Hand-Drawn Vector VS. Photo-Copy Texture

...I thought about posting this in Design & Textures...but that is more for questions how to make things so...

When buying clothes, do you prefer a well made hand-drawn vector item or a well made photo-copied textured item? I find that I have been leaning towards vector lately because of the quality difference, they are always much cleaner and smoother...but they do look a bit more "toon". Two pix are below to try and explain what I mean.

I only know of a few shops with vector-drawn clothes so I am not sure what to think.

Shirt texture copied from a photo:
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/7654/shirtreg3vk.jpg

Shirt drawn with vector:
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9892/shirtvec5yn.jpg

Where is option on poll for "it matters less than if garment is pretty and well made"?

I'll second this! I've always thought about buying clothing in SL as I do in RL, "If it's well made and makes me/the avatar look nice." Otherwise, the source of the texture itself doesn't matter to me. Some look better from a photograph, others look better completely done by hand, depending on the skill of the person making it.

Well, based on if they are both equally well made

If they are both equal well made and both same pattern and pretty... then they are identical and I would not be able to make a choice.

If the one made with picutre has richer texture, then it better. But I see many artists who hand draw that make very rich texture.

It always boil down to how well it made.

I agree with the other posters, it depends on how well the items are made. I answered your other post comparing the shirts and why I thought one of those particular shirts looked better than the other.

I have seen photo sourced clothes that look awesome and some that look like crap. I have also seen hand painted clothed that look like crap while others are absolutely gorgeous.

While I have a personal preference for hand painted clothes I won't turn down a photo sourced item if it is done very well.

When it´s well done I don´t care if it´s one or another, now what you just showed us is too abstract to judge that, since its basically color squares.

I think it matters on how it looks as well,

Anyone can copy and paste a photo on the template
I think its more challenging and more fun to actually make it from scratch rather then using a image from somewhere else but hey thats just me.

If its pretty and sexy don't matter how its done, as long as its cute!

To be honest both those pics you provided don't look good to me.

Strictly speaking, vector is flat line art like Flash or Illustrator files. Clothes in SL are more likely to be bitmap (pixel) files with shading. I use vector sometimes to make patterns though.

I prefer the hand-drawn clothes. It's an ethics thing for me. As a designer... If someone else (like Guess or Bebe) designed the clothes, someone else (like a pro photographer and stylist) took the picture, and all I did was paste it in the template, why should I get a single cent for the clothes? They're not really mine. That, however, is just my opinion and obviously a lot of people prefer the photosourced stuff. I also stick fabric textures on the scanner from time to time so I'm not exactly a 100% hand-done designer.

I like wearing clothes that are hand-drawn too simply because they match better with seams, are more even with shading, etc. than many photosourced items. A lot of stuff plurs the lines though! I can't honestly tell what Torrid's or Neph's stuff is... except clothes I like to wear. Heh.

A good photosourced item with clean seams is likely to be a combination between photographs and hand painting. When you see photosourced items that are detailed and seamless with wrinkles that cross seams, and with even lighting, you can be pretty sure that a lot of work went into it (or else the creator got extraordinarily lucky).

Personally I like both for different reasons. Hand painted clothing is a bit more artistic while photosourcing is a bit more technical. Anything done well is fine by me.