On the 14th of March, I turned 23. By no means old age, but I'm still obliged to get all retrospective with it.

So, a few days ago I decided to post one of my first pieces: [Waaay Old Honda Integra Type R]. I'd like to compare it to my newest piece: [Silvia s15 poweredBy esoDesign].

.//Why compare?//.

I chose these two because they are so similar. Both pieces are of cars. Both are based on photographs. Both are vector pieces built in versions Adobe Illustrator. To get more specific, both pieces use points, paths, gradients and gradient meshes. The way I went about creating both piece in nearly indentical. But, if this is all true, why do they look so different?

.//Why the Integra sucks//.

The Integra is both an example of my inexperience and my impatience, two traits that ran rampantly in my life and dictated most of my actions of the time. The piece is by no means representative of my talents and potential at the time. I've got a [piece] a year or so older than the Integra in my gallery which looks incredibly better. That piece also took waaay longer than 2 hours to complete. More like 2 weeks longer.

.//What's the big deal?//.

The only difference (aside the obvious make and model of the vehicle) is time. The only difference is the amount of time spent creating the pieces. Where the Integra took less than 2 hours from beginning to end, the Silvia took more hours than I cared to count. If I'd quit working on the Silvia 2 hours after I decided to do it, it would have looked remarkably similar to the Integra.

.//What's the secret?//.
Patience. The Silvia has thousands more points and hundreds more shapes. Many more hours went into creating it. Aside from that there's no difference in the way I went about creating the pieces. Just the pen tool to create shapes, then gradients or gradient meshes. What I've learned this year is that greatness comes with time. By taking my time with a piece, I can be sure that it will be as good as I can make it.