Brass

[Soquili]

I was looking through the book CorelDraw Studio Techniques by Gary Priester and David Huss, today. In Chapter 14 Gary shows how to achieve a Chrome effect. He applied the technique to the Pen Nib shape from the Zapf Dingbats font. I remembered that all the SpeedBall nibs I used were made of brass. I played around and came up with the following technique for a brass look for the nib. With some minor adjustments, it can be used for other shapes.
http://btaylor.50megs.com/images/brass-nib.gif

[Soquili]

I was looking through the book CorelDraw Studio Techniques by Gary Priester and David Huss, today. In Chapter 14 Gary shows how to achieve a Chrome effect. He applied the technique to the Pen Nib shape from the Zapf Dingbats font. I remembered that all the SpeedBall nibs I used were made of brass. I played around and came up with the following technique for a brass look for the nib. With some minor adjustments, it can be used for other shapes.
http://btaylor.50megs.com/images/brass-nib.gif

[Egg Bramhill]

Bill

http://www.xlwebdesign.co.uk/tg/brass1.jpg

Egg

[Soquili]

Hi
http://btaylor.50megs.com/images/tnks-egg2.jpg

[John Rayner]

Nice... Thanks Bill..

[gwpriester]

You did get permission from the authors, right? :-)

Actually I think the effect is more like bronze.

Gary

[Soquili]

Thanks, John.

Hi Gary, you bring up a very good point about it looking like bronze. I've searched google and found a lot of info about bronze and brass and how they have been around for thousands of years. But what I couldn't find, at least in the few minutes I could spare during work, is a definitive color reference for either metal.

Most of the sites reference that bronze is copper with some tin and that brass is copper with some zinc. Depending on the percentages of the two metals being alloyed together, there is a very wide range of colors. Some bronze and some brass are the same color. One jewelry site even mentioned they have a bronze that is the same color as gold.

Some of the sites I visited are saying that bronze and brass are practically indistinquishable today.

So, being long winded today but only wanting to say if it looks bronze then it is bronze http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Permission from the Authors...hmmm...not exactly http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif but I did buy the book from a reputable bookstore several years ago. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[stlewis]

I think it should be gold-ish, not brown-ish.

As at my Bricks & Brass site (this is simply #c49d00 with white as a highlight):

[Soquili]

Thanks Simon, I'll check that out when I get home later today and update the mini tutorial.

Edit: Home and I've had my dinner, so here's an updated colours mini tutorial. More yellow than brown, however it may not be what everyone is looking for. Feel free to make any changes and post your results.

http://btaylor.50megs.com/images/brass-nib2.gif

[gwpriester]

Bill

Here is a chart of different hues that seem to work best for different metals.

http://www.gwpriester.com/metal-hues.jpg

Hue 25 bronze, 30 copper, 45 gold, 55 brass, 210 and 260 cool and warm chrome.

Gary