Gare's non-Xara Art

[Gare]

Thank you, beretgascon—

but I don't like tricking people just for sport and I thought I was clear (probably wasn't) that the trainer and stopwatch image is indeed a rendered scene, and not a photograph.

Here's the scene in draft mode:



What helped my deception was applying Depth of Field blurring, plus a smashing plug-in for Photoshop called Alien Skin Exposure, which adds pretty authentic film grain to images.

Merry Christmas, not Trick or Treat,
Gary

[handrawn]

just caught up on this thread - 'musical chairs' is also wonderful - its the humour I see in it that really makes it for me ...

[Gare]

"Whimsical" is a motif that seems to suit me, Steve. Humour gets a lot more response, and the response is positive, than trying to make a visual situation self-important, heavy, or when someone is trying to be a stylistic Drama Queen.

Making 3D battlegrounds and weapons, and tributes to Conan and gore doesn't interest me. IMO, it isn't "fantasy", but instead "nightmarish". Trying to get someone to recapture the child within themselves is a much more worthy endeavor, IMO.

There's room for both ends of the spectrum in Art. I just gravitate in the opposite direction of the current trend. Perhaps my efforts can provide a balance on occasion.

-g-

[cursor]

Wonderful examples of quality work to live up to. Thanks for sharing, Gary.
BTW, I purchased your 'Xara Xtreme 5' book several months ago, and am STILL learning from it. Thanks a million for your very, very professional perspective.

[Gare]

You're most welcome, cursor. Lordy, it feels like 300 years ago that I wrote that book! FYI, authors who write about different software tend to do a "mind dump" after the book is published. I honestly have to pick up a copy of a book and read it when a reader asks a specific question.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank The Xara Group for graciously extending me space on this forum to show off things that have absolutely nothing to do with their products.

If the inspiration for artwork actually came from the program (under the Other>Ideas>Draw Great Idea menu), the appearance of all artwork would be dictated by the features and limitations of a specific program. Happily, this ain't the way Creativity goes!

I'd like to mention here, though, that when I have an idea, I first consider how it's to be realized, and then I pick the best tools. I almost always begin a project in Xara, and then see where it takes me. Xara happens to play nicely with most other programs. Here's an example: I wanted to create a wind-up toy. And I was just settling into C4D and didn't know where all the tools were for drawing splines.

So I drew the pieces to be lofted, extruded and so on in Xara, exported them as EPS files, dragged them into my modeler, and this scene is pretty much exactly as I envisioned and wanted it.



Xara's a "deep" program. You can spend years with it non-stop and Charles and the gang still have a lot of stuff left to explore under the hood.

My Best,

—Gary

[Big Frank]

cute little fella, reminds me of little robot that was left alone on earth to clean up after humans left (memory hole, forgot his name)

[Gare]

Wall-e, a Pixar motion picture.

Didn't think of that, though. This was a favourite toy of mine when I was very young, probably walked away on my in my sleep.

-g-

[MarcT]

Hi Gary, awesome robots!

For translating vectors in to 3d objects, I find Moi3d quite awesome.
It's a very easy nurbs modeler that sports a super tight meshing engine who plays well with Modo or C4d.

It may not be suitable for organic free form like trees, but for man-made and curve based objects it's a huge time-saver for me.

It also doubles as a 2d cad/geometry program that takes off where Xara is not necessary specialized: Arrays, advanced snapping, tangency, offsets, etc...

Marc

[Gare]

Wow, Marc...I was sold on Moi3D until I saw the almost $300 price tag, but it still looks like a way cool path to a scene and a rendering engine. I would think this would be a modeler of choice for anyone who owns Maxwell Studio, which is one big production studio with no modeling tools to speak of.

More than a finished product, though, I have quite a fun time trying to see how several programs can be coaxed to converse and give me a result through involuntary cooperation. It gives me fodder to write about, and actually the highlights of some of the books I've written go off on a tangent and discuss, for example, how Xara plays nicely with Photoshop, how to trick the Adobe Illustrator clipboard into letting other programs use it, and other esoterica that a curious mind and ambitious soul might be interested in, too.

I did this a lonnng time ago as a goof. Let's see what my toolkit was in 2008: Photoshop, modo, Maxwell render, Vue, Xara, and probably a medium sized kitchen sink. I wasn't and am not trying to show off here with all the apps. I honestly couldn't think of a simpler way to make the composite, and was just happy that I didn't hit an uncooperative snag getting data from one app to the next.



[i]—g[/]

[wizard509]

I like this Gare, the colors appeal to me.