December 2013 - Tips and Tricks - Creating A Compass Rose-Style Star

Creating A Compass Rose-Style Star
by Gary Bouton

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Twinkle, Twinkle Compass Rose
Everyone gets a star to wish upon this month: Gary takes you through the steps to building an elegant, classic star in the style of historic compass roses. Put the Conical fill to work in combination with Constraint angles and transparency overlays. Learn how all the pieces fit together to make a fabulous, fun, festive and other alliterative design adjective piece!

Show us how you mark the way with your compass rose-style star.

Gare thanks also for this tutorial,

Well but I have to admit that have been lost somewhere in the ambitious try to create a 7 point star, when came out some fractal with the 360/7 to set the angle :) Also has been lost with the different colours, something came out but just with the very heavy applying of Shape tool with your mentioned "it can reposition the control points that are at the ends of the segments. With Snap to objects enabled..." As with the angles was not able to execute.

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So the result is more failure than success, but inspite of that learnt from it of course.

I see it as a nice design rather than a failure, csehz.

And so should you!

51.428 is a hard number of degrees to resolve for this sort of compass rose star example! :)

But your star looks attractive and I'd put it on my Christmas tree any day of the week, especially Wednesday!

My Best,

Gary

Just got round to doing this Gary, been busy reading your links on typography, fascinating reading. My Compass Rose effort not so fascinating :D Not used the Conical fill much, need to get in some practice to get the colours and overlaps right, but a great little tut this to start me off.

Stygg

Hi stygg—

"not so fascinating"?

I really wish you'd lose the self-deprecatory comments, man!

With the exception that the centre is visibly off with one or two of the stellations, it's a warm, handsome piece that anyone—especially anyone in the military—would be proud to print and hang on the wall.

Keep up the good work!

Gary

Watching that picture I also felt yesterday that if there is some issue with that star, that is only that double point in the centre. The sides came out very nice.

And yes Stygg you are the most conscientious and humble XaraXone student in the academy :D

Anyway generally I had the same impression that rather was struggling with the star. For example when centered the middle, somehow the two bottom handle points did not get to the straight horizontal ruler line, or if yes, then somehow the top did not fit. I do not know, probably because tried 7 points one and if in the angles some fractal number came out, then also the end points follow that or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by csehz

For example when centered the middle, somehow the two bottom handle points did not get to the straight horizontal ruler line...

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Hi csehz—

I couldn't resist this sort of challenge, especially when you pointed out that one of the ruler guides was a little off.

Did you know that you can draw on the Guides layer? So you can put any angled line on the Guides layer to follow, like this?

Attachment 100279


See attached, and when you need a guide to the stars in the future, there's a guy in Hollywood who runs a bus that will take you around to Deniro's home, and Robert Downey's house, and...

:)


Gary

Gare thanks very much, yes that 7 pointed star is perfect. Also for the tip to draw on the Guides layer

Thanks for the tip and file Gary, I wished I'd known that before I started my off centre Star :D

Stygg

You're all welcome, and you can copy or move any vector path to the Guides layer.

That's how I correct typefaces and other auto-trace renders that have control points that are off or there are too many control points. I put the shape on the Guides layer, lock it, and then on a new layer I trace the paths that should be in the shape. Because Guides auto-snap to, I'm not introducing any error as I correct a path.

Enjoy, Academians!

:)

Gary

As I bought myself a new PC-system for christmas, I finally got around and last night downloaded trial for Xara Designer pro X9 to do little testing. My first impressions are that it is pretty good and in some ways work similar to ArtWorks on RISC OS. I am not a big fan of the dark interface though that seems to be in fashion nowdays but maybe your eyes get used to that after a while.

Biggest advantage for me would be that you can still open those Acorn Draw files, so I could still do some of the drawing with other software if needed.



Now I just need to do some more experimenting with the software...

Made a new shape for this attempt, wanted to try something different.:D Didn't get all the lines spot on even using the guides but I'm pleased with the outcome. Will have another go at refining later when my eyes come back in focus :D

Stygg

I don't think I've seen a diamond cut vertically before (!), but you were very inventive and the work is excellent, stygg.

My Best,

gary

Stygg that is really a good and probably wide topic to link once to this technique, so crystals, diamonds..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by csehz

Stygg that is really a good and probably wide topic to link once to this technique, so crystals, diamonds..

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Thanks for kind remarks Csehz, if you want to fill this diamond in yourself, I've attached the xar file drawing.

Stygg

I think you're pretty well-known on tg, Stygg, but for an extra kick, I think if you're giving your artwork to this community, you'd get much more positive publicity if you gave it away on the ClipArt area.

Just a suggestion, and always glad to have you sharing right here, man!

My Best,

Gary

Cheers for that Gary, I posted in the Xone because I thought Csehz might want to fill the shape in his style, but your right, I will post in the ClipArt area so anyone can download the file.

Stygg

Your intentions were in the collaborative spirit and I applaud and commend you for that, Stygg. You can continue this intended endeavor—I encourage it and always like seeing the product of one artist jamming with another.

But that doesn't prohibit you from posting your version on the ClipArt forum. It's a good way to be recognized, because the Xara Xone thread is an ant grazing in the 40 acres that is tg (!), plus sharing naturally is Good Karma.

I put stuff on the ClipArt area when I'm done with a piece, it's spent, outlived its personal usefulness, and there's no reason not to share it.

I'm going to be dust in the next century, but someone else's hologram RAM drive will keep my work alive.

-g

Well I am not sure how much time is till the next tutorial of Gare, but thanks the file Stygg let's create diamonds :D

Seeing some photos definitely stained glass transparency seems the vector translation of that as base, or maybe also four colour fills? Just considering, maybe adding a contrast transparency cover on that for giving some spice. I am not sure how bad are these first tries, maybe better ice could come out once from these than diamond

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by csehz

maybe better ice could come out once from these than diamond

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Looks good to me cshez not really like ice , but, I see what you mean. I think it looks great.

They look great Csehz a really nice ice diamond effect.

Stygg

Csehz and Larry,
just as a matter of interest, this is how the original drawing looked, I just altered the fill to colour. It was just black and white and about the size of a postage stamp so had to really magnify to redraw it. I think it was some standard mark for paper I obtained many moons ago :D

Stygg

Thanks for your words, looking today back on the pictures, maybe I should not had used that cyan kind of blue to make it spicy, because that made it a little bit icy :D Moreover for that the used gray is too dark then beside. Briefly stones and ice those are maybe so different directions and should not be mixed.

Stygg thanks for this reference, from this one really the four colour fill seems being applied on it

Personally I like the cyan you used. With regard to the image in post #22 I was just trying to show how the original looked and you are correct it still as the four colour fill, all I did was remove the black background and select the entire diamond and gave it a luminosity fill to look more like the original so the four fills look like shades now complete with lines I added which the original had. The postage stamp size original, I do not have any longer. :(

Stygg