Digital Illustration: Self-Portrait

 

For my final exam I tried combining Image Trace with Gradient Mesh to get a more detailed, dimensional vector portrait. The plan was to use Image Trace as a base and then refine lighting and depth with mesh shading.

That didn't work out. The mesh ended up fighting the traced shapes more than helping them, and instead of smooth depth, things got muddy fast. I spent more time trying to fix awkward transitions than actually improving the illustration. Eventually I ended up with only 10% of the gradient meshes looking decent.

Even though the result is not what I pictured, I still learned a lot about where each tool works best. Image Trace is great for bold, graphic shapes. Gradient Mesh needs cleaner structure and more control. Trying to force them together showed me the limits of both. Best lesson of this project. (Also, here's a video that help me learn more about image trace and some tip to get better results.)