This has been around for a while, but if you’ve even doubted the power of Illustrator, this is a great refresher. After reaquainting myself with Kevin Hulsey’s amazing technical illustrations, I’m still not entirely sure whether I want to:
a) launch Illustrator and start drawing in a blur of inspiration, or:
b) permanently uninstall it and ne’er let it’s name pass my lips again.
As you can see, the finished pieces are remarkable, if for no other reason than the sheer bloodymindedness it would have taken to complete them — his ‘Empress of the Sea’ drawing below clocked in at 960 hours, or 120 eight hour days on the same piece. The level of detail is truly mindnumbing, from the green salad in the salad bar to the Drambuie bottles in the cocktail bar to the free weights in the gym. The guy is a stickler.
The great thing is Kevin doesn’t show-off while hording his secrets away, but instead takes considerable time to demonstrate exactly how he gets his results. Starting with nothing more than a set of detailed blueprints, Kevin creates the three vanishing points he’ll need to give the ship it’s spacial dimension, and then begins to gradually warping the 2D plans into their 3D form.
Although this may well be ‘big picture’, this isn’t a job for ‘big picture’ thinkers — Kevin clearly has a meticulous attention to the small things.
It’s also interesting to note that Kevin chooses not to color his illustrations in Illustrator, but instead exports his line art to Photoshop. One of the reasons I personally like Fireworks for illustration is I was never 100% happy with the coloring tools in Illustrator. You could certainly get any effect, but it just took too long. I must admit though, there’s no way you could use Fireworks for a illustration of this size and detail.
Still, it is amazing to think what you can accomplish with a blueprint, Illustrator and three vanishing points.
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Wow… I quit.
March 23rd, 2006 at 8:29 am
Hehe
That’s exactly how I felt
March 23rd, 2006 at 8:58 am
Umm, wow. That almost makes me sick. I just hope he got paid what he was worth on that project… whew!
March 23rd, 2006 at 10:10 am
absolutely awe inspiring… my jaw dropped
March 23rd, 2006 at 10:15 am
This just makes me want to work even harder – there is some amazing work here.
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:28 am
Perhaps the Mona Lisa of Illustrator? Simply amazing work!
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:59 am
:o
March 23rd, 2006 at 4:25 pm
One word, Wow!
March 23rd, 2006 at 8:01 pm
It is a staggering piece of work, I think. Looking at the whole thing is quite impressive, but when you see the level of detail – mindblowing!
March 23rd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I haven’t checked but I’m pretty sure Kevin exploded when he finished the boat.
Probably would have only taken him 860 hours if he’d used Corel Draw instead ;)
March 24th, 2006 at 5:32 am
860 hours. thats like 3 months for one illustration (working 7 hours a day). The pay better have been worth it.
March 24th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Wow, absolutely stunning! Thank you for posting this, what a terrific site.
TaliaJ
March 30th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
Wow…truly in a league of his own! The close-up shots have convinced me that I probably should just uninstall Illustrator and quit trying to play designer. ;)
April 18th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
this is the great pictures, good work.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:55 am
incredible effort to make a image that someone will just say to “aha good …” without noticing the enormous level of detail that wnt into the image .
It`s just stunning !
June 20th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Hard work.
June 28th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Wouldn’t it be terrible if the customer said “Wow, that’s great but I’d like you to turn it a little to the left”. So much for vector programs. Not like that has happend to me before. ;-)
July 5th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Kya yaar kya mast bnaya hai… keep it up
July 13th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Work is very impresive. its look like very crazy.
Keep it up Dude.. thanks
September 5th, 2006 at 1:59 am
is this human?
October 29th, 2006 at 10:19 am
no it’s not! he’s an alien! THE ALIEN!
March 5th, 2007 at 4:09 am
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