lost...

There is a picture, that keeps following me now for about several weeks night and day. Its "connected" with a song and a little tale I heard, dreamed of or whatever. A couple of hundreds of years ago, when british fought in war, they had a strict 'way' of doing this. The opponents lined up in blocks, face to face and started marching against each others. Young boys, playing a drum, where in the first line and did the paste. They must have been the bravest ever, and - as far as I am informed, the youngest, mostly Kids. The Picture that keeps on shining up in my head, is a situation after the battle. One sees the field, but no bodies, just anything else but the bodies, and in the focus is this broken, abused and worn out drum. The only way of getting rid of this picture seems to be to write it, rhyme it or - well, try to draw it. But I am lost. I am not able to model a sandy field with little hills and moulds, nor is there a clue, how to "end" this picture.
Please don`t get me wrong, I don`t ask anybody to finnish what I started, just some hints would be very helpful and very much appreciated. The attached picture really does not belong in the Gallery, but this is the place where you people are. Because my native language is german, I am not sure about the accuracy of the description so any misunderstanding is absolutely on my side.
Yours
Tom

There is a picture, that keeps following me now for about several weeks night and day. Its "connected" with a song and a little tale I heard, dreamed of or whatever. A couple of hundreds of years ago, when british fought in war, they had a strict 'way' of doing this. The opponents lined up in blocks, face to face and started marching against each others. Young boys, playing a drum, where in the first line and did the paste. They must have been the bravest ever, and - as far as I am informed, the youngest, mostly Kids. The Picture that keeps on shining up in my head, is a situation after the battle. One sees the field, but no bodies, just anything else but the bodies, and in the focus is this broken, abused and worn out drum. The only way of getting rid of this picture seems to be to write it, rhyme it or - well, try to draw it. But I am lost. I am not able to model a sandy field with little hills and moulds, nor is there a clue, how to "end" this picture.
Please don`t get me wrong, I don`t ask anybody to finnish what I started, just some hints would be very helpful and very much appreciated. The attached picture really does not belong in the Gallery, but this is the place where you people are. Because my native language is german, I am not sure about the accuracy of the description so any misunderstanding is absolutely on my side.
Yours
Tom

WOW, that is a powerful image. A dream scape put on 'canvas'. I find that to be good therapy [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

As for the sand problem. I'm assuming your still have the .xar file and the objects are all seperated?? If so there are a couple of ways to get a sandy effect.

1) Right click on the 'sand object' and choose 'create bitmap copy'
2) Go here and get the Edge plugin, they are all free, but Edgeworks is by far the most useful that I have found so far.
3) Go to your Utilities/Bitmap Effects & Plug-ins/Configure Plug-ins. Browse over to the folder that you have upacked the plugin into. I find it easier to just create a folder in Program Files/Xara/XaraX folder, named 'plugins'.
4) Then bring up the Configure Plug-ins dialog box, hit the "NEW" button, browse to the folder where you have the plugin stored, highlight the folder (click on it) then hit "apply" and then OK. It will load the plugin(s).
5) Then go to Utilities/Bitmap Effects & Plug-ins and you will see Edgeworks in the line up. Go to Edgeworks/Noisy and (a dialog will come up and tell you that it need to make a 24 bit copy, say OK or Yes) select Noisy and using the sliders get the sand the graininess that you want, you will notice that it is colorized. I found that 'edge 1' at about 97 and 'edge 2' at about 155 was nice graininess. Then once finished hit the OK button, then back to
6) Edgeworks and choose 'Photocopy' 'exposure' at about 83 and 'Contrast' at about 8 makes a nice black and white version for you. Hit the OK button.
7) Then take a your original sand shape and right click on it and make a clone of it, move over the bitmapped sand shape.
8) Then go to Arrange/Put to Back.
9) Then Select these two objects and Arrange/Allignment/both horizontal and vertical need to be in the align centrally selections. Then hit OK this will line them up with each other.
10) Then Arrange/Combine Shapes/Slice (cut) Shapes. Move the shape out of the way and delete the "left overs"
11) Take this new sandy, black and white version and place it over yours, then go the transparency tool (side bar) then from the drop down menu (left hand side of upper command bar) hit 'flat transparency', go over to the slider up on the bar and adjust it so your sand color and the sand looks the way you want it too. and WHA LA, Your very own created sand.

The easy way is to use the Fills Gallery and you should have some sandy looking fills in there and just use the fills handles to adjust it to your liking.

Hope this helps you.

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

I've posted the results of the longer way below. Looks pretty good, I think. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[This message was edited by RAMWolff on March 07, 2002 at 10:56.]

Thank you very much for your help and the time you spent, I will try the pixel-way you suggested as soon as possible. You are right, besides using a plugin-filter I could have used the xara-fills, but my problem is not the structure of the sand, its the field itself and the "composition". I didn't give the Sand and sky any structure, because I am stuck in the process before this. But your help is more than welcome, and yes, you are right, I found starting to draw is really kind of a therapy. This picture is like a mental hickup and xara seems to be the expression of a cold glass of water you drink while standing on your head, singing "yellow submarine" backwards.

Yours
Tom [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

submarine yellow the in live all we.....**HIC**


OOOOCH!!! blood rush headache, had ta stop [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

OH!! Welcome to the forum Synder!!!!!!!! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Look at the XaraX forum too, we are all over there as well!!!

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Both your dream and image are haunting. The graphic is a little too smooth, perhaps. Giving the sand an edge will help. Perhaps everything is smoothed over afterwards - except for the drum. Good work. Neil

Thank you for your help and your welcome to the board. Due to the nature of my job, I have very little time, so it will take some days to redo the drum using your hints. It is a real good thing to be (even a very small) part of this community.
Have a good time, wherever you are!
Tom