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Incredible Photo-Realistic Illustrator Works

khulsey.com — Yukio has been working with Adobe Illustrator since its creation, and it shows in his work. Using a combination of Blends, Gradients and the Gradient Mesh tool, Yukio achieves a stunning level of detail and finesse in his execution of reflective surfaces. Adobe® Illustrator® to the max!

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  • madnar, on 10/11/2007, -3/+22He is an ILLUSTRATOR God
    • benramadan, on 10/11/2007, -7/+3I think God probably knows that already...
    • monospaced, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Dude, he's good. But I'm forced to use Illustrator to create digital 'comps' of real world products on the fly, and the more and more I use it, the closer I become to creating photorealistic images. I know I could create these faster in Maya, but my coworkers require the file delivered layered in photoshop to slap on their own artwork. Also, I would have to learn Maya, which takes a considerable amount of time.
  • ursername180, on 10/11/2007, -16/+4I love that French Horn, it makes me French Horny...
  • xerus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15Holy *****' *****. And I don't say that often.
  • elenap, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1awesome
  • ChayD, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Unbelieveable, and not a 3D app in sight!
    • unusualbob, on 10/11/2007, -8/+1Ive seen ppl do just as good with free apps like blender3D in 6hrs. I know its great that he could do this in adobe but its a bit of a waste.
  • themoose, on 10/11/2007, -7/+4Down already?
    http://www.duggmirror.com/
  • themoose, on 10/11/2007, -18/+86digg this comment down :(
  • krelian, on 10/11/2007, -6/+4http://www.duggmirror.com
  • richbradshaw, on 10/11/2007, -7/+4Are we allowed to say illustrate, or should we say enhanced by Adobe® Illustrator®?
  • coreytn81, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18I have to agree with andy101 on this one. I'm a graphic designer and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't use Illustrator. I wish I could create the work that Yukio has done. I can understand the schematic illustrations (like the outboard motor illustration) The problem is if this work was for a client, why not use a 3D Modeling tool such as Maya or Max? If the end result is nearly (maybe even better) the same yet takes more time, he's just wasting money. Especially if he is using photos for reference, why not model the same reference photos in 3D? That way he has lighting and angles to work with once the modeling/texturing is done. The only benefit I can see to this is that it is in fact vector art, and would scale easily for print, but I'm sure that a 3D app has output settings that would negate that anyways. In any case, not to take away from his work and just from an artistic perspective, all of his pieces look great.
    • whiteyMcBrown, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11The reason why you wouldn't just do it in 3D is precisely the reason you stated: Because of the scaling. While you could scale the 3D model, you couldn't scale the textures (unless you did all the textures in Illustrator). Also, I'd rather be known as the best Illustrator guy in the world (he just might be), than another decent Maya guy. More bragging rights.
    • elDoppelganger, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1Can you do what he does? As you pointed out, NO. Can most people do what he does with Illustrator? I'm certain, NO.

      I don't know... call me an idiot, but wouldn't showing off your talent that most people can't do get you more work? ...or at least get your name "out there". :S

      As the bootylicious Beyonce' would put it, "If you got it, flaunt it..."
    • andy101, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4You wouldn't need to scale textures. The material on the car, for example, would be a layered shader with a highlight pass, a colour pass, etc. There would be no baked textures, the renderer would do it all.
    • Chumbuh1, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4yea, i mean why would you want to paint something if you can just take a photograph of it.....

      ITS ART! He chooses vector graphics as his medium. He could be like everyone else and use 3D software to do it, but it wouldn't be as cool. It's like why someone chooses watercolor or pastels over oil painting. Yea it may be harder and less practical, but its more original.
    • molecool, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Client 'Wow - I love it! But I'd rather see it rotated sideways a bit more'

      Yukio: 'Uuuhhmmm....'

      With that said - his art is absolutely amazing. And the arguments regarding him wasting time in Illustrator are specious. You could say the same thing about painting on a canvas these days - why not take a photo and use Photoshop filters to achieve similar effects? Exactly - part of the art is the process that creates it. This guy has some mad skills....
  • rages4calm, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Damn, talk about the vector god of reflections, that details is insane.
  • BurnTees, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4by the time stories reach the top, the pages never work! so annoying
  • coreytn81, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0@whiteyMcBrown I suppose it could also be that he possibly doesn't know how to use a decent 3D application, and he's just had so much experience with Illustrator, this is where it has taken him. I doubt from the outset he had it in his mind to be the best Illustrator guy in the world. In any case it just goes to show that the software isn't always the limitation of what can be done, but the user's ability and creativity is.
    • NoodleGuy, on 10/11/2007, -5/+4There is a neat button on Digg. it says [reply]. Please use it so the conversation stays in one thread.
  • ferrell, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Here is an alternate link with many more of his drawings...

    http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~yukio-m/
  • BonhamsGhost, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5I came across Yukio's work a few years ago. It's absolutely staggering the skill it takes to do that.

    Everyone who is saying it could be done quicker in Maya, thats not the point. Sure he can do it in Maya, or in Photoshop, or with oils......he's probably a good enough artist that he could do his art in a multitude of ways, but thats not the medium he's chosen. Its something he either feels extremely comfortable in, or is a challenge that he enjoys.

    For example, why does Bert Monroy (www.bertmonroy.com) go to the lengths he does, when he could just take a photograph? Because for some artists, its the process that interests them and keeps them motivated.

    Here is another fantastic vector artist, with more of a painterly, fine art spin.

    http://limkis.deviantart.com/
  • xxParker, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5working link..

    http://www.khulsey.com.nyud.net:8080/masters_yukio_miyamoto.html
    • Markpdotcom, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Nope, no its not... could someone at least mirror the images? Even diggmirror didn't get them all...
  • skinturtle, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0Holy ole trapezoidical crap! Those drawings are so cool I could rip off one of my left eyebrows!
    • rebopper, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9One of your left eyebrows? Just one?
  • InnateEvil, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0ILLUSTRATOR GOD!!!

    wonder whether his hands are insured... heheheheh. someone might just cut them off due to jealousy. lol
  • kidjay, on 10/11/2007, -6/+7"I'm a 3D artist myself, and the reason why I'm so biased against time-taking, hand-drawn pieces is that some people just don't understand that when they work on something, speed IS important, not the ability to feel good that they came up with the same result in a much more time intensive way that required more "skill" to do.

    Don't get me wrong, his art is quite beautiful. I'd have no hesitation in putting prints of that on my wall, and I'd be glad to have the know-how to do that in Illustrator. I just pointed out that this could be easily done in a 3D package, and made to look even better than his art; if photorealism is what you're after, 3D would edge out his designs."

    you're not an artist.
    • molecool, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Actually, his art has a 'clean' look that I haven't seen with 3d renderers so far (could probably be easily done by writing a custom render, I concede). Maxwell would make it look like a photo - the attraction in Yukio's art is that it's borderline, you somehow wonder... that's where the art kicks in :-)
  • kidjay, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1the concept of an artist is being lost. production artists != other artists, i'm sorry but its true. speed is important for them. it takes damian loeb months if not more to finish some of his works, and you can hardly tell them from a photograph.



    but i could do it in maya in a day, so its irrelevent?

    morons.
  • diegoferreyra, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Damn... Duggmirror didn't get it right and I can't see those 8080 links... can anyone put the pics in photbucket or something??
  • MrLeEx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0i cant see nothing.. i wanna see what the excitement is about!
  • MrLeEx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:M_wbY1cvQxoJ:www.khulsey.com/masters_yukio_miyamoto.html+http://www.khulsey.com/masters_yukio_miyamoto.html&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au
  • Razster, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The only image I saw of his was the Tape Desk Recorder, which I might add was awesome show of skill, if that was what he created.
  • filmbandit, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0boy that pageload is a beatdown!
  • telemarketer, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0wow, had no idea this kind of photorealistic stuff could be done in illustrator, this guy must be some kind of savant. bravo
  • ninjaSteak, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Everyone seems to be asking 'why spend all the time'.
    cthulhu0 above has it right. By creating this image in vectors
    you have a file that can be reused again and again. I've talked to
    a friend that has done this type of work and he says that literally
    whenever you see a car/motorcycle/etc in an ad or billboard, its all
    done in illustrator for the most part.
    • paulmdx, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1"By creating this image in vectors you have a file that can be reused again and again."

      You mean as long as they want the *exact same* perspective? A 3D model has a lot more re-usability if you don't. Not to mention lighting, reflections, etc, all being more easily adapted with a 3D model.
  • evilregis, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Vector Kiera Knightly: http://www.illustratortechniques.com/gallery/view/image/133 (rollover the image to see the mesh)
    There is also several other images by the same artist (Paul Bush). Stunning doesn't aptly describe it.
  • jesdy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0His designs are great...but if he's a savant/illustrator god...what about this guy?
    http://www.crisvector.com/
    • BonhamsGhost, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4A pretty good vector artist with a horrible choice of subject matter?
    • Spuy767, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Ummmm, his pictures have nothing on these, and he uses traditional illustrator techniques. . .
  • pfunked, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1His work is excellent.
    The process seems logical/methodical. Could this be completely automated by an algorithm?
  • Fredd13, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0I only dream that I can do that in Illustrator....
  • venicerocco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11OMG - that last picture of some guy sitting in an office is just totally unbeleivable...
    • Spuy767, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0I wonder how many people are looking for the picture that they think you are talking about?
  • jizzypop, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Amazing... amount of ram it took to do that.
  • carbonetc, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3In a graphic design class I took in school one of the final assignments was exactly this: create a photo-realistic image in Illustrator.

    I ended up picking something with so much detail (an iSub) that I had to turn it in late. With your reference image in the background it's actually pretty easy. It just takes forever.

    If this guy did this without "tracing" then he really has accomplished something incredible. That would require a hell of an eye.

    You guys talking about 3D software are missing the point. Art is defined a great deal by the limitations placed upon the artist (often self-imposed). The beauty is in untrivializing the trivial. If you ever dugg a video of a stop-motion experiment or a Rube Goldberg device, you should get this.
    • carbonetc, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2The article was down. I had to look at the images in another link someone provided in the comments.
  • PERKASETMUNCHER, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1If anyone has never tried this in Illustrator then you have no idea how hard this sort of thing is. It's really amazing that he did this so well.
  • Sheff, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Speaking as an illustrator and a teacher, I don't have a single student that likes using Illustrator.

    Also a couple things to keep in mind:
    1. To produce work like that requires that you have good source material. When students don't understand why their work looks like crap when they are going for photorealism the answer is usually found in them starting with a crappy photo to begin with. The fact is that most people cannot render and don't take the time to learn and understand form.
    2. To accomplish this work is not so much difficult as it is incredibly time consuming. God forbid his client wants a change or to view the object from a different angle. Because you know, sometimes clients want changes...
    3. It isn't the tool, it's the guy. It's not Illustrator that produced the images, it's the fact that this guy has patience. I would venture to guess that his personality(attention to detail) isn't much different from someone who likes to pour over code and look for ways to optimise it.
    4. I personally hate Illustrator because you have constantly switch tools for various related tasks. Plus you can only work on a single page in Illustrator. You can achieve the same results in pretty much any good vector application. The skill lies in the artist not the tool. I use Xara Xtreme because it's much easier to use than Illustrator. Most people use Illustrator because they aren't aware of alternatives. Just wearing Air Jordans doesn't mean you can dunk.
    5. The point is not to copy the photograph, the point is to be better than the photograph. If the goal of art is to be as good as a photograph, then why not just use the photograph?
    6. If time is money, and he's not being paid by the hour, he had better be fast because the longer he spends on his work the less he gets paid.
  • Bjarke, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5OS9?
  • jiganto, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Am I the only one who thinks that imitating 3D objects in 2D software is the an incredibly inefficient? Sure it's impressive, but you can achieve the same results with proper 3D software in fraction of the time.
  • pygmalion, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7dugg for using Mac OS 9 in 2007
    • tobsterius, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2heh, yeah. Dude's old school. Wonder why he chose to stick with OS 9...
  • nevaseez, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0you kids wondering why he chose to take the time and make it in vector instead of spending 10 minutes in a 3d program? Hobano hit the answer right on the head.. Vectors make the world go 'round, they are so much more powerful than any RGB bitmapped images, especially in the printing industry, sure you can do digital prints, but on tshirts I prefer silk screening anyday.

    apparentley schools are still lacking in teaching kids the importance of vectors, (open up any .cdr or .ai file in wordpad and see what the source code looks like, its simply math) and thus can be re-sized from say 640x480 to 8000 feet by 8000 feet WITH NO distortion.
    • regeya, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Meh, apparently you've never worked with bad vector source material. The sheer amount of vector art I've worked with that scales piss-poor...give me a 1200dpi render, it'll be fine even on a fine-screen print on glossy.
  • grimfandango, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I feel so sorry for this guy. His work is beautiful, but it's so easy to overlook the time and effort that went into creating his art.

    However, I can't think of a single reason besides "somebody paid me" to do these illustrations - he'd have been better off using a 3d modelling tool and tweaking the final image.

    Still, kudos++
  • Slipknotic, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1www.chrisvector.com

    Not me, but a guy from a forum.
  • sjuraud, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Everyone is saying that it would take him longer than using a 3D app. Where is this info coming from? Nobody knows how much time it took him to do these. Like most artist, he probably works very quickly using his own techniques that he has perfected over time.
  • jobobo, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0These tools work nicely Illustrator, including gradient mesh:
    http://virtualmirror.com
  • freshprinceofbk, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3He loves his OS9.
  • redrighthand, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3The talent of artists like these blows me away http://www.lifeinvector.com/illustration.html
  • wfbnadador, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Auto Trace + Gradient Mesh + Spit & Elbow Grease..... impressive, but not incredible.... (unless he claims no auto trace, in which case he just has boat loads of time on his hands)
  • overbyte, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1doing stuff like this in the past myself made my eyes beg for mercy

    this is raw, unadulterated talent
  • revmhatt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Well, your getting into an interesting debate on art vs. design. If a client needs a picture of a camera then it's generally easier and more efficient to just get a photograph of one or use a 3d rendering program. If you create the camera as a vector image for artistic merit, then all you need is a reason to do it. Even if it is, "To see if it could be done". Personally, I'm VERY impressed but it just reminds me of those kids that win spelling bees. Spending hours on something that technology has made infinitely easier to achieve, but still, technically, VERY impressive.
  • SeriouslyButNo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Wow, it's Shiggy's brother..
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