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March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Okay, okay, I'm late. This month is an expansion on what I'd started on this thread Creating Glows.
I think you'll have fun with this technique and be able to create "neon" sculptures of your own design after following along. Please be nice to Nick Curtis, the talented fellow who created one of the typefaces you can download for free—see the section below the Download button this month.
If you've believed that the Blend tool is just for shapes, get ready for a pleasant surprise as you blend open paths to make light of Southwest cuisine.
the link
Attachment 95211
So if you're not designing neon gas sculptures like this and are getting gas pains, digest this tutorial, and then let's talk right here, eh?
My Best,
Gary
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
The video doesn't appear to be working on the Xara Xone Page, I click on the play button and get the spinning indicator which just spins and spins. I was able to go to youtube and watch it there.
I hope to have time later to do the tutorial, I've now got all kinds of ideas for neon compostions in my head! :)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Hi Frances—
UPDATE: Barbara is using the latest Flash plug-in for Explorer 9, it works fine, so the problem is probably your version of Flash Player within your browser. Might want to update it, or forget it and click our direct link all the time (sigh).
Okay, I just updated Internet Explorer's Flash plug-in Get it here, UNCHECK the MACAFFEE BOX before you download! and IE 9 displays and plays the video in the box.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Hi Gary, I think it may have been a server glitch It's working fine now.
Here is my rendition of the neon sign :)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Not done the main drawing yet of South of the Border but I did the pepper on its own, I'm trying to work between Gary's tut. and Stained glass by Francis, they are both excellent. =D>
Stygg.
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Looks good, Stygg!
I'm going to expect top see some original drawings before too long. The chili pepper is good for an appetizer, now let's see the main course!
It's not hard to find fast food neon signs from the 50s and such on the Web. Get creative with your new skills!
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I thought I would put the tutorial lesson onto a different design.
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Gary, the row of V's in the top shape of South of the Border, is the shadows made using the same technique as the arrows?
Stygg
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
The green "cartoon exclamation" Vs around the hat use exactly the same technique as all the rest of the neon in this tutorial, stygg. You create a thin and a thick line, offset the thin one a little, bland the two, copy the blend and convert line to shape, make the shape nearly invisible, use the Shadow tool to create the glow around this nearly invisible shape.
Take the finished file apart and see what I did.
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I've sorted it now Gary, I knew how to do it but today it appears Xara was being a little quirky, when I copied the blends into a new doc. and selected change line to shape to make the shadow, all I kept getting was lines, so I thought something was done different, any how it's working fine now and I've completed the V's, she must have got her maths. in a twist :D
Stygg
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I used the techniques from the tutorial to create this self portrait in neon.
I have a question for you Gary. Why create the extra shape for the glow? why not just apply the glow shadow to the blend?
Attachment 95270
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Because you might want to:
—reposition it independent of the neon.
—want to pout a drop shadow on the neon blend for an additional effect, while keeping the glow. You can't have a drop shadow and a glow Shadow tool effect at once.
—put the glow object in front of the nepn, as I did with the hat. It makes it look more diffuse and a little more photorealistic.
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Ahh yes it does give you more creative options. Thanks. My husband saw my neon portrait and now he wants me to do one of him!
And that's my own handwriting too. I used the freehand tool and my graphics tablet. I made sure that pressure sensitivity was turned off. The portrait part was traced from a photo.
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Here is the neon portrait my husband requested. He loved it :)
Attachment 95280
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Thank you Gary for the great tutorial. I especially appreciated the finish Xara file to compare mine with. That way I was able to catch some of the details I might have missed on the Video.
Here is my South of the Border, on this one I did my best to make it like yours.
Attachment 95295
Below is my try at using your teaching on something different.
Attachment 95296
Thanks again for the tutorial.
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Two nice efforts BeanPole, not sure about having dinner at Slim's, he looks a meen hobre :D
Stygg
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
@BeanPole—
Your original composition shows great thought, and you know what? I'd love to see this image in-place, possibly tilted a little, on the front, or above the steakhouse itself. Let me see if I can find a good image for you, eh?
Found it! I retouched out the original signage and although it's not night time I think you or any other member here can draw neon on the blank areas of the restaurant and the sign.
"Sundance Cafe"
"The Watering Hole"
"Southwest Grille"
...you get it. It looks like a classy place.
Attachment 95300
My Best,
Gary
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Thank you Gary and Stygg!
Slim's steakhouse idea was a cross between a restaurant that was in the neighbourhood where I grew up called The Ranch House, with a lariat and boots, and Vegas Vic, the famous sign built in 1950 over a gambling casino in Las Vegas. When I was drawing Slim (and putting him together) at one point I thought he looked like Clint Eastwood.
I was a little disappointed at how he looked on talk graphics only because there was a lot of detail that didn't show up too good on the smaller picture. And, if you look really close, on his right elbow is an ear I forgot to erase before sending! :o
Gare,
Thanks for the Restaurant sign, I will try it out. How do I tilt the sign, so it looks like you are looking up at it?
Thanks again for the great tutorial. :)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
@BeanPole—
I'm sorry to say that you can't tilt the sign, because you'd have to be across town from me with a camera!
That's not a model or anything, it's a photo I took last year and retouched out the original signage.
I'm fairly certain that the soundest course from here on, regarding the tutorial, is if there is some interest, I can post photos and perhaps a rendered 3D model or two, and you folks design the signage to fit the photo, instead of the other way around.
What interests me here is closure and completion. I regret not having thought this month's tutorial all the way through, to make it a mock assignment, more than teaching a technique.
What can you do in ten minutes or less, though? Google Analytics are telling me that people who watch the Xara Xone videos on YouTube—not everyone but it is a trend—only watch three to four minutes. So I'm trying very hard to make shorter tutorials.
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I know it's probably more work for you but I think it works if the video teaches the techniques and you give and add mock assignments in the thread. The threads become kind of a virtual classroom :)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Quote:
Originally Posted by
angelize
I know it's probably more work for you but I think it works if the video teaches the techniques and you give and add mock assignments in the thread. The threads become kind of a virtual classroom :)
You're absolutely right, Frances.
It is more work.
:)
I'll entertain the idea the moment our virtual classroom gains seats, eh?
Okay, I've been modeling and rendering and here's a disk scene of an American diner, sort of the thing we used to see along the major highways in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Attachment 95308
I see a lot of creative opportunities here and I deliberately let the lights off within the diner so you might want to put a sign there, too. Or take a crack at adding lights (a shape, light colored, with feathering, partial transparency in Bleach mode), or whatever. I think this will suit this month's technique quite well (I hope!).
My Best,
Gary
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I had some free time this afternoon so I had a go with the first image. With a little bit of Xara Magic day turned into night! (well Ok maybe dusk) :)
I'll take a crack at the Diner scene later:)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I LOVE IT, Frances!
You did excellently! Improvisation, invention, all the stuff I'd hoped for this month!
My Best (and obviously yours),
Gary
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Thanks Gary, The font I used for Wild Bill's is one of Nick curtis' free fonts called dancing donuts. I converted it to editable shapes and because it was an outline font I had to do a break shapes to get the shapes I needed and subtract shapes to knock out the centers of the B and D. The link you posted in the Fonts and typography forum is a great resource for retro fonts for anyone doing these neon signs. :)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I'd go to Nick as a first stop for vintage typefaces because I know him and he needs the traffic. And his work is very, very reminiscent of handcrafted lettering styles you'd see in Lost Wages (sorry, Las Vegas), and 1950s diners.
But I'd also be remiss not to mention Letterhead Fonts. Pure caviar and you'd need a good line of clients to support any addiction to these gems.
Also, and very sadly, Dan X. Solo (Solotype) passed away last year, and you might be able to find one or two of his typefaces for free online if you search hard. His work digitizing Dover clipart into font sets was meticulous and I have one or two of them:
Attachment 95314
In any event, you might want to base your neon on neon style typefaces and also Kaufman, which is alternately called "Diner Script".
My Best,
Gary
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I love it too Frances!
It is similar to what I am working on (still not finished yet). How did you make the photo look darker?
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Thanks Bean Pole :)
Turning day time into evening is really quite simple first I cloned the photo (Ctrl +K)and then I clicked the little eye icon in the page and layer gallery to hide the clone. I enabled the masking layer and used the shape tool to mask the lower windows of the building and then I increased the brightness and adjusted the photo temperature slider make the windows brighter and warmer. At this point the windows look over exposed but that's what you want. Next I unhid the clone and adjusted brightness down quite low and gave it a stained glass transparency to blend it with the background photo. Depending on the photo you are working with you can also make the stained glass transparency a linear transparency if you wish. The final step is to either use the eraser tool with a very soft nib setting and erase out the window panes on the clone if you have version 8 or draw shapes over the window panes and cut them (Ctrl+X) to the clipboard and Paste as opacity mask in version 6 or 7
I look forward to seeing your neon signs. :)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
You guys have been busy:D and posted some great images, so I thought I'd better get my skates on and get busy. The 50's diner gave me the idea! :D
Stygg
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I always imagined that after the Xara Xone, I'd step up to doing used car ads on late-night television.
Thanks, stygg.
No, seriously. You did good!
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Stygg, I love your Chevy. The older cars sure had style.
Frances, Thank you for the instruction on darkening the photo . . . still working on it!
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Well, here is my effort on the café photo.
Attachment 95341
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It shows a lot of work, and it's quite handsome!
Three thumbs up!
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Thank you Gary. I was able to use a lot of what I have learned so far. :)
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
It's all about "integration", isn't it?
I feel that artists get a head-start when one learns to see the similarities rather than the differences around us in the world. I think we actually define our surroundings by comparisons.
If we're in a room and we think, "Well, there's a door, and clearly it isn't like the floor, and above me is a ceiling, which is totally disconnected and different from the floor..." —where does this get us perceptually?
But if we're in this room, and our perception process goes like this, "Wow, the door, and the floor, and the ceiling...they're all part of the same room!", then we're practicing a process of "putting together".
A creative process, right?
Similarly Your,
Gary
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Some really nice work there BeanPole, lot of work. Here's my effort. :D
Stygg
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Thank you Stygg
Yours is great too. I love the stars and the way you put a white glow behind the lettering on the building. The white glow makes the letters very easy to read.
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Nice scene composition, stygg. It emotes a very nice feeling, I'm very drawn "into" the composition.
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Cheers Gary and BeanPole, seeing as it is a night scene I thought I'd add a little intrigue! who's lurking just left of the entrance? The power lines and I think those are transformers, reminded me of Motorway lights here in G.B. so added a little glare from them.:D
Stygg
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
I don't believe there are any transformers in the photo, stygg. In the US, they look like smallish trash cans affixed to the telephone poles. This is actually a very old intersection ("old" here means "was here in the late 1950s") and most of the suburban areas in our town have all cables underground now. Which is not only pleasant aesthetically, but also we get high winds off the Great Lakes and as a consequence, Mr. Internet used to go quiet in the mid-1990s.
-g
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Re: March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases
Thanks for the info Gary, just one more question and one more upload, which is the more fitting for this image, the cactus having a dark background as in my first image or filled with the original background as in this one? sorry that's two questions :D
Stygg