Trying to get into vector

okay, I'm trying to get into vector, not because it's trendy, but mostly because I finally got a hold of a program I'm comfortable with and because I got tired of signatures and avatars.

here's my first try at it:

http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/8121/timon7mf.png

Just criticize it; I don't care if it's harsh because I know it's not perfect.

so, do any of you vector masters have any tips on improving, or any protocol you follow(drawing it on paper, etc...)

seems a little flat to me, some highlighting and shading would do this img alot of good. also a nice think black outline of the entire img would look really nice. doing that kind of seperates it from the rest of the img, kind of a comic trick that i learned while working on Half Empty.

anyway, is that the mere-cat from the lion king? because hes awsome.

yeah, i always forget what the hell he is... but yeah it's timon..... i wanted to shade it but i just didn't know where to(i modeled it out of those bean things that are coming in frosted flakes)

basicly, you can shad it from what ever direction you want to, seeing as no one will know what the lighting looked like in the original, and its really your creation now. one thing to remember though is to keep it constant over your entire img, so it doesnt look like a dual lighting rig or something, becuase those are confusting if there is any shadow.

soniclnd!!!!!!!!&# 33;! :)

hi havnt seen you in a while,
anyways i like it, you show some tallent in vectoring, but it does look a bit flat.

2nd try.... tried to do some shading and lighting... hoping to get more comfortable with that:

http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/553/timon4dr.png

i think the first one actually has more depth than the second. i think that's pretty cool you did that from looking at a bean bag.

gradients arent a great way to make shading on a face. maybe a really subtle one to start it off, but then you have to do highlight and shadow layers after so it acually works.

what program did u use for it?

I'll see about those gradients.....

DesiTitan: Inkscape

it's pretty cool, it's open source and based on the SVG format, it's also able to export bitmaps(PNG).... It's a relatively new vector software: http://inkscape.org/