June 2014 Tips and Tricks - Mixing Extrudes and Shapes to Make Molecules

Not gone for Science and Technology, more Sci-Fi. If your wondering what the X molecule is really, well it's Fluoboric acid :D

Stygg

Fluobotic acid, stygg? Why... that molecule reminds me of Xarium, a rare and precious material we used to extract from the spice mines of Kessel back when the Empire was looking for us rebels. Xarium gives designers the ability to draw faster without the nasty side effects that amphetamines do, and actually you're not supposed to ingest it at all. You're supposed to sprinkle a little on your monitor and wait 5 seconds for it to sink in.

Unlike my tutorials, which never seem to sink in! :)

Here's another pose I'd like you all to consider for perspective, and where the highlights and shadows are falling. There is a wonderfully unpredictable lattice of shadows due to the rods, isn't there?

I deliberately left out colour because:

1.) I'd like to leave that up to everyone's creativity, and

2.) I left my set of Crayolas upstairs this morning, the Pro version 128 color box with the sharpener in back.

Attachment 102487

-g

That looks like a lot of complex freehand shadow drawing Gary but I'll give it ago on the molecules I made. Here's the pic. of Fluobotic acid I based the X molecule on :D

Stygg

Ah, but do you all see what is to be gained by doing an illustration with more-or-less correct shadows? The reference picture there is obviously a rendered model, but for the sake of clarity, the designer left out shadows, lit it from the front, and it looks like fecal matter compared to what you folks have been doing here.

This Tips and Tricks tutorial this month is designed to get you thinking about using all of Xara's tools, not "either/or" to make drawings you and your audience are more pleased with.

Skip Science this month!

I often combine extrusions, bitmaps and vector shapes in my work. While the tutorial focuses on creating molecules, The techniques can be applied to all sorts of things.

@Frances: absolutely. That's why Charles prefers to call Xara a design program rather than a drawing program. It can import a lot of different types of media, the filters are all Adobe Standard so you can add third party filters to modify both bitmaps and vector shapes in a non-destructive way, and if you go to Gary Priester's Xara Xone shareware page:

X marks the spot you can create spirals and color palettes and other neat stuff.

It's quite a complete composition tool, IMPO (In Most People's Opinion).

:)

My Best,

Gary

Here is an image created by mixing extrusions and vector shapes. The cake is actually two extrusions blended via opacity masks. The plate is also an extrusion. The shadows and decorations on the top of the cake and on the plate are vector shapes.

Lovely lighting, very nice detail work, Frances.

-g

I've tried to re-create part of the molecules jpg. image Gary posted in #12, no extrudes, all shapes.

Stygg

Well, you have done such a remarkable job re-illustrating what actually was a rendered model, stygg, you are completely forgiven and exempt from using the extrude tool for the atom connectors.

It's quite beautiful work, really, and I'm glad to see that even though I cover pretty inflexible techniques and "truths" on more than one occasion, you folks are inspired to improvise and find your own solutions that you're comfortable with.

I got a hot video I'm trying to finish to post today, so tah for now,

Gary