Interweaving vines with 3D text

[Gare]

@Dave—

You're a fast learner, sport!

Now, the main difference between the blend trick I showed and what you did, is that your lines are perfectly centered between one another.

If you offset one or the other, you can achieve a nice lighting effect, (although with both lines in exactly the same place, you have a good beginning of a "Neon Effect").



I put the steps in the attached file.

"Nuance" is Everything in Good Art.

:)

My Best,

Gary

[dcahall]

Thanks Gare - I thought I had done that because I did see that when I was trying different things. I also see a couple of other mistakes that I am going to try to correct and I will repost the updated image.

I cannot tell you how much fun I am having here thanks to people like you. I do feel I am leaning. I am beginning to see that the Xara tool is more powerful for drawing than I was giving it credit for. This community is wonderful for sharing.

[dcahall]

OK - I made a correction (removed a couple of leaves that I missed the first time). Still have one small area of the vine over top of the D that needs to be corrected but was not able to fix that. I have to blow it up before you really notice the flaw. I am thinking about trying to use the clone tool to fix that.


Here is a 2nd enlarged copy that points out what I thought I saw. I had attempted to do what you are saying. I tried to edit the vine but had converted it a bitmap copy and could not edit it. I fully understand what you are saying and had attempted to do that.


BTW: I did a screen capture and then tried to use clip tool and could not get it to cut out part of my screen capture. I had the image up, used the clip tool to highlight what I wanted to clip but could never get it to clip. Do not understand what I was doing wrong.

@Gare, @Frances - I cannot thank you enough for your guidance in this endeavor. I hope others might find this interesting enough to build on it and do some other stuff along this line.

[wizard509]

Nice job Dave. This has been a most interesting thread.

[BeanPole]

Yes! I too have enjoyed this thread!

[dcahall]

@wizard509, @BeanPole: Glad you have enjoyed. It has sure taught me a lot even though every time I look at the image I see something else that needs to be corrected. Oh well, the learning process is the most valuable part for me at this sime.

@Gary (or should I use Gare): I messed with the Clip tool some more and got it to work correctly. Not sure what I was doing wrong before but think I have it under control now

[Gare]

Hi Dave—

Gare or Gary is fine.

If you're the IRS, my name is Mr. Howard Feldstein and I live in Miami.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Clipview has only a few rules but the nice thing about this feature is that it's non-destructive.

You can clip as many shapes as you like. The shape at the bottom of the stack on a layer is the "peephole" through which you see the clipped shapes.

To execute a clip, you press Q while all the candidates are selected.

To unClip a group, you press Alt+Q.

Now, if you combine or Convert to Editable Shapes, then the clipview process is destructive and everything outside the bottom Clipping shape is deleted. Except when you clip a photo. Photographs (bitmaps, images) stored in a document are never altered. To restore a messed-up image, all you do is drag a copy into the document from the Bitmap Gallery.


I trust you're beginning to forget about ArtRage?
<Gary gets serious for a moment>
Oddly, digital painting, at least to me, is a lot more daunting than "drawing". Xara lets you undo and move lines, something a lot more difficult in Painter, ArtRage or other paint programs. Xara and other vector drawing programs have very clear rules: all areas are made of strokes and fills. And all shapes you create can be moved around and scaled, also something darned hard to do when you paint in a paint program.

Look at the Outsider this month to see how talented individuals stretch the bounds of what a drawing program is thought of as capable of doing.

To me, digital drawing is a process that is a lot more forgiving than painting. I admire experienced painters' work; it's just some place I can go, not creatively.
</seriousness>

-g