FINAL THOUGHTS

Raster art is like a painting: The brush may swipe across the canvas with caprice or purpose. Aesthetics are created by layering paint, one pixel atop another, with the ability to paint over the same canvas again and again with lucid direction or absent a single preconceived color or shape. However controlled the action, raster is always liquid paint with fuzzy edges; however magnificent the art, it is always limited by the immutable size of its canvas.

Vector artwork, with its anchor points and path segments, requires slightly more attention to detail, a little more forethought, like sculpting in clay. Paths may be layered, divided, and combined to form new shapes and rich artwork, though their mere existence never scathes other paths unless directed to do so. Each bump and curve of the sculpture must be crafted by hand, a more tactile and immersive experience than painting on flat canvas with a brush. Roll the clay between your fingers, smooth this bump, lengthen that side. Affix the nose to the bust and smooth it into the face, then tear it off without injury to the face and shape it some more.

With path-based drawing, no alteration is ever truly permanent or unforgiving. Vector artwork and its paths are at the heart of all Illustrator work. On a whim they may be divided, sliced, and broken, and just as easily reconstructed, merged, or joined with variety as infinite as the uses made possible by resolution independence.