Topic awaiting preservation: Help making vine

This is going to sound stupid..because this is something very basic.

I am trying to "extend" this vine across ..I hvae made vines before that always looked okay..but on this particular thing when I try to match it, it doesnt look right..Ive tried 10 or so times and it always looks wrong. Here is a link to the image. Pointers or if someone could create a psd file with it done thatd be cool...but if you do that tell me how you did it so I can learn.

I generally just use the pen tool, stroke it then light it..but again I cant get it to look right

http://shifter.ensellitis.com/rmxp/vine.jpg

Edit:

Wanted to post one of my attempts so you could see that I was at least trying..I know it sucks when people ask for help when they dont try.

http://shifter.ensellitis.com/rmxp/myattempt.jpg

(Edited by Shifter on 04-18-2005 05:21)

there are two main issues that I see

1) your curves are nice and long and smooth. Vines don't curve like that, as can be seen in the original vine. Try making curves a whole lot bumpier...

2) you are attaching a piece of vine of a consistent length to a thin end of the vine. You can see the vine thin down, and then thicken back up and maintain that thickness for the rst of the length - you need to attach (or make it look like...) to the thicker part of the vine, and make sure your vine follows the natural pattern of thick > thin

You also have a very strong light from the bottom in the original - you need to capture that light, and get that really fake shadow out of there.

I just noticed the things you mentioned...particularly the "too smooth" thing..I'm working on it..no luck yet ;P

Thanks for the reply.

Right along the same lines as DL-44; I think you should leave that particular "branch" alone all together and start the new extension from the thicker Y part of the vine. Then work up and around from there.