This is one awesome piece of artwork! Thanks Smashing Magazine for another great post.
I hope you’ll be able to post some tutorials on how to accomplish these kind of vector artworks. Also, for the avid readers of Smashing Magazine, is there anyone here who knows of a good tutorial on perspectives, shadow, highlights, lighting? If ever you have please post it here. Thanks!!!!

nice :-)

Amazing!! What beautiful work, these guys got talent, thanks for a great post as always Smashing Magazine.

This work is amazing!

Kitsch.

Kitch, beautiful, retro… call it what you want, no one can deny that these guys are seriously talented.

Great post. It makes me think that we need more art direction in mainstream websites.

are u stupid people?

I just cannot imagine how to obtain that O__O Amazing

An expert 3D artist could do any of that, and in about 1/100th the time. I’m really getting into 3D with Blender, and even from my novice standpoint I can say that you just can’t beat the practicality of using 3D when trying to achieve such results, even for ultra-high resolution images. I’d sooner work 20 hours to model, texture, and rig a scene, and wait 100 hours for the ultra-high resolution render to finish, then having to spend many hundreds of hours (i.e. several weeks) trying to achieve the same result in vector. And don’t give me that “scale to any size” crap - 3D will render as high a resolution as you tell it to, provided your textures are big enough so they don’t stretch. So no matter how you look at it, trying to get such results with vector is just plain impractical. Vector artists should stick to illustration and avoid “trying to make a photo,” and 3D artists should stick to rendering art and avoid “trying to make a logo.”

But none-the-less, those are some incredible pieces.

@Heri:

Meh, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree. Although I do understand that it’s more practical to get realistic results utilizing 3-Dimensional techniques and software, one shouldn’t disregard other works or mediums because they are completed in a longer span of time. For example, I could say that painting is a useless art form now, because rather than painting a realistic picture (which could take a very long time), I could just render it any sort of faster medium. Practicality does not triumph over artistic merit, although you do agree that these are incredible pieces.

Plus, working with the Gradient Mesh tool is a major bee-yatch.

How about Yukio Miyamoto (http://yukio.illustratorworld.com/)? Not all portraits, but definitely amazing with the meshes. Chris Vector’s stuff just blows me away anytime I look at it.

well i’m really impressed. nice work.

That’s a very cool post! Thanks for the inspiration!

Aside from Cristiano Siqueira this list is a gathering of semipro airbrushy vector craftsmen.
I’m sorry this is dead boring and very uninspiring.

Excellent! I have to disagree with any comment bagging these artists

WOW! Those are amazing!!!
My stuff isn’t as good but entertainimng. Wow really cool.
-Fun With War Crimes

@ pizzabox, I think we can agree to respectfully disagree. If you want to throw painting into the equation, fine. I’m a novice digital painter too (Intuos 6×11), and like vector and 3D, it has it’s own weaknesses, and strengths. I paint all of my textures, and I always do post-work painting on my renders. They each have their place in the [digital] art world. Vector is a great thing, but it’s not practical for “hyperrealism.” When I look at those wonderful pieces of work, I can’t help but ask myself “why?” - it just doesn’t make sense to do that kind of thing in Illustrator or Flash, mesh tool or not. I also know how a few million polygons in Blender can be, but I’d hate to see what working with those vectors would be like.

@ atype, I’m not bagging the artists. Like I said, those are some incredible pieces of work. I just don’t see the point in trying that kind of thing with vector.

this is really awesome..
i though the Angelina jolly was real :P

Link [www.behance.net]

Yup! this is reallly great and m very much inspired from this. :)

These artists are amazing! So detailed! But, with the greatest respect, I wonder what drives them to create such detailed gradient meshes, when they could have easily used a photograph to achieve the same effect, or better. In fact I’m certain that most have these have used a direct photo reference. I mean I can admire the huge amount of skill it takes to create these pieces, but what is the real point? Why strive for hyper-realism when the camera does a much better job?

Sorry but these are all tacky. Each and every one.

You can think what you want about this method, but it’s an awesome way to receive a better understanding about the body, shadows - how they work and where to apply them. Just to mention a few benefits.

If you keep on pursuing it, you’ll one day wind up being incredibly talented and maybe in the same leauge as Cristiano Siqueira.

- and oh god, please stop comparing it to 3D animation. You make me hurl. Trashing it because it takes time, is just plain ignorant.

Have you ever seen those gaudy fairground rides where to tart them up a bit they call them things like “THE TERMINATOR” and badly airbrush pictures of Arnie on the side? That’s what these examples remind me off.

awesome artworks! and good to see pinoy blog here.

“PROUD to be PINOY”

Friend. Not any of that is hyperrealistic, nor even quasi-realistic. You have got to be kidding. It’s all pretty — but it is far from digital photo detail.

Thank you so much for featuring me among these fantastic artists. Great article :)

There’s an awesome website that let’s you create your own vector images from bitmaps, Link [vectormagic.com]!

Who ever said it took several weeks to create these?

Look at the work of this french man:
Link [www.sergericard.com]

wow..what a work..nicely done..:D

have a look at some airbrush illustrations of late 70s and 80s and it’s that same tacky feel. It might be hours of hard work to make vectors look like pixels but the resulting look is a retro kitschy look (although I do think that it’s not intended as such and tries to pass as “art”)

so much hate over art & design that’s simply meant to be aesthetic, if not simple personal excersises and practice to work over techniques and maintain skill levels.

lots of great work here; deserves a lot more kudos then the sour grapes all over this board.

as for Henri’s comment comparing this to 3d; much of the point of utilizing a vector format has little to do with the scalability. unless you’re creating your own textures (all of them) for those 3d renders, then you’re not comitting a realistic timeline for your own work.

when i do vector based work at this level of detail, my average time to product is about 22 hours of billable work; not 100s, and i know many artists who can top me in pushing for realism of details (which i purposefully fall short of for a more animated appearance) and turn in similar timelines, if not often shorter.

a thorough knowledge of how to use the tools really cuts the timeline down.

excellent stuff..

Awesome! Some of them are incredibly realistic. What a hard work.

what in the world…
you post this and you don’t link LifeInVector

Link [www.liveinvector.com]

whoops…
Link [lifeinvector.com]

Oh my GOD!
Talk about talent…. The guys or gals who made them are truly extra-ordinary artists….
Bravo, Bravo….

lovely illustrations!

Wowwwwwwwww……very nice……..i like illustrations

Here, check this one out too: Link [www.illustratorworld.com]