Vexel Article - Pixel Shock - A Newbie's Gander into Vexels - by Seven

I can remember the very first vexel I ever saw. It was on a personal site, and I remember thinking it was possibly the greatest piece of art I'd ever seen. Well, at that point I was 14 and hadn't taken my college art history class, but that moment had a profound impact on me. It was the day I realized I wanted to go into graphic arts. It sounds really lame, but just seeing how looking at that vexel (before the name was invented and when they were around 20 layers max) showed me how much a design could impact someone.

My first foray into vexels was a couple years later, and was done in *cough*Microsoft Paint*cough*. I scanned a photo, grabbed the pencil tool and scribbled my little heart away. After about ten minutes (I remember thinking to myself "wow, I really spent a LONG time on this!") I plopped the sucker into my DeviantArt account and called it a day. I was very proud of myself, this vectoring was pretty easy! Now I just needed to wait for my adoring public to realize my immense talent.

Days passed, and then FINALLY I got my first comment. Well, DaVinci wasn't discovered overnight either, I'm sure it took a few days before someone stopped and said "hey, this painting's alright!". I excitedly clicked onto the comments page to see what my newest fan had written:

"I like it, its a great concept, even if the lines are a bit messy."

WHAT?!?

That day I gave up vexeling. I think I may have even deleted that one from my portfolio. I couldn't let anyone look at my messy lines. Monet had messy lines and he's one of the most famous artists in history! How could someone criticize mine?

A year or so later I picked vexeling up again. It happened to be just a few months before the opening of www.vexels.net, and a message board I was a member of was having a vexel contest. I figured, what the hell? I'll give it a go. It was my freshman year of college majoring in graphic design, I was bored and taking countless photoshop classes. This could help fill up my portfolio.

So I vexeled a Scarlett Johanson photo for a few hours, and surprisingly had a good time doing it. After my last disastrous experience I didn't think I would like it. Even though I wasn't thrilled with my entry, it was leaps and bounds better than my Paint work was. I considered this a small victory for me, and I even came in second place in the contest (I believe the lovely Jannett at V.net won first place :D).

And since that day I haven't been able to stop myself. I'm still no DaVinci, and chances are unless I sell my soul to the devil I never will be. But every time I get a comment that says "wow, this is really beautiful" or even "have you thought about changing this...", I know my work has touched someone in some way. That's really the whole point of art, isn't it?