VECTOR HYPERREALISM: The Most Detailed Vector Art Ever Created

THE GOLDEN STATE by Cal, the Artist - vector art

this spring, exactly one year after a commissioned trip to Big Sur, i traveled from SoCal to San Francisco to get reference photos for a new commission.

SF is known for its unpredictable weather. the first day was rainy and misty. since i only had a few days, i still decided to chase the sunset in the hills of Berkeley, hoping for a miracle.

it didn't happen. the bay was drenched in milk with zero visibility.

the next morning was gorgeous, so i headed to the location, about an hour from my hotel. plan b was to capture clear details in daylight and golden them up by hand or create a colorful morning piece. got my shots. felt good. almost.

i spent the day exploring SF (checking the weather every hour). the sky was clear, primed for a nice sunset. but the evening got stressful: i got stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge, and as the sky started to turn golden, i feared i wouldn't make it to the hills.

but i did. and it was euphoric.

The Story

"THE GOLDEN STATE" (2024)

LINK TO MINTED NFT

vector hyperrealism
77 832 hand-drawn elements

commission

The Inspiration

back at home, with a ton of photos, i started collaging them searching for the right composition. that's when i remembered a piece i had seen in the news , when in 2011, it was auctioned off for $4.3 mil, making it the most expensive photograph ever sold.

a decade later, that sale still baffles me but there was something in those straight horizontal lines that spoke to me at the moment, so i decided to use them as guidelines for this commission.

i opened a blank canvas in Illustrator, imported the image, drew the guidelines and the work began.

naturally, i started changing things up rather quickly, crafting more dynamic shapes, but it's interesting how a brief moment from the past turned out to be an unexpected inspiration for the starting point of this artistic endeavor.

"Rhein II" (1999) by a German visual artist Andreas Gursky.

The Details

"THE LONE CYPRESS" (2023, commissioned by @crypto17mile) marked a milestone in my journey to define vector hyperrealism, featuring 32k hand-drawn elements.

vector hyperrealism - THE LONE CYPRESS vector art

half a year later, "PIRATE TOWER" (2024, commissioned by @hkhashhk) hit a new record of 37k.

vector hyperrealism - Pirate Tower Laguna Beach vector art

and now, "THE GOLDEN STATE" got to the frontier I'd never thought was possible -- 77 832 elements, drawn by hand, in Adobe Illustrator.

The Devil

with that extreme amount of details, the workflow became so slow that i had to split the project into two files to keep going.

if this video looks glitchy it's because i didn't speed it up on purpose to show you the overload of having these two projects combined into one.

The Linework

when you work on a piece every day long enough, you stop thinking about the finish line. it becomes just something you do. so finishing it really feels like closing a chapter. like moving to a new apartment. surreal.

now, looking at the skeleton fills me with pride. and anxiety. but mostly pride.