June 2012 Tips and Tricks - Using Text as a Shape

[Gare]

@stygg—

For a fictitious eatery, you've added some very nice additional visualizations, and they are in the correct perspective.

Indian cuisine either isn't prepared correctly in the States (either upstate NY or New York City), or it's just a taste we Yanks never acquired. We have a lot of Middle Eastern and Indian families here in Upstate, and these are the only people I see going in and coming out of these ethnic restaurants. If it weren't for a fortune teller who came to our table, I would have considered my last visit to an Indian restaurant...erm, not my future first choice of places when I'm hungry. Oddly, I can deal with and enjoy Asian spices, and Mexican, but not Middle Eastern.

As I'm sure you know, our fast food places (Wendy's, McD's, Burger King, et al) serve "finger food" as well. Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips, which is not authentic and I don't think Mr. Treacher ever did anything but sell his name to the franchise—sells fih and chips with vinegar in a custom printed newspaper, which is a laugh if you think about it.

We are really trying to get into the swing of recycling paper here, and because food spoils the paper that wraps it (at least for recycling), these places are cutting down on the amount of paper used to serve up a burger. Went from light cardboard (pasteboard) to something a little thicker than toilet paper (how appropriate) last year.

-g

[Antspants]

Wow that was quite tricky to keep things neat.

I just couldn't get any where near the right look so had to chop off some of the lable:



Still a bit amateur and wonky looking, will have another bash!

[Gare]

Okay, you might understand at least one thing now: a cylinder in 3D when photographed, shows 1/2 of a label design, or less.

The other thing that I see you're working on is lighting.


Try this: create a circle and then extrude it, and then play with the lighting. You can see in my fake photo that the light source is coming from the front left into the picture.

Try some gradients, blend modes, and pull the piece together using not just this month's tutorial, but past ones I've shown, such as lighting the polyhedron back in January.

[Antspants]

I improved it a bit but I still can't get the text right.

I used shapes with linear transparency for the light shaded areas.

[Gare]

Your can design is quite nice and this latest post is an improvement over the previous one, Antspants.

Here's some more technique/advice:

Your perspective is distorted when you used Envelope mode. The "I" below really should be parallel to the dotted lines of the grid I overlaid. Try the banner mode of the Envelope Mould tool. Also, build a grid to check on the perspective of the lettering by drawing a line at left edge, another at the right and then blending the two lines.



Also, take advantage of the reflective areas already on the can, by using Stained Glass and Bleach with transparency, linear mode with many different opacity levels.






Look at the attached file,

Gary

[Antspants]

Thanks for Your patience Gary!

Been scratching my head as I knew something was not quite right with my 'science' here, see attached image.



I think I get it better now: the text will remain much 'straighter' in reality ie each letter needs to stay fairly upright. I was trying to get it to align with the natural curvature of the can.

Will keep trying to crack this!

[Gare]

Create yourself a distorted, curved grid as an overlay, antspants.

Draw the top of the can curve and the bottom, and then use Blend to make the vertical "grid".

And yes, this is a brain buster. But if you solve it as a technique, you can put labels on packages and there IS some call for this talent in commerce.



-g

[Antspants]

Thank you for the help, I got it a little better and made some more effort with the shading.

I do understand the technical approach better now, I think it's a case of just keep practising to get a better intuitive feel.

Thanks again.

[Gare]

It's a nice technique to "own", antspants. I think you've come very close to perfecting it.

My Best,

Gary

[wizard509]

Gare, I have worked very hard on this but it just isn't coming out right.
Did I get the stripes to close to the bottom of the can?
The Text gave me all kinds of trouble and as for the information splotch on the right side of the can, maybe I'm not showing enough, but that is because I don't think I would see much of it from the view I have. Anyway your crit is welcome.