This page featuring the World’s Most Realistic Vector Art has been around for a while but we’ve not seen it before, and judging by the acres of comments it’s still pretty darn impressive.
If you really want your mind blown, check out the artist Bert Monroy on there, who does his work without tracing. His image of a train station for example took 11 months to finish (2000 hours), contains over 15,000 individual Photoshop layers and 250,000 paths. Just unbelievable.
As a photo-realist painter, I have often been asked why I don’t just take a photograph. Good question, when you consider my paintings look like photographs. Well, for one thing, I’m not a photographer. To me, it is not the destination that is important—it is the journey. The incredible challenge of recreating reality is my motivation.
Also check this out, you will never believe this is an airbrushed painting. http://www.smidgy.com/smidgy/2007/05/just_a_simpl…