[Vincent Rosati]

I’m afraid you might be hosed 🙁
Try opening the file with: Acrobat, Distiller, and Photoshop to see if anything can be recovered.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

I mistakenly said ‘Pen’ tool. I meant the Pencil tool, for speed drawing/correcting.
So, you keep one finger on the A key and another on the N key, at all times. Hit A and click the bad path with the Direct Select tool, then hit N and quickly redraw it with the Pencil tool.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Sounds like you might be in a garbage-in-garbage-out situation. The client wants a vector, yet one that retains all of the characteristics of the original raster, one that doesn’t look like a vector.??
So, in this case, they want an improved redraw.
Could you just upscale the raster with Perfect Resize (Genuine Fractals), mask it, and call it a day. Or, find the original source and rescan it, or purchase it.

Some vectorizing techniques you could try might be to create a few high-contrast variations of the image in Photoshop.
Each variation would accentuate a particular range in the shading.
Channel Mixer: Monochrome.
Then maybe a Curves adjustment layer, try a 2-point S-curve to achieve the contrast control.
Then you could try a similar approach in Illustrator, with each of the variations. So, each different high-con will produce a different density of shading.
So, in the end you might have 2 or 3 different tracing results that you’ll layer on top of one another.

The shading that I’m seeing in the art, I might describe as stipple-type shading. Hard to say. But that’s drawing and painting.

Wait…
I just read your post again.
Could you just hand draw a clipping mask, to mask the finished tracing?
Or maybe use the Pencil tool to manually smooth the problem areas? Keep your left hand on the keyboard so you can quickly use hotkeys to switch between tools. Looks like it would take less than 5 minutes.

Just some initial thoughts.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Open the image with Illustrator, creating its own file.
Lock the layer, and create a new one on top.
Then, simply use the pen tool and redraw it on the new unlocked layer.
Should take about 2 minutes.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

I might try just creating the texture in Photoshop, then placing the the texture in the AI file, and using your shape as a clipping mask.
Maybe, you’ll have 2 layers – the gradient underneath, and the texture set to multiply on top.
Put the Ai file and source texture in its own project folder.

in PS, maybe…
On a black layer, Filter Noise, then scale to 400%, then maybe Gaussian blur.
Or
On a black layer, Filter Reticulation, then scale to 200%, then maybe Unsharp mask.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Hmmm. So, you want to do a 2-color print. That sounds more like a job for Photoshop.
Sounds like you essentially need 2 monochrome plates – one holding the artwork for one color object, and than the other. Two black and white pieces of artwork so you can create screens. You can do it in Illustrator. You could have 2 files, or one file with 2 artboards – click the Document Setup button on the main menu.
Maybe something like this…
8068_2colorprintexample.ai.zip

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Sorry I didn’t see your upload before. I found it through your profile. At the top of the message window, when you’re creating a message there are buttons to attach images and files to your post.

I don’t think you’ll be able to intertwine two objects in 3D space.
I don’t see the issue in the first red box, just the middle one and the one on the right.

One option might be to just put small shape object patches on top of the broken parts, to hide them.
You may have to expand the artwork (Object > Expand) to help achieve the desired effect.

Honestly, I wouldn’t even use a 3D effect to do this, I would just draw it.
You’ll use; Snapping, Pen tool, Rectangle tool, Pathfinder > Divide, Object > Ungroup, Pathfinder > Unite, Knife tool, Object > Arrange > Bring to Front, Object > Arrange > Send to Back, and Group Select tool.
8067_ribbon2d.ai.zip

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

Could you possibly find a picture online that shows what you are trying to draw, or upload your existing project.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

I’m not sure exactly what you mean.
For the play button – I might print the clean design and do a pen & ink tracing, on a window or lightboard, in a grunge or distressed style. Then scan at a high resolution and redraw or Live Trace.
Or, maybe you could just find a grunge style vector icon library.
The only other grunge that I might see in this example is the purple background gradient. It would probably be best to produce this as a high resolution TIF in Photoshop, as a pure vector would have a ton of vector shapes.
You could potentially create a Scatter Brush in AI, out of an appropriate brush pattern, but again, if you need a vector it would result in a great many vector objects.
Another approach might be to start in Photoshop, then do a 3-color Live Trace in AI.
Nothing simple.

Vince

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[Vincent Rosati]

I’m not sure if I fully understand your question; but if I had to create a 2D cut file of the 3D shapes, that you seem to be describing, I would start by prototyping the real objects out of construction paper and tape or glue. Then I would scan and redraw the shapes, and test. I’ve done complex package design in this way.
Again, I’m not sure if this answers your question.

Vince

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