Read if you dare

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Thought I'd have a go at doing a bit of Lovecraft influenced art.
The symbols on the book were done using the LOVECRAFT'S DIARY, SWORD THRASHER and MISKATONIK fonts.

have to say I prefered Wheatley to Lovecraft myself... ;)

THIS IS IT...
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I really wanted a leather effect for the book's cover.
BTW DON'T READ Simon's NECRONOMICON (AVON BOOKS) it's got nothing at all to do wth Cthulhu!

You can get a leather like texture on the book by using a bitmap transparency. you need a darker shape and a lighter shaded shape layered one on top of the other ( use the keyboard shortcut ctrl+k to clone shapes directly on top) and select the top shape, then in the fills gallery there are many fills in some of the different categories that you can apply as a bitmap transparency by clicking the transp button at the top of the gallery. Use the transparency tool to manipulate your chosen texture to look more leather like.

Edit: Here is a quick mini tutorial using one of the Background fills that come with Xara and the embossing effect for a bit of added realism. I have attached a png and for anyone who would like a closer look a .xar file of the tutorial. The .xar also contains a completed piece of leather for anyone who wants to pull it apart.

You might also find this thread interesting, Rik came up with a great method for creating 3D books with the extrude tool.

The fonts I used for the symbols can be downloaded free.
Being a writer of fantasy fiction I might neeed the ocassiionalvery ancient (Atlantis ande before era) written language" as in some of my works of fiction, not finding an ancient text could mean a demonic cataclysm....

*I've got:-
runes
heiroglyphs
ancient text
Lovecraftian
fonts

You said you wanted a leather texture for the book, did you have a look at the tutorial?

I might not be the Leonardo di Vinci of TalkGraphics.com and XP&GD7 but I'd like to thank you all for the tips, advice and encouragement and compliments/
I'm glad I got XP&GD7 though and at least there's a proper manual.