Inspiration: Vexel Style Artwork

Vexels are a style of design composed of multiple layered shapes. Photoshop is a popular program to use to compose these graphics, as a pixel output is part of the style, though almost any software with a good Pen Tool could be used to make vexels.

Get inspired by a wide spectrum of vexel artists. Learn how to create your own vexel graphics through beginner and intermediate tutorials on the subject. And don't miss the time-lapse vexel videos. Get to know the characteristics of this strong digital style.

Author: Sean Hodge

Hi All! I recently moved to the outskirts of Orlando, Florida. I'm the editor of Psdtuts+ and Vectortuts+. Also, visit my blog AiBURN where I feature some of my creative work and ideas. Or follow me on Twitter: @seanHodge.

Digital Art

Communion by Cristiano Siqueira
This is my favorite illustrator, so he tends to find his way into my writing. After reviewing other artists below, compare them to this artist's portfolio. His work has a strong combination of both realism and fantasy. He masterfully mixes multiple styles of design. One of the styles of design he works in is vexel. The artwork displayed here is called communion. In this style Cristiano surrounds each vexel shape with line work—distinctive.
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Resist by Binjoo
This vexel illustration has some smooth transitions across the skin tones. The hair, while also vexel in style, has a slightly different look. The illustration has a remarkable level of stylized realism. There is more vexel artwork in Binjoo's portfolio. This artist has written some tutorials on the subject. We link to a couple of them in the tutorials sections of this article.
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Charlize by Jussta
The vexel style in this illustration has a somewhat harsh feel. This is a choice available to the vexel artist. When you use larger layered shapes, fewer transitions, and irregularity in the shapes, the vexel style will appear stronger. It will stand out more and dominate the piece. There are many unique designs in this portfolio. Jussta uses this style of vexeling, though this artist also uses softer transitions as well.
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Kate Beckinsale by David Nanchin
This vexel shows the shaped transitions with a medium strength. The vexeling of hair is done with flat shapes making up the highlights. There's a good mixture of different colors. David's vexel gallery is filled with celebrity portraits.
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Orange Plectrum by John Norris
This vexel artwork is one of a series the artist has on the Red Hot Chille Peppers. This main figure in the illustration uses large, irregular vexel shapes. The technique employed gives it a painterly style, which contrasts the guitar that has a technical feel. Most of the artist's portfolio is made up of vexeled cars though.
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Candy by Cappuccino-Girl
This is a bright image that looks great. The vexeling shows in many parts of this image, most notably on the skin. Though, notice how the vexel design takes on a different patterning across the different cloth textures adorning the model in the illustration. There is a variety of colorful portraiture in the artist's gallery.
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Tutorials

Something Red Walkthrough
This vexel tutorial has great results. The tut doesn't cover every detail of creating the design, though. It starts with complete line work. Then it gives an overview of the process of coloring it in a vexel style.
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Vector/Vexel Art in Photoshop
Linda from vexels.net created this tutorial. This is a well-known tutorial in the vexel illustration field. It covers the detailed process of converting a photo to a vexel illustration. It shows each main step of creating this graphic with the Pen Tool.
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'Funky' Colors
This tutorial covers one of the common techniques employed in creating vexel graphics. It applies Posterize to a photo. This tut gives a guide that can be followed for creating basic vexel shapes. It then shows the process of using the Pen Tool to create a small portion of this image. It's not an impressive result, but a good beginner step in this process.
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Vexel Eye Walkthrough-Tutorial
This basic vexel tutorial shows how to create an eye in this style. It shows how to compose the vexel shapes one group at a time. It covers creating star bursts for the eyes as well.
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Vexel Start Tutorial
This is another tutorial to help you get up and running with vexel graphics. This one covers using layer opacities, posterize, the Pen Tool, layer setup, and other basic vexel techniques.
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Other Cool Stuff

Vexels.net
This is the leading vexel art community. They have forumns artists can post their work to and many more community features. There is a good explanation of What a Vexel Is on the site. Unfortunately, the site is shutting down. Hopefully, an equally good site will take its place. Before it closes its doors, check out some great vexel artwork posted there.
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Vexel Art Flickr Group
If you're looking for a place to post your new vexel creations or to view a collection of vexel artwork then check out this Flickr group. It's not a huge collection, but still worth checking out.
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How to Vexel
This tutorial explains some basics about vexeling. It gives practical advice on how to succeed with this art form. If you're new to creating vexel designs, then review this article.
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Vexel Process
This time-lapse video shows the complex process of designing a vexel-style illustration of lips. Numerous flat shapes are created with the Pen Tool. The process shown is that of building up layer upon layer until a final design is reached.
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Vexeling in Photoshop
This time-lapse video shows the process of creating a moody vexel illustration. It uses a reference photograph and significantly changes the colors in the process, though it emulates the lighting and tones in the photo. The work has a good final result but is simple enough that beginners could follow and likely emulate.
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User Comments

( ADD YOURS )

ViniMan May 24th

Great article.
( Reply )
giackop May 24th

Yeah very cool
( Reply )
jeffocy May 24th

Check out http://lifeinvector.com/. Great tutorial in the downloads section
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Randy H May 24th

Wait a minute? Vexels? Where have I been? What happened to Vector art? You’re definition is of vector art after-all. Vexel’s as you show them sounds like any other variation of mixed-media digital art that just so happens to include some vector art, no? Most of these examples look (live?)traced anywho.
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Nate May 24th

Nice read, thanks Sean.
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Toxel.com May 24th

Awesome. Thanks a lot!
( Reply )
Rijalul Fikri May 24th

I like this kind of vector stuff, I’ve tried myself to get into vexels, but still I can’t truly master it. Hopefully psdtuts will make a tutorial on it.
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Drupal Museum May 24th

Nice compilation. Thanks.
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Ben Griffiths May 24th

Wow, those are amazing, thanks!
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Sean Hodge May 24th

@Randy H – The introduction is meant to serve as a lead into the article and not a comprehensive definition of the style. I did make a couple updates to the introduction though after reading your input. Do follow this link http://www.vexels.net/what.php to a comprehensive definition of the style. There is a unique method for crafting vexel illustrations, and a characteristic look of the banding of overlapping shapes.
Read up on it a little more and you’ll find that it’s more of a style than a generic reference to vector graphics. They artwork is not live traced, and once you know what to look for in a vexel graphic, you’ll be able to distinguish between the two. In a vexel an artist can carefully control how the shapes layer. Check out some of the links to learn more. After reviewing the links let me know if you have any questions. And I hope you enjoy Vexels. It’s a cool style of illustration. Thanks.
@ Rijalul Fikri – Yah, a vexel tut would be great! We’ll see if anyone takes up the challenge and sends a polished tut in. Thanks.
( Reply )
Sean Hodge May 24th

@Randy H – Also, it’s a good point that it can be hard to distinguish between vectors, vexels, and how they are composed. In a technical sense vexels are composed of vector shapes when being created. Though a finished artwork is considered a vexel once exported to pixel format, not flash, svg, or some alternative. Technically, any vector graphic exported to pixel format can be reffered to as a vexel.
Historically, the origins of the term are mixed with a specific style of graphic presented here in this article. The end result is a pixel output that shows the vector method of creation. The banding of colors to make up skin tones is the most obvious stylistic association. Though there are others. Good question. And there isn’t a simple answer. I hope you enjoy the material. Thanks.
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James May 24th

Some awesome work there! Really nice! Thanks for sharing Sean.
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ZaFaR May 24th

Awesome. Thanks a lot! those are amazing tremendous!
( Reply )
Daniel May 24th

great article ! thanks a lot Sean!
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Randy H May 24th

Sean, thank you for better explaining the style to me. I guess I’m still a bit put off and/or confused on the whole scope as this has been done for years under the guise of ‘vector art’. And typically vector art lends itself to that banded look unless someone approaches it in another stylistic manner other than direct tracing (hyper photo realism using gradient meshes out the whazoo or pop art using simplistic shapes, for example) . As for vector artwork becoming Vexel artwork once it’s exported to a rasterized format… I think that’s a bit strange and an unindustry-like classification method. It’s like saying if I take a photo and I turn it into a CMYK halftone to print in a magazine it’s no longer a photograph, or I take a photo of my design work for my portfolio it’s no longer design, or if I make a logo and apply it to a wall it is now interior design not branding, etc.
Nothing against the whole movement, I guess we’ll just have to sit and watch it evolve. Also, this was a very good inspirational post. Some of the artists referenced are extremely talented making this a very interesting post.
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Constantin Potorac May 24th

Thank you for the article Sean. There are a lot of useful links there.
I was also thinking to write a tutorial like this.
( Reply )
Danny May 24th

Cool pictures
( Reply )
D. Carreira May 24th

Great article! Thanks Sean!
David Carreira
( Reply )
Carlos May 24th

Very good article. Definately the best so far in my opinion. Loved it.
( Reply )
Joefrey Mahusay May 24th

Great article thanks for sharing.
( Reply )
Louie May 24th

Awesome designs. Great links
( Reply )
ttoj May 24th

nice topic and thaaaaaaaaank’s a lot
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MONSTER May 24th

I have great desire to lick the last example.
( Reply )
Bee May 24th

Unfortunately, Lina is closing vexels.net
But DeviantArt has a lot fo this stuff too.
( Reply )
Daniel May 24th

Good overview…
Daniel
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bella May 25th

can somebody tell me what do I have to do if I want to make shadow on text?
please answer me on my mail bella-vk@hotmail.com!
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Mason Sklut May 25th

That’s a beautiful technique, thanks for sharing.
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Constantin Potorac May 25th

The articles you provide Sean are very useful. Thanks
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Andrew D May 25th

Very neat, never heard of this until now
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Mukund May 25th

Superb Sean!! I’ve admired vexels for so long now, and yet haven’t even begun to master them properly!!
I’m glad you featured John Norris aka Don Benni, a specialist in car vexels!! This guy alongwith the peerless Dangeruss(dangeruss.deviantart.com), are a in a class of their own as far car vexels are concerned!!
Thanks a lot Sean!!
( Reply )
Mukund May 25th

Second thoughts…is it possible to feature Dangeruss (Russ Shwenkler) in an interview?!!
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David Nanchin May 26th

Thank you very much for the feature and kind words!(:
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Ash May 26th

I’m not too sure about this being vexel.. I learned that vexel is a mix of vector and pixels??
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jussta May 27th

Wow, thank you very much for featuring me among these wonderful artists!
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Thiago Peixoto May 30th

cool!!!! Visit the gallery http:\andersonmathias.deviantart.com, my master
i wait for more one article
( Reply )
MK May 31st

Nice tutorial.
( Reply )
Constantin Potorac June 2nd

I have also tried to make something similar with this but when I done it I had no tablet and the result is not that good. Also it was long ago.
If you look interested to see what I came up with check out the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22636934@N07/2179885053/
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mgk June 2nd

Very nice tutorial thank you.
( Reply )
MD June 4th

Interesting! Thanks!:D
( Reply )
Ankit Mahanot June 9th

Amaaaaazing Tut …… will definitely try it out ….. keep it going !!!!
( Reply )
Yasir ali February 14th

here my attempt
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ip2VqbZg_os/SOuuFGOoQoI/AAAAAAAAAFU/-X7939tnR4I/s1600-h/jolie-YASIR-ALI.jpg
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