Gary Bouton's Xara Stuff

[Gare]

This isn't recent work, but it was one of the first times I had the opportunity to draw and then scan some art, then vectorize it and color it in Xara.




My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

I expect that the first reaction to this piece might be, "Oh, plagiarism. Copyright infringement!"

Yes, I did have the album in front of me, yes, this one of the poses that Michael Cooper, the London photographer who worked with The Beatles to get the props arranged "just so", but I've wondered for more than a little while: what would the cover look like without all the props, letting you focus on the uniforms, certainly not standard wardrobe for the Fab Four who came to our country in British banker jackets.

Moreover I asked myself, "What if this album cover was an illustration instead of a photo?" How can I reduce the visual information to get to the essence of this now iconic pose?



This is more of an artistic experiment than it is an attempt to steal attention or copyrights from their rightful owners. I think it's obvious that I ave a lot of respect for the original creation. Here's a close up of Mr. Harrison so you can see how I blocked up and removed certain photographic areas while keeping the tones to present a character who is powerful yet somewhat removed from the piece.



My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

This was the first time I discovered that if you use a wide line and a narrow one and Blend them, you wind up with something that looks like caming, the metal that holds stained glass compositions together. I used bitmap fills from Fractal Designer Painter, but actually I was happy with the design in black and white.



Mt Best,

Gary

[Gare]

I remember ages ago when Photoshop Gurus was in its vital youth, Mark the Keeper asking to see the wireframe of this, because he didn't believe that this is a Xara drawing.

Um, it is and it was painstaking to get the detail, the composition, and most of all the sort of photorealism you get from reflections, even imaginary ones. I used the Live Effects a LOT to slightly blur the reflections. And I did throw an environment on a torus in a modeling program for reference in Xara.



My Best,

Gary

[ss-kalm]

Phenomenal ... Or should I say "Out of this World".

[Gare]

Thank you, Keith.

I'm getting a kick lately doing black and white, and white on whites, working in monotones in Xara. Probably because I'm a monotonous person.

My Best,

Gary

[iamtheblues]

In your post #83 of the stained glass window, the middle left-hand sections of the sun are worth the price of admission on their own. Me gusto mucho.
Bob.

[Boy]

Wow, Gare, that's incredible! That must have taken you a lot of time. It seems only logical to use something for reference because how else could you picture all the distorted reflections.

[Ron Duke]

Amazing work. You could NEVER be labeled monotonous!

[wizard509]

All I can say Gare is, love it!