MORE help with color, please?

[Toonicorn]

Sorry, gang - despite your advice, I'm still having trouble coloring in Xara.

Here is a drawing I've outlined with Xara. I'd like the areas outlined in purple to be filled with a lighter shade of purple (how do you lighten a chosen color in Xara?), the areas outlined in deep yellow to be a lighter shade (pastel yellow, actually) and so on:

toonposelast 001.jpg.xar

Please, if some kind person will color this image and tell me every step he/she took, and please be explicit because I am very new to Xara, I would be very grateful. I tried to color this using the shape tool, using the put to back control, etc. Nothing happened. I must still be doing something wrong, but I don't know what. Please help. Thanks!

[iamtheblues]

See attachment which refers to the bottom left corner of the Xara workspace.
You cannot fill your drawing (excellent though it is) with colours because it is
just a bunch of lines. They all have a beginning and an end point.
To make shapes, you start with a beginning point and end back at the same point
to make an enclosed shape, which will fill with colour.
Bob.

[angelize]

Hello Toonicorn. What you need to do as Bob mentioned is create filled shapes to colour your drawing. You need an extra layer in between the sketch and the ink layers. See my attached mini tutorial I have also included the .xar file which has a vector copy of your drawing that is partially coloured. If you need any more help by all means ask!



Toonicorn_colouring.xar

[Big Frank]

your cartoons are lovely

[handrawn]

you can do it with seperate lines - its the way I would do it in xara - but you must not leave any gaps whichever way you do it, and you have left seven that I could see ringed in red on the attached - if you zoom in close in your file you will see them

so

general note : always lock all the layers except the one you are working on - hide any if they get in the way whilst working

1] either reposition/remake your lines to close the gaps, or just draw a small line [which is what I have done in the example] over each gap

2] save your file and then save it to a new name say 'practice file'

3] in 'practice file' marque select all of your lines [remember to have all other layers locked first] and go to arrange menu and click 'convert line to shape' - go to arrange menu and click 'combine shapes' > 'add shapes' - go to arrange menu and click 'break shapes'

if you have done it correctly you should see a solid 'shape' - click on this to select it, click white on the colour line to turn it white and then arrange menu and click 'put to back' - you should now see all your colour shapes that you can recolour as you need them - only trouble is your outline is all one colour [white]

so when you come to do this in your original file - first duplicate the layer called 'ink' - make sure the original layer 'ink' is selected and lock and hide the other two -

now do the above proceedure on the 'ink' layer - and then when you show the duplicate layer your lines are there [in this case you can just delete the 'white' shape' if you wish]

the advantage of this method is that the colour shapes and the line shapes are seperate objects on seperate layers - considered good practice by many, as it makes for more flexible editing amongst other things [efficient use of program memory....etc] - and best of all you don't have to draw everything twice, for which life is too short

I've attached a xar file - with the shapes coloured - be an idea to rename the layers when you do it for real ...

[there is another gap I missed in the mouth area, pretty obvious too we can all do this]

[bcire68]

Hi Toonicorn,

Here are two video tutorials for www.Xara-Users.info that may help you out.

The first is a video on how to fill unclosed shapes and the second is how to copy and color clipart. I hope they prove usefull to you.

Eric

[Boy]

I don't know if you have already seen the videos made by fellow Xara cartoonists Bob Hahn and ZEBtoonz (in 2009) but in case you haven't, here are the links:
Bob Hahn's coloring tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...fT7Z69F9A&NR=1

And ZEBtoonz three-part drawing & coloring tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBY6v...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-8FX...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ture=endscreen

[handrawn]

thanks for the Bob Hahn video - it's a good description of the method - in Bob's case he covers the gaps on the colouring layer, so the gaps remain in the line art - surely the thing to do if you want them left for effect....

[Toonicorn]

Thanks SO much for the help, everyone! I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it at last. Here's what I've done so far:

toonposelast 001.jpg.xar

As you can see, I've been having fun with fills. It's all still a bit clumsy, but I'm pretty pleased so far. Thanks for your patience with me. I might make friends with Xara yet.

[Boy]

Thanks for sharing the .xar file to show us how you tackle coloring.

I noticed that you use a photo document for the drawing. This probably happened automatically when you imported a .jpeg scan of your sketch. It's not really a problem but if you want to know more about this, you can find additional information about the characteristics of a photo document in the Help file: Under the "Index" tab, type "photo documents" in the search box.