Love the Teddy Bears, Egg.
Can't pick a favourite!
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Love the Teddy Bears, Egg.
Can't pick a favourite!
Now that is pretty darned interesting, Eric! I was going topost something totally non-reflective as an exercise, but you intuited it before I could get to it.
Very well done, congrats!
My Best,
Gary
Here’s a micro-tutorial that relates to the tracing adventure. Once you’ve finished tracing something, naturally you want to apply flls. Enter this little toy car render. I don’t think it’s too challenging to trace out, but here’s the neat thing you can do. In the attached file is a good resolution JPEG of the toy car, and also a piece of seamless tiling wood, although you might want to go find a better example.
The deal is this: if you fill a shape of your car with the wood sample, you can then Shift+drag around the control handles to tailor the angle of the wood pattern to match the perspective of the car (use Repeating Tile on the drop-down list to make sure your Fill tiles).
THEN: Try using the Color Editor’s Light and Dark Contone to make the darker rings a certain color of brown and the Light Contone color a lighter color of brown, each time you define that color, use the Name color function to tag the color and put it at the end of the color line.
Than when you’re all done filling the shapes, you might want to put a duplicate shape on top of the original (Ctrl+K), make it a solid, medium brown fill, and then use the Transparency slider in Stained Glass mode to shade the wood.
Finally, if you want to change the color of the entire composition’s wood, you redefine the tagged colors to create differen tones and types of wood. How cool is that?
Attachment 106011
-g
I feel very fortunate to have come access to this great source of Xara graphic knowledge and look forward to learning from all of you!!!!
Bob Harmount
Hey Bob, and welcome back!
I must confess that this month's tutorial is not for the faint of heart, but its a good place to start...by tracing off shapes from photos, you'll get better experience with the drawing tools. I find the Pen tool is almost exactly like CorelDRAW's Pen too, while others here prefer the Shape tool.
You just let other member know where you are with drawing programs and they can better gauge the type (and amount) of assistance you might need.
The Xara Xone, under my custodianship (I don't believe that's a word. Tough.) has grown over three years of tutorials, at all levels and all on a different subject, but the end goal in each is to cover an artistic principle and by the end of the video, you'll be able to draw something new, better than you imagined.
Which is not an over-promise because it is you...and other members who have to work with me to get the results you want. I can't mould a sculpture if the clay is dry, you know what I mean?
Here's the "menu", which ultimately takes you to YouTube List of video tutorials since January 2012. And of course my predecessor, Gary Priester has an archive of 16 years of written tutorials and he is indeed still active on TalkGraphics.
Have fun exploring and learning!
Gary
Your wooden car made me think, Gary.
So, I thought I would try that with a Coke can!
HAH! A good one for sure, Rik. Tell me: how do you store such a can without the Coke leaking out within 15 minutes?
Perhaps make the can out of maple and fill it with syrup?
-g
P.S. Warm the background up. The combination of warm wood with a grey background is unappetizing. Try:
Attachment 106059
I used a9a89d for the dark of the ellipse and white for the centre.
Here in the UK, we've been fermenting beer in wooden casks for centuries.
And I'm using the same method for making my wooden Coke can! ;))
I did, actually do a different background, to be more in line with your wooden car.
But, there are a lot of light sources in your image, so...!
Is this better, or should I really work with your suggestion of the colour a9a89d?
Nice coke can Rik, I like that. I tried to do the toy car, not very successful I'm afraid but enjoyed making the attempt never the less.
Stygg
Great ones Egg, Rik and Stygg!! =D>
@ stygg—
You're a lot more successful than you give yourself credit for, stygg. Wat you did is QUITE remarkable. I didn't really expect anyone to take me up on this challenge because on the surface, it looks insurmountable, buy I do believe you did it!
Three thumbs up!
Gary
Love your drawings Rik & Stygg.
Possibly off-topic but in 1970 I had some leave due and worked as a docker for six months in Shoreham, Brighton, on the south coast of the UK. A lot of the trade was wine from Spain which was all in wooden casks. I can't remember now whether they where Tuns or Butts. The dock company employed a full-time Cooper to repair defective casks (obviously empty ones!). It always fascinated me watching this man work, repairing the barrels. There wasn't a straight edge on any plane. If he needed to make a new stave it all seemed to be done by eye using an adze and steaming. There was no glue involved, just the the iron hoops which were hammered down the curved surface of the barrel, and of course weren't straight either.
For more information see here:
If I get the time I might try drawing a barrel of Coke :)
Okay, found time. Only thing that wasn't my drawing was a vector of the Coke logo which I got from Brands of the World. (Did apply fills & mould though):
Cheers Gary for your kind comment in #91, much appreciated.
@Rik and Egg- thanks for posting your images, it gives me more work to try and I love that cask Egg, must attempt that :D
Stygg
Hope the binding is top quality, Egg.
We don't want anything leaking out!
Excellent drawing. :-bd
Great work Egg! =D>=D>
Hi Egg—
The fact that they don't use glue is a testament to craftsmanship. We have the Amish in Pennsylvania, and when they build things such as houses and chairs, their craftsmanship is so demanding that they don't use nails or screws—they lock panels and stuff into place with wooden pegs. Remarkable stuff.
If I might kibbutz after complimenting you on a fantastic rendering of a keg (what's the difference between a keg and a barrel?); your work is detailed and just leaps out at you like a 3D image. =D>
I'd like to see you challenge yourself and 1.) add perspective to the keg; make the viewer look down at it so they can see two sides of the keg. 2.) The other thing (I thought) I was showing this month is how a tracing fits into a scene. A composition, as opposed to rendering an object, tells a story. The keg might be in the hold of a dimly lit ship for all we know. so you shade it a little differently, and add a floor and a background. Believe me, please.
I did a fast, uneducated, simple render of a keg on a floor here:
Attachment 106076
The shadow supports it within the scene, I obviously didn't put the labor into the keg that you did, and I "cheated" and used a 3D program, because it's faster at composition building than drawing the whole thing.
Is there anything you see in a large sense that might make sense adding to your illustration?
Attached are all the files for the background and a sketch of the keg in perspective. I did this for you, and only you, in the hopes you'd consider taking something grand and making it royal.
My Best,
Gary
Hi Gary, strangely enough I was originally going to do a top down drawing but I found one that had more detail for the staves etc. Excuse me for not using your supplied files but here's one I thought matches your inspirations. The floor & wall images are bitmaps, the rest contain vectors shapes, some bitmap filled, others various flat & transparent fills.
Quite an interesting question G.Quote:
what's the difference between a keg and a barrel?
A cask seems to be the generic name for liquid volume containers, one of which is a barrel.
A keg however seems to have many different volumes and again is more a generic name than a measured amount.
My favourite liquid containers name is a "carboy" used for carrying corrosives/acids :)Quote:
Since keg sizes are not standardized, the keg cannot be used as a standard unit of measure for liquid volumes.
Hi Egg—Absolutely thrilled with your work and no need to excuse yourself. My rendered model took all of 15 minutes to pull, and all I wanted to do is push you to the next level...perspective, accurate lighting, complete scene, and if this isn't featured in The Outsider, there's something wrong with them!
Aces!
Buy you a keg.
Or barrel.
Or flagon, forget it! :)
My Best,
Gary
Cheers Gary, a tun would do fine :)
I think this simple trace is appropriate for the 14th of Feb. Gary. :D
Stygg
That's beautiful and appropriate, stygg.
Can you work a little on the typefaces? Seriously, typography will probably be my March video, and fonts truly do say their own thing.
Example of inappropriate fonts for their respective occasions:
Attachment 106100
Now, I'm not picking on you or saying that font is wrong, stygg. As always, I'm trying to help you think deeper and get better results than you already have. It's already a brilliant illustration. I just want you to polish it typographically a little so it's brilliant from all viewing angles, in a manner of speaking.
Simple, educated encouragement, call it.
My Best,
Gary
Thanks for feedback Gary. Choosing the appropriate font is not one of my strong points but I do avoid Arial :D so look forward to a vid.tut. from you.
Stygg.
Your idea is so fresh and your layout is so good, I hesitated to say anything, stygg. But you know my evaluation (not hash criticism) is from the heart (appropriate for Valentine's Day:)), and it's not just you...many excellent designs are "bind" to typography, and I only want them to 1.) Stop using type in a drawing because they're destroying the impact of their work, or 2.) Get hip to what good taste in typography can do to improve and integrate into a design.
You think Herb Lubalin was a typographic expert, a design expert, or both?
Attachment 106113
I toured his studio in NYC when I was a college student, and was blown away by package design that perfectly integrated with text, and vice versa. His studio helped develop the women's stockings L'eggs, from typography to packaging.
Some things to ponder!
My Best,
Gary
Gary would you say this font, Georgia and the way I have used it, detracts from the design I traced :rolleyes:
Stygg
Well, sorry; Valentine's day was yesterday, but stygg, I think Georgia is a stronger, more adult typeface than the one you originally used.
Typefaces come in more flavors than ice cream. So if you only get one scoop, make it the right flavour! :)
My Best,
Gary
I'm trying to do the tracing but can't select the water can as per the video, can anyone help
thank you
If you've opened the file called 'Watering Can.xar', you will see on page 2, just the watering can.
The image is locked on the page. This is to make it easier for you to do the tracing and the image does not accidentally move.
However, if you do want to select the watering can image, right-click on the image, and select 'Unlock all on page'.
Hopefully that's what you were looking for.
Thank you forgot about the lock
I'm trying to do step by step so I can learn from it thank you again
ok I have the nose of the can done and now I turn the line of the can white but the I can not get the same elliptical round and white line and transparent inside if I choose no color the hole elliptical is transparent with no white line on the outside
thank you for any help
I'm not sure which part you're having trouble with?
You might want to show an image of the part that you're trying to do.
Attachment 106374 I'm trying to do the elliptical after doing the can.
there is a other picture you will see the elliptical is not the same as the video Attachment 106375
Mean ellipse tool
thank you
Hi blackoctaupus—
If you're referring to the ellipse that represents the hole at the top of the watering can, with the Selector tool or the Ellipse tool, and first (I see you have a circle in post 115 and not a squashed ellipse, you click precisely on the top control point and then pull down. Now you have an ellipse. You can then use the Selector tool: with the ellipse selected, click on it (so you've clicked on it twice), so the shape is now in Rotate/Skew mode. Skew the right edge upwards—first, remove the fill and give the ellipse a fat red outline so you can see what you're doing. Put it over the area of the can you want to imitate. Then, while the shape is in Rotate/Skew mode, draw a little upwards on the right side skew handle.
Did this do it for you?
Can you zoom in and do a screen capture of the problem area?
Thanks!
Gary
I'm glad you approve! And gladder still that you sat for an almost 30 minute video...with no commercial interruptions. :)
My Best,
Gary
This is worth it