affinity designer I need some advice on shading

[Ldina]

I'm struggling with shading the attached Designer v2image and I'm not sure how to proceed. Hopefully, the Native AfDesign file uploads correctly, so people can download and view what I have done so far.

The image is of a brass horse casting with a lot of shiny reflections. I wanted to create a nice version for my wife. I outlined the front horse (nearest to the camera) and left the black outlines showing for now, so they'd be visible. I'm not planning on including the horse in the background, due to the awkward orientation. I stopped partway through, after outlining the major horse components because I realized I lacked a decent strategy for adding in all the complex reflections, shading, etc. I could use some sage advice or guidance from folks on this forum on how to proceed, or even a few examples. I figure if I can achieve a realistic effect on this subject, I will be well on my way to shading other complex subjects.

I hope this is appropriate use of the "Share Your Work" forum. If not, please let me know. BTW, a photograph of the horse casting is on the background layer for reference and can be turned on and off (assuming it downloads intact). I'll also include a JPG of the outlines I have created so far. 

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Lou

Rearing Horse.afdesign

[Ldina]

Here's a screenshot of the brass horse casting so you can see what I'm trying to do, without having to download the AfDesign file.

[Patrick Connor]

can anyone advise this user who posted this in share your work ?

[loukash]

Coincidentally, just last night I watched a pretty good tutorial video on a similar topic:

[markw]

If, like me, reproducing the horses as a photo-realistic vector work is outside you skill set then maybe just masking out and replacing the original background might help improve the image…?

[v_kyr]

39 minutes ago, markw said:

If, like me, reproducing the horses as a photo-realistic vector work is outside you skill set then maybe just masking out and ...

... then vectorize that bitmap/image with the help of some third party tool!

• BrassHorse-Vectors.afdesign

[Ldina]

Thank you for the responses. It is currently outside of my skill set in Designer and perhaps the best approach is to apply a gold effect using Photo.

I was hoping to learn how people approach a shiny, complex object like this using vectors in Designer so I can improve my skill set. If anyone knows of some good tutorials for something of this nature, I'd appreciate the links. 

Thanks again.

[firstdefence]

Ok although this is a bit of a cheat, it might help you understand how this may look if you vectorised the image, to get a feel for vectorising. These are not ideal but it's a start for you. I ran the image through Vector Magic  a raster to vector trace app. 

horses.svg

horses less detail.svg

[firstdefence]

You can probably get a better result with less curves manually, there are artists on here like @VectorVonDoom @StuartRc and  @VectorWhiz to name a few who create very nice vector art.

[Ldina]

@firstdefence

Thank you for the SVG you created of the brass horse. I looked at it quickly and it was very detailed. It did give me some ideas and I will play around with them. I'll probably try a few bitmap to vector programs and see if I can find a balance that has fewer objects, retains more smoothness, but is still detailed enough. If nothing else, it may help me learn how I might approach something like this manually in the future (or not! 😳). 

Agreed, the artists you mentioned are very talented and capable. I wish I had half their skills.

Regards...

[thomaso]

It appears a problem in the samples are some missing 'true' gradients which maybe typical for reflective metal. Does one know if one of the vectorizing apps can create gradients without increasing the number of shapes?

[v_kyr]

8 hours ago, thomaso said:

It appears a problem in the samples are some missing 'true' gradients which maybe typical for reflective metal. Does one know if one of the vectorizing apps can create gradients without increasing the number of shapes?

There are mostly manual ways used/shown of how to vectorize and apply (mesh) gradients ...

• How to Convert Raster Gradient Color Image to Vector Gradient
• Tracing an Object Using Gradient Mesh in Illustrator CS6/CC
• Vectors and Color Gradients
• Vector Conversion Options - Color Blends
• https://www.behance.net/gallery/27801175/Vectorization-Gradient-Mesh-vs-Auto-Trace?locale=de_DE
• ... and so on ...

For via autotracing applied gradients there were some research in this imaging domain ...

• Image Vectorization using Optimized Gradient Meshes
• https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/27764/1/ImageVectorization.pdf
• https://users.cs.cf.ac.uk/Yukun.Lai/papers/sig09gradmesh.pdf
• ... etc.

... but none of the tracing apps I tend to use/know does support this yet.

The online service ImageVectorizer doesn partly deal with gradients, but it's still AFAIK under development for gradient handling ...

• FAQ: How to add color gradients?

[Ldina]

19 hours ago, v_kyr said:

... then vectorize that bitmap/image with the help of some third party tool!

• BrassHorse-Vectors.afdesign

Wow...that's incredible and almost indistinguishable from the original photo. I can see that if I want realism from such a complex image, it's better to use a pixel to vector converter of some sort. 

What program (online or stand-alone) did you use to create that vector image? 

Thanks.

[v_kyr]

17 minutes ago, Ldina said:

What program (online or stand-alone) did you use to create that vector image?

Since I mostly work with Macs I've used SuperVectorizer in this case for a quick turnaround. - But Inkscape's (an OS portable app) build in tracer, or vtracer here and it's online version, should do equally good. - Just save the tracing results as PDF or SVG and reuse them in Affinity apps then by "File -> Open..."!

Just see and tryout some of the color supporting tracers listed here ...

• List of some third party vectorization & tracing tools

[Ldina]

Thank you, v_kyr!! I appreciate the help.