A benchmark for hand-authored SVG illustration.
The task is one picture: a pelican rides a bicycle. Each entry draws that picture as a hand-authored SVG file. No entry uses a raster tracer. No entry uses a generated path dump.
One agreed reference image binds the composition and the pose. One written style guide binds the colour, the fill and the line. A rubric of eight rows scores the finished drawing. Each row scores 5 at most, so the total is 40 at most.
An entry is called a route. A route is one method of making the drawing. Two routes are finished. A third route is in progress.
Every drawing uses these eleven colours and no others.
| Swatch | Hex | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Pelican cream | #FFF1C9 |
The pelican body, head, neck, wing and legs. |
| Pelican shadow | #E9C98A |
One large underside or wing-shadow shape only. |
| Coral bill | #F47B59 |
The upper bill and the bill edge. |
| Tangerine pouch | #F6A14D |
The throat pouch and the lower bill. |
| Cobalt frame | #2E6FCD |
The bicycle frame, fork, handlebar stem and crank. |
| Lemon wheel accent | #FFD24A |
Wheel hubs, pedal caps and small motion accents. |
| Raspberry accent | #E94D73 |
The saddle, the grips and one small decorative accent. |
| Deep ink | #233047 |
Outlines, eyes, mouth arcs, wheel rims and key joins. |
| Sky background | #8DD5F0 |
The full background field. |
| Cloud highlight | #FFF9E8 |
One or two large cloud or ground highlight shapes. |
| Grass accent | #6FBE74 |
A simple ground strip, or up to three large environment accents. |
Five of the eleven must be present in the finished drawing: #FFF1C9,
#F47B59, #F6A14D, #2E6FCD and #8DD5F0.
Use flat fills only. Do not add a twelfth colour. To add a colour, you must remove one of the eleven.
The reference is concept C7, "Up the hill". Five reviewers voted on eight concepts. The vote gave C1 two votes, C7 two votes and C5 one vote. The lead broke the tie for C7 on pelican identity and riding control.
C7 is one 1254 x 1254 PNG. Its SHA-256 is
e63488aed043c0177b2c36187edc3e8f4d3ab4337e4755ef9aa9d039eed83ded.
The PNG file is not in this repository yet. See docs/method.md, section "The reference image", for the reason. The SHA-256 above is the identity check for the file when it is added.
| Route | Drawing | Score |
|---|---|---|
| A | variations/variation-a.svg — "Still climbing" |
34 of 40 |
| B | variations/variation-b.svg — "Over the top" |
31 of 40 |
The row-by-row sheets are in scores/variation-a.md and scores/variation-b.md. The rubric is in scores/rubric.md.
Neither drawing reaches the standard the benchmark asks for, which is top studio level. Three marks in forty is a small gap. The scores inform a human choice. They do not make it.
Route A and route B both used a fault-first method. The builder drew the finished picture, a reviewer measured faults, and the builder fixed them. A human reviewer judged both finished drawings poor and asked for a painter's layered method instead.
Route C is that method. It has four stages: research on figure construction, a skeleton that proves the pose is physically possible, a block-in from primitive shapes for proportion, then a fused and cleaned drawing. All four stages are kept as separate files.
Route C uses the same eleven-colour palette, the same C7 reference and the same eight-row rubric, so its score is comparable. Route A and route B are not changed.
Route C will be added to this repository when it lands.
Read CONTRIBUTING.md.
Every artwork file has a SHA-256 entry in CHECKSUMS.txt.
sha256sum -c CHECKSUMS.txt
The two SVG values also appear on the source pages the drawings came from, so a reader can confirm that these files are the exact files that were scored.