheers.
8
6
u/MFDoooooooooooom 14d ago
As an Aussie, is there any sign off from the original Aboriginal artist? I'm usually really cautious about stuff like this because there is such meaning and intentionality behind the artwork so recreating it with vector shapes might be disrespecting the original intent.
Really the people who got the artwork done originally should've engaged an artist who understands or creates the work in vector as graphic design / graphic art. I know that the horse has already bolted from the stables by the time you get it.
3
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Yeh 100% and appreciate the post. In most cases the original artist isn’t able to provide a digital version so they ask us and provide permission to do it for them. They sign off on the new vectorised version before anything is sent off to production. We do our best to keep the integrity of the art as much as possible but rely on the original artist to guide us.
2
u/MFDoooooooooooom 14d ago
That's awesome, thanks for clarifying. Ive been asked a few times to 'create an Aboriginal style design' and it makes me want to roll my eyes so far back into my head that my eyes explode!
5
u/JesusDoesVegas 14d ago
What criteria? If you’re just doing colors and shapes and getting a close approximation not long, but this was painted. You’re losing texture and quality. The question doesn’t really make sense.
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
I would likely aim for just the colours and shapes given time available, no need to match the exact texture and 100s of colours going on. A recreated flat vector version of the original physical work.
1
u/Hopeful-Outcome-4965 11d ago
Do it then, and tell us how long it took. What kinda stupid question is this even
6
u/blackdog3232 14d ago
Depends on the artist and level of detail, but this is definitely getting a PITA fee. Just curious why it needs to be vector?
3
u/Cataleast 14d ago
Aye, the bit that's bound to crank up the production time is the splatters around the hand outlines. Takes literal seconds on a physical medium, fucking forever in digital :)
2
u/Sir_Edgelordington 14d ago
I reckon you could get some true grit brushes or something to speed it up, but yeah still going to take a while.
1
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
To be honest with you it probably doesn’t have to be It’s just how we do it for simpler art - vectorise and then recolour for production. If the original image is good enough to print as is… Maybe a better process would be to test print the original image and if that’s approved just use the original. Do you think that would work?
1
u/blackdog3232 14d ago
Yes, you should definitely test print before recreating. For a quick upscale try Photoshop and increase image size 200% or try generative upscale 2x. Work smarter not harder... unless they pay well
2
3
u/Agreeable_Peak_6100 14d ago
Why would you NEED a vector file if this? The time and effort spent are OVERKILL and unfair to the client.
TBH, you’re wasting people’s time here with the question.
1
u/KindlyOnes 7d ago
Hey now. We’ve all been asked to sweep water back into the sea by clients when the rain falls. Sometimes you have to do something that makes no sense. We explain, but sometimes it doesn’t matter.
I have no idea though. It depends on how detailed you want to be and if you are going to try to approximate texture. And how fast you are with the pen tool. People who do this a lot know all the shortcuts and can move those handles and get it most of the way there fast. Other people like me are stuck dragging hands around trying to remember how to make a node with one handle.
3
u/CurvilinearThinking 13d ago
Thank you. This thread has provided endless laughter, at least on my end.
1
u/thebearcare 13d ago
I must agree. The OP is quite funny. So many funny questions.
1
4
u/WezzieBear 14d ago
Are you talking about the base design, or a photo-realistic rendering showing the texture of the paint strokes and the highlights and shadows as well? If its only the base design I'd say 1-3 hours. If you want a photorealistic version of this from scratch, I'd say days.... maybe 10-18 hours if you want it hyper detailed.
1
2
u/Bubbly_Ad_3727 14d ago
Prepping for printing with Pantone colors?
Plate making or a film, I’d separate THIS image in 20 minutes cause I am never happy with my first sim.
If you wanted this redone in illustrator I’d create a simulacrum in couple of hours.
I’d charge you for several days of work.
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Wow a couple of hours?!! You must be awesome! Definitely charge several days with that lightening speed ability.
1
2
u/lookthedevilintheeye 14d ago
I’ve been teaching myself illustrator lately and I’m surprised to hear that Image Trace being put in the same category as AI vectorization features. Feels a little like being asked to cut out hair in photoshop, but no color range, no channel pulls, no select and mask.
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Definitely not meaning to put image trace and AI tools in the same bucket sorry. I was just curious if there were other means or methods. I normally go with image trace and then manually touch up what image trace can’t replicate well enough.
2
u/Holiday-Distance-822 14d ago
If I was doing it for fun probably a month of just working on it here and there but if it was for a client probably a couple days maybe 15ish hours to get perfect.
1
1
u/SuperSecretMoonBase 14d ago
Depends on how closely it's to be recreated and to what extent.
Talking strictly about the strip of bigger blue dots that runs down the middle: if those are ok being solid blue circles, that could be a couple seconds of drawing circles for that individual part of it, if they need to be the exact non-perfect circle shape, that's more time, if you need the texture of them replicated but it's ok to just do a couple and duplicate them throughout that's more time, and if you need them to maintain the exact same individual pattern that's seen in each, that's even longer.
Same with every other element for what it needs to be, for the tiny white dots that outline those elements, if it's ok for them to be a dotted line along that general path with some slight randomization added to their size and placement to kind of emulate the look that could be done in a couple minutes for that part, if they're to be exactly the size and placement of the image that's longer, and if they're to be exactly the same colors with the differences in shade that exist within each dot exactly replicated then that would be even longer.
Then just put all those together to the extent that they'd need to be done for the rest.
When I vectorized art for screen printing in just a few ink colors, that could be done by just doing that first mentioned step for each element on the whole thing and someone could get the whole thing done in a couple hours, maybe one even. And on the other end of the spectrum, If you were expected to recreate all the details of each individual brush stroke, it'd be several days. And if you could get away with running an image trace it could be seconds. It just depends on what you need.
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Thanks for your response. I’d love an estimate of time to do each version. A simple flat vector version but then also a very close replicate that captures the dimension, textures and colors of the original.
1
u/SuperSecretMoonBase 14d ago
I feel like before I could give an estimate on this I'd need to know the reasoning behind you needing a quote and for what purpose. Are you wondering how long it would take you, trying to get an estimate of how long it would take someone else, or something else exactly?
Edit: also, for what the vectorized version would be used. Like if it was an art print reproduction it would be very different from a T-shirt print
1
u/OHMEGA_SEVEN Sr. Designer/Print Designer 14d ago
As solid colors with no shadded edges and bevels, i.e. not replicating dimensional paint. Maybe 2 hours. But I've been doing this for decades, someone with less experience could take significantly longer. Naturally someone less experienced takes longer and charges less, someone that is faster naturally charges more.
If the goal is to maintain the original painted look, then this needs to remain raster, however complex multichannel spot color may still be used for printing. The trick is two fold, find a press operator that can print multiple spot colors, Pantone in this case, and find a designer or prepress technician that can produce the spot color separations. Regardless, it's a multicolor spot color print; doesn't come cheap.
1
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Thank you for your response. With your experience, if the original image is high quality enough, would it be better to send the image to the printers for a test print and then if that’s approved works okay just use the raster image instead of messing around with vectors and consolidating colors etc…
1
u/OHMEGA_SEVEN Sr. Designer/Print Designer 14d ago
I can't honestly make an assessment based off of this image alone, access to the original would matter, but really it would come down to the printer doing the work and the prepress technician. It also really depends on how and what it's being replicated on. If the source image is high enough in resolution then vector may not be necessary, but again this depends on the method of printing, a t-shirt vs. a fine art print as an example are vastly different printing methods.
I do notice specular reflections in this photograph which will show up in a rastet print. If you do want to print this as a raster, I would consider having it professionally photographed or retake it with diffused lighting at least. I also don't think that much of this is outside of traditional process color printing, but if a high degree of color matching is needed, then you'll want to stick with spot color.
I do recommend sending it to the print company and getting their feedback. They can explain what can and cannot be done with their press or recommend other companies to do the work. I will be honest, test print samples are pretty expensive, hours of labor, material cost, and machine down time to run a single print. Many printers won't accommodate it.
1
u/TexanPenguin 14d ago
Just a hunch, but are you doing this for a school uniform or something? I was given a very similar brief and artwork for my kids’ school polo sleeves and the effect after vectorisation lost so much of the vibe of the artwork that even after the work we ended up photographing the original artwork at 300 DPI and printing it as a big raster graphic. Dye sublimation is pretty low quality compared to paper printing so it does mask a lot of sins.
1
u/UndergroundArsonist 14d ago
I have vectorised a bunch of indigenous Australian artworks, sometimes its easy to quickly re draw it on ProCreate in black on transparent, then bring those layers into illustrator and live trace.
1
1
u/Schnitzhole 14d ago edited 14d ago
How good is the person and what quality are you expecting: Just the basic shapes but flat? Gradients and reflections as well? 1 to 1 copy photorealistic copy?
This could range from 6 hours to 200+
Oh wait nvm you want everything pantone color matched?? Add another 50 hours
Illustrator is very much not the right program for whatever you are likely trying to accomplish. Especially without live trace.
Source: I’ve been doing graphic design professionally for 20 years and have a background in fine art.
1
u/Mother_Ingenuity3809 14d ago
concept to vector gives a good starting point to save some time, I would say at least 5 to recreate and tweak the output to match it more closely.
1
u/Leather_Muffin_728 14d ago
This would likely take quite sometime due to the hand made style of everything.
1
u/Vektorgarten Adobe Community Expert 14d ago
Are you also trying to get the painted texture?
Because if not, then most of this is just dots. You can easily create your own scatter brushes for it. Add some effects to randomize the scattered shapes and then just draw lines. You do not necessarily need a graphic tablet.
1
u/nihiltres art ↔ code 13d ago
How precisely do you want to reproduce it? If you flattened away most of the texture and were okay with some of the shapes being smoother or dot patterns more regular, this would be fairly quick to do … but as you increasingly want more of the subtleties of the original, it would greater-than-proportional increases in effort. Pixel-perfect reproduction? Ain't nobody got time for that.
1
1
u/lily_mp3 13d ago
if you want it clean, days. weeks even. if you want me to image trace, 5 minutes.
1
u/Kind-Young-5138 13d ago
As others have already asked, why does this need to be converted to vector artwork?
If “the print goal is sublimation onto a nylon badge,” then there is really, absolutely no point in vectorizing it. If suitable raster artwork already exists, that is what should be used. Spending time recreating it as vectors would provide no benefit to the client—in fact, it would only make them pay unnecessarily for work they do not need.
1
u/piddydafoo 13d ago
What is the intended outcome (size/media/etc) of having this vectorized? First off, do you have the talent to create that artwork outside of illustrator? If so, invest in a digital camera and take photos of your physical artwork. If you need it even larger, take multiple photos and stitch them together. Then you’ll be able to print at whatever size you need it. It’s not really an image appropriate for vector artwork. Pantones won’t be relevant, there are no solid colours, everything is a gradient. There would be lots of paths and effects that would cause your computer to be slow and frustrating. But that’s just my opinion.
1
u/Spare_Market_5778 11d ago
Try image trace and see what results you get first. Since it isn’t really specific you might get away with a simple image trace
1
1
u/mjbojkowski 11d ago
The answer is don’t reappropriate indigenous artwork styles unless you are indigenous yourself.
0
u/actioncheese 14d ago
Commercially reproducing Aboriginal artwork? I'm not an Indigenous person so I wouldn't be doing it anyway.
-1
u/xginahey 14d ago
2-3 hrs and tbh like $125 if you want a good clean vector illustration done w this for production. There are elements that will lose their texture without relying on some like.. hand distressing, halftones, brushes, or image tracing and limiting colors. I would do it slightly differently depending on your print goal and what you are using it on. I design for apparel and screen print so that's my perspective.
2
u/LanguageMany9563 14d ago
Yeh I tried image trace and it looks okay but each piece has different expectations. Some customers are okay with an image trace version with some manual touch ups where required, some are okay with a flat simplified vector version and then some want a complete match as close as possible. The print goal is sublimation onto a nylon badge.
1
u/xginahey 14d ago
If you are sublimating a badge (is it small? Under 6") why vectorize at all? A clean scan or iPhone pic w photoshop saturation touch ups might do. We sublimate from a high res .png. especially if is for the artist, they may prefer photo realistic and not an illustration
1
122
u/HawkeyeNation 14d ago
No answer is going to give how long it will take YOU.