Gary Bouton's Xara Stuff

[Gare]

Thank you, Larry.

Here's something I did, but didn't publish when we were doing the water droplet tutorial:



My Best,

Gary

[Ron Duke]

Awesome Gare! Very effective.

[Gare]

I like the way the geometry of this composition came out, but I confess this is the first time I've ever tried to draw curved glass without the assistance of a reference picture or a model. Flying blind, you might say!




No shame,

Gary

[Gare]

The real difficult part of this piece was the sugar waffle cone. The gleaming ice cream, which is a tad unrealistic, is just a lot of simple blends steps much like gradient fills, with a lot of studio white card reflections, a trite and true device for making stuff look a little more photorealistic—use suggestions that the object is in a photographer's studio.

The waffle cone: I did a lot of criss-crosses, used the Mould tool to cast the right perspective, and then crapped the two major shapes up using the Watercolor filter (I think) after adding a little Noise. I did the shading first, and in retrospect, it might have worked better by first filtering the cone itself, and then auto-tracing and making corrections here and there. It's difficult to add visual interest to non-reflective things. I had the world's hardest time drawing a slice of bread once!

[Ron Duke]

Teach me how to fly blind, will you?
Great work. The ice cream looks like it's about to drip and slide off, and the cone is very realistic. You really know how to achieve the effects you want.

I suspect you and Gary P. are raking in huge amounts of green backs with all the talent just oozing out of your pores!

[gray]

Very tasty looking, Gare.

[Gare]

Thanks, gray and Ron!

Ron, you overestimate my talent. Mostly, when people see what I've drawn, they ask me why I messed up a perfectly good blank piece of paper. :)

I created this character about 20 years ago, but only got around to creating a Xara version of it last week.



My Best,

Gary

[ss-kalm]

He reminds me a little of BLIT WIZBOK ...

[Gare]

That is a classic video—I Will Survive—, loved it and still do. Much funnier than Gloria Gaynor's video of the same.

I wish my character was offered a music video... :)

My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

Sometimes I drift way from all these pyrotechnic challenges and just want to know off something rustic.




"Fall colors" were important, and I used the Bevel tool very carefully, to the inside, to raise the elements a little aginst what appears to be a distressed board.

My Bestm

Gare