Happy New Year guys!

Here I am again with my vectored character the Batcat from the manga Devil Devil.
I vector the entire character from a little scan I had made out of a little drawing in the inside part of a cover.

Here you can find the first steps of this vectoring process

And here is the vectored version...

As asked I correct the circles in the eyes, the shading of the feet, the tail (I draw entirely the tail... Please be nice :D) and as I wanted, I changed the color and add some white parts in the hears to get a nice fluffy feeling...
As I see it I think the vectoring part is OVER...

But now... It's all about the WALL :-s
Everybody wants me to wall this vector... But well... I have NO idea what to do with it...

So I have two questions :
1) Is the vector fine? Do you see some mistakes or coloring that needs to be change?
2) What can I do with this vector?! :D

Thanks for your help.

Note ; Don't forget I'm REALLY not a fan of brushed backgrounds... And on my Corel I don't have really cool brushes like in Photoshop... I'll probably will found it somewhere for that kind of stuff... But not now! :D Or at least not till I have a change of using this vector for something a bit more funny... :p

Hey! well, here's my first post in a long while. said to someone somewhere along the line that i'd still be here to check on friends' progress even if i'm not gonna be as active as in the last five months. so here i am. =] but i'm sure you are not here to hear me blab.

now, i know melly and i said gradients are okay for shading, but they are only okay for shading if you use them in the place where there should be shading. for example, the inside of the ears and anywhere where a predetermined light source would not be able to shine on directly. a better example: you see where you have the shading on his chest fur there, if you are using the gradient-appearance method, the shading should not have a definite edge but should fade into the base fur color for your vector. so...the gradient way of color is fun and goof, but you still need shadows where they belong because it would be incomplete without shading. do i make sense? (i somehow doubt it. >_<)

and another thing. it kind of is weird how you have a radial gradient for his face and body and that the brightest point is right above his nose. radial gradients are not recommended for the coloring of a surface such as the body and face of a cat. a gradient is a smooth transition from one color to another, and of course, it suggests a smooth surface. however, a cat's face and body have different contours, and not to mention a cat is covered in fur.

as for a walling idea, well, i think it would be suitable to go for something fun and simple and what some people call the "vector style/theme". so it is not about constructing something realistic or scenic for the background, but rather about lots of simple cute stuff, designs, and colors. melly probably knows this better than i do, although come to thing of it, i have actually done three of these walls. if you have no idea what i'm talking about i can link you some walls to act as examples.

okay... =] *runs away*

YES I'm here to read ALL the stuff you're telling me! :D
In fact I used the radial gradient cause on the real image you add this spot in the middle that was white and then all around was orange... And I wasn't really sure how to make a nice shape to circle the mouth and nose without having strange shapes... I tried many stuff and it's the only way I could get a nice feeling for this spot... But I guess I over did it... :-s Can you give me some advices about HOW to correct that? :-s

About the shading I really know I need to add some shadows in brown or grey... But I don't know how to make them... As you can see I add some shadowing on the bottom part of HER chest... But I'm not sure it's the right way to make it... I'm really lost cause the original image has no shading and I really don't know how to make them on my own...
Djee creating a tail, adding hair, drawing stuff are things I can do pretty easily now but I can't add shadow... -___- I'm pathetic! -____-

Anyway I think I see what you mean about vector shapes... But I don't really see what kind of shapes could fit this strange character... I mean... It's a flying cat... It looks cute and a bit stupid ...

:D I'm gonna need all the help I can get! :D As usual! MOUAHAHAHHAHHA

To answer your first paragraph: well, in photoshop, i would either use a zero-hardness eraser to get that fading look or else i would use a mask layer + some gaussian blur filtering. i'm not sure how it would work on your programs... x/

i see that you are planning to do shading the traditional clear-defined edge way for your batcat, so then you'll need to put in some imagination. i am finding it difficult to empathize with your trouble because, not to be boastful or anything, i have never had difficult imagining where shading should go. =/ comes from me being a doodler in my spare time. so you will have to make up your mind about what direction the light comes from. parts where the light won't hit will have shadow. and the chest shade is a good start on HER (i get your hint! thanks for correcting me ;P), but since it's fur, make sure the shading have pointy ends and not rounded curves. it helps give the tufts of fur more definition. I've don't imaginary fur shading once...i can show you the wall if you want for reference's sakes (actually, you might have already seen it because i worked on it here in sz)

and vector walls are supposed to be light-hearted and fun. i mean but can be more fun than shinn holding a lemon and being happy? (if you have seen the show gundam seed destiny before, you would understand what i mean. but even if you've never heard of gsd, a guy in a military uniform holding up a lemon is still a pretty ridiculous sight.) vector walls are supposed to convey a happy/silly feeling. not everything has to be serious like your first wall! ;P be experimental and have fun with this. ^^

Asa... You're the most mean person in life! :D

I know what you mean about shading is a natural thing to you. It's like perspective to me! :D But in fact I can found the place where the shadows are supposed to be... But I can't find a correct shape because of this F...G fur... But I see what you mean about pointy edges. I'll correct that this week end when I get some time to work :p
YES I wanna see the work you did on shading some fur I don't care if I already saw it! :D

Yeah your vector background is really fun... But I have no inspiration for this bat... Or I guess I'll print the character and see what I can come up with with a pen and some time... Then I'll scan the stuff and vector it... Yeah... I guess I'll do that! :p I love curvy design like tribal design and stuff... I'll try out some stuff!

THANKS for your great help! You're the best ever! :D

See you around this week end! I count on YOU! Like Uncle SAM! :D ^_^

XD am i your devil or your uncle sam? (does the phrase "mort de rire" make any sense? in english, i'd go "lol" for "laugh out loud")

here's that wall and i know, the fur on the girl in front is not that good >_< and the color's not that great either, but it's got the random pointy shapes that make fur look like fur. at least to me. =/ i was randomly creating outlines with the polygonal lasso tool (i did not know the pen tool back then) and that's the result. =P

glad you like my background. that's my second wallpaper ever! just like this batcat wall you want to make. ^^ what a coincidence huh? xD yeah, i understand what you mean: inspiration is really important. so i hope something creative pops up in your head, you know, like that light bulb that goes 'ding' when you have an idea. :D good luck.

Fabulous vector^^ very clean. *thumbs up* For a background... hmm... It's a cat right? Maybe you could place the creature in nature or something... with butterflies? I don't know. Like this though it's kinda a bad example. Or then again you could use a search google stock image for a background like this one . Whatever your choice is, I'm sure it'll be great because the vector is absolutely positively awesome already.

Hope this helps. Good luck with your wallpaper^^

Thanks a lot for your nice comment Mint! I'll think about the nature stuff...

In fact I think I'll make a wall like the cat is in a tree... With big branches all around her and add some leaves and butterflyes and try out a nice shading with leaves's shadows on her... It could look really neat but I need to draw the branches first... Or maybe I'll vector one or two pictures I can take in my garden... I'll show you a scrap shema of my idea when I get home.

Thanks a lot Asa for the vectored fur... I see what you want me to do... I just need to get going on that... :p
At last I have some idea...

But don't stop to give me some. I think I'm gonna use this vector a lot! :D
Cause after looking at a lot of walls with vectored shapes I kind of like some of them too... I'm gonna try out different styles :)

Again it's gonna be a LONG post! :p

I have to agree, you have a great vector here. My background idea came almost instantaneously upon looking at the vector. He's a little devil kitty so how funny would it be if here were standing upon a pile of "dead" toy mice. Just a funny idea I had and thought to share =).

Slapztik your idea is really nice... I just need to get some picture of that kind of mouse toy to be able to vector it...

I really like your idea! :D

You are welcome! anything i can do to help =P

well, i'm still sticking with my vector shapes idea. the tree thing will be complicated to get it looking right. trust me. some things are easier imagined than actually done. but you have the type of attitude to get it right in the end though. *thumbs up* anyway, the dead toy mice idea seems quite interesting. all it requires is some toy mice, a plain background, a bit of lighting, and some text...like "meow?" (okay, yes, not a very bright idea there) although he doesn't look quite that evil. hold on, on second thought though, that could work to your advantage...has anyone ever seen the movie "shrek 2"? good old puss 'n boots has that cute kitty face but he can be nasty too.

okay, so try for the mouse idea and the vector shapes...experiment! i sincerely hope this idea stays as "light" as possible and doesn't turn bloody again...because thinking about the whole "dead mice" thing has reminded me of this wall at AP. something along the lines of blood + something that is supposed to be cute + the text "mommy can i pet it?" the concept, i'm sure, is good, but freaky nonetheless. and you've already done a bloody wall (which just reminds me why do my dark walls creep you out?).

Lol I like your idea of the Shrek Cat! :D

Okay... I vector a mouse toy... I got some stock pictures and try out with two to get a nice mechanical mouse... Let's see what you think about it...



And the stock pictures are here :
the body and the key of the toy

I'm not really satisfied with the mouse but I don't really know what to do to make it better :-s I know I should play with shading but then again I'm a bit lost about it... But for once I was lucky with the texture and found something suitable and nice looking pretty quickly...

But anyway tell me what you think.

Note that the colors of the walls are not defined yet...

And now I need to found a way to make this mouse broken! :D Yeah!!

I like the idea of the mouse... but for the mouse perhaps you could add a black outline like the kitten so it doesn't it's different... I think that might work. Just a note, "the body" link doesn't work but that's no biggie. 403 forbidden pops up but it might be probably just my laptop.

To find a way to make it broken... as a suggestion maybe you could make a big scratch mark on it or have it literally broken in half with parts coming out of it... or maybe that'd be too much. Up to you.

This wall looks like it's going great. XD

I'm gonna add some outlines right now and we will see after but tonight I reworked on my vectoring of the can..

Here is the new version of it :


About the scratch I think that can be easily done but I don't feel like doing a lot of plastic and metal mouses... So I don't know if I'll keep up this idea... But till I don't get a better and easy one I'll keep working on this... It's good practice :)

And for the vectored shapes background I'm still searching how to make such simple shapes in my program! :D I love Corel! :D

Mint : the body link works fine on my computer... It's probably your laptop indeed! :D ^_^

Asa? You're telling me to work on my wall and you're not here to comment? Tsss!
What kind of devil are you? :D

I'm the poofing kind of devil, you know, those that go poof and disappear or go poof and reappear. and voila, i'm here. :D

the new vector looks nice xD but aren't there more places that should have shadows?
the wall is a start. but somehow, i see a verticale line of orange-ish pixels in one of her eyes. =/ is it just me?

but i'm sure you'd rather hear more about your toy mice. here are some suggestions:
1. outline it like the cat
2. give it nice whiskers
3. make the eye into an "x" to show it's "dead"
4. instead of using that texture thingy, try to do the vector fur like what you are doing on the cat. it'll make the styles match better
5. for 'scratches', just do those crisscross patterns you would see in "younger children's" animes, you know, where they don't show blood whenever soembody gets hurt.