Vector Battle: Round One - Diamonds (Start) ~ Krobknea

by Sharon Milne

Over the past two days we published two diamond themed tutorials. This is because two Instructors stepped forward to take part in our first Vector Battle. They were given a theme to work with to create fun, educational and quality tutorials for our awesome readers.

Round One: Diamonds

The theme for the first Vector Battle was Diamonds. This was because the birthstone for the month of April is diamond/crystal. The challengers could interpret the theme how they wish.
Our challengers for this round are two regular authors, you may recognize them:

Mary Winkler aka Queen of Kawaii
Yulia Sokolova aka Queen of Patterns

How the Winner will be Chosen

The winner of the battle will be decided based on the result of three rounds of voting:

An Editor vote: by yours truly, the Vector & Drawing Editor here on Tuts+ and general vector obsessive.
A Guest Judge: for this battle, Jacob Zinman-Jeanes. He is the former Tuts+ Creative Lead (and responsible for our diamond trophy graphics!).
Community Vote: based on the number of unique comments on each article within a week of publish for the tutorial (spam will not be included).

The winner will be declared whoever gets two or more votes from the above. In the event of a tie, the community vote will be the decider, based on traffic during the voting week. This will be announced on Friday 18th April 2014.

So What Do They Win?

Nothing.
Well apart from the knowledge they won the first Vector Battle on Tuts+. The purpose of taking part in a Vector Battle is to push your creativity and to have fun.
As with all content, Instructors get paid for the content we publish, so they have been financially rewarded for their hard work and generosity of sharing their work flow with the community.

The Competing Tutorials

So let's have a look at the tutorials competing against each other for you to choose from and what our guest judge had to say about each one. I'll be sharing Jacob's final call for the 18th April.

How to Design a Gem Swapping Mobile Game UI in Illustrator

The first tutorial by Mary Winkler used the diamond theme to create icons and basic UI for a gem swapping game. This tutorial uses Adobe Illustrator and is aimed at an advanced audience.

Mary's interface has just the right amount touchability and whimsical style. Exactly what you want for game art. There's a lot of character there, especially for such a simple UI. I think the detail in each gem is great, it's hard to believe everything here is 100% vector.

Create a Set of Flat Precious Gems Icons in Adobe Illustrator

In the second tutorial, Yulia Sokolova embraces two trends: flat style and long shadows. She shows you how to create a set of precious gem icons. This tutorial uses Adobe Illustrator and is aimed at beginners.

Yulia's gem icons are very much in-line with current trends, and really well put together. They gems are nice and simple and well constructed, meaning they'll reproduce well at a bunch of different icon sizes. Good use of colour, too. There's great contrast in each separate icon.

Interested in Joining in on the Fun?

There are two ways to take part in the fun.
You can show your support by commenting on your favorite tutorial. Your comment will be counted as a vote in the community voting. If you're even more passionate for your favorite tutorial, feel free to share it
If you're interested in taking part in our future Vector Battles, why not consider writing for us? We're always open to new talent joining our awesome vector team.

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