Coloring a Dingbat Font

[sallybode]

Yes, this is a font, called "Geisha".

[-=Drifter=-]

It's GORGEOUS! Just exactly what letter of the "alphabet" is that?

[Scotty]

"G" Giesha?

[-=Drifter=-]

"X" for Xara?

[sallybode]

http://www.dafont.com/font.php?file=geisha

Or you can get the font from House of Lime. Dafont is one of my favorites for free fonts, it gives you a great preview and most of their fonts are both for MAC and PC.

It's keyboard equivalent is "Alt+0111" however, I will tell you I had lots of problems because of its complexity with Xara. Couldn't open the font in Xara, I was able to in CorelDRAW.

I converted them all to line from the Insert Character palette. Normallly then you can ctrl drag the drawing into Xara, that didn't work, so I saved it as an .ai file, and it came in but with lots and lots of vertical line as though it were a woodcut.

So I saved it in CorelDRAW as a .wmf and exported as curves even though it was already no longer a font.

Then I was able to break shapes and begin coloring my shapes. "Simplify" is not a good choice anyway, as it just eats up computing power and it might think about it in a half an hour or so. Makes a really big file. God help you if you need to undo.

There are a total of 15 drawings in this font. So if any one else feels like doing the same, feel free. It is not my artwork, but done from a free font.

You may have no problem with using the font, but it didn't like Xara at all, and it crashed CorelDRAW once before I learned a better way to use the font.

I know many of you don't have CorelDRAW and the process of getting the font to work for you in Xara is iffy. So I have converted the font to two Xara files: one has 13 pictures, the other has 2, as 1-13 are vertical and 14 & 15 are horizontal. However the first file is much too large, the horizontal file 14 is all I am uploading. Too big to upload more.

I do not know why the font does not come into Xara normally. Irregardless of what I try I only get boxes. So you can avoid frustration, you can use the attached Xara file. For those who want the others, email me and I'll zip them to you. sallybode@msn.com

As of now I have not had time to fully prepare the vertical ones. The font link may work for you however.

Since in order to edit the pictures it requires that you ungroup, and the break shapes, then send the big black box in the front to the back. There are interior shapes which are outline only and cannot be filled. Except as you would assign a fill to a broken shape. Draw a box, fill with black, select both the box and the item that doesn't fill and then join shapes, and then break shapes. Sometimes the black box gets a white or null fill, so you fill it again before you break shapes. I have taken the time to prepare the horizontal drawings, however for the more adventurous, 1-13 have not been prepared.

Enjoy if you have a mind to try it.

[Grafixman]

Exporting .ai files from Corel was frustrating for me, too.
But if it is just simple shapes, perhaps you could try exporting as an earlier version of .ai. Say, adobe illustrator 3.x. Then on the export popup, check convert fonts to curves and uncheck everything else underneath. It usually gives good results for me, minus the vertical slats....

[sallybode]

The .wmf worked. So I'll try your suggestion next time as I converted them all at this point and prepared them for coloring.

[a4hire]

That is great work Sally. Very nice. I wonder why you couldn't get the font to work in Xara though?

[sallybode]

I think it may be in memory allocation. Xara doesn't expect a font to require that much memory and so it doesn't allocate that much for it. Some programs let you specify just how much RAM you will assign to use it and what is left to run Windows and other programs. I don't know how to do this with Xara. Perhaps others might and I do hope they will share.

[AKHTARAMIN]

Hi Sally your art is fantastic , worth framing and and keeping in living rooms. I can now again post hence I am back in action.