Any tips on common workflow for nesting layers and working with lines and stuff

[Xzenor]

Hi, so this is a bit of a beg for education..

I've been playing around with vector stuff and my love for it is growing but I'm in constant fight with myself on what the best approach for the layering is. Outline first? But what about those lines.. I add them manually on top of that outline object but I don't know if that's the best approach.. I've had to start all over again a few times just because I took the wrong approach and didn't know how to 'fix it'..

Are there some common guidelines to follow? I can follow a basic vector tutorial but they don't explain why something is done in a specific order...

I'm sorry if the explanation of my 'issue' is not making sense.. I don't know how to explain it any better

I've added some practice image that I traced. Maybe it's easier to just tell me what I can do better next time. (found it with google images, so maybe don't use it in your own stuff.. I don't know about the license. It's just for practice)
I outlined it completely the first time but the yellow spikes on its head looked terrible when I did that..

T-Rex.afdesign

[R C-R]

FWIW, I think your trace of the t-rex pixel layer looks very good. You also seem to have a good grasp of how to use layer clipping to avoid having to trace exactly along edges (like how you clipped the toes into the Foot layer). 

The only thing I might have done much differently is trace the front foot separately from the body shape & combine the yellow & green lower body stripes, but that is just because I like to be able to change the angle or position of frontmost objects like that front foot. (I sent you a PM about this.)

[h_d]

Brilliant work. One refinement for a more 'organic' feel might be to apply a pressure gradient to the strokes, but it's a matter of personal taste and may not be your style:

[Xzenor]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

FWIW, I think your trace of the t-rex pixel layer looks very good. You also seem to have a good grasp of how to use layer clipping to avoid having to trace exactly along edges (like how you clipped the toes into the Foot layer). 

The only thing I might have done much differently is trace the front foot separately from the body shape & combine the yellow & green lower body stripes, but that is just because I like to be able to change the angle or position of frontmost objects like that front foot. (I sent you a PM about this.)

Thanks for the compliment! The clipping thing is tough.. I'm trying to do that as much as possible but it doesn't always work.. Tracing along an edge is really terrible. I'm used to Pixel editing and then it's not as much of an issue but when you can zoom in to infinity then it's never perfect.

Thank you for your PM! I like your idea on being able to adjust the angle! I'm definitely gonna try that approach next time. Combining the stripes makes stuff even easier with your idea. I ran into an issue with that in another drawing where I tried it in one piece but had to mask the foot out someway and you get to that edge-tracing hell.. but when you have a foot shape on top of it then that doesn't matter!

So thanks! That's the kind of stuff I was hoping to learn!

 

 

15 minutes ago, h_d said:

Brilliant work. One refinement for a more 'organic' feel might be to apply a pressure gradient to the strokes, but it's a matter of personal taste and may not be your style:

Thanks!

Style? I'm just beginning.. I have no style But I like how it looks in your example. I know the functionality is there, I just never liked the results but in your example it looks nice. I should probably experiment a bit more with it. Maybe not using the same setting for everything would be a nice start 🙄