November 2014 Video Tutorial -- The Importance of Backgrounds!

The Importance of Backgrounds!

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Backgrounds complete the image; they put your illustration into context, help the audience out visually, they enhance your drawing into a composition, and this is what Gary takes you through this month: how to build an innovative, content-rich room behind a drawing that complements your work instead of stealing the show. See the video and download the resource files at Xaraxone.com.

Don't be shy; show us your background in this thread.

Sorry, members!

We had a bug—past tense—early this morning with the download button for the resource files. Life is fine now, you can return to your homes, the emergency is under control, there's nothing to see here.

The WordPress editor has a nasty "enhancement" that puts spaces between words, even though file names in Eunuchs aren't supposed to have spaces. So Barbara "spaced out" in the early hours this morning.

Actually, in situations like these, you should notify a Mod or an Admin, or if you want to spend $3.89 U.S. at a hardware (or software) store, they got this great stuff called "No Mercy" that kills bugs.

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The picture above is also a great opportunity to get snarky ad put the name of the manufacturer on it. I was tempted to put Microsoft on the bottom, because no one know more about system bugs than they do.


ooops.

Come play now. I think you'll like the result of the tutorial and can apply GenoPal to a host of creative purposes.

Let's see them!

My Best,

Gary

That's a great video and tut. Gary which I will be starting next. Downloaded Genopal but for some reason or other my computer doesn't like it or vice or verca, everytime I tried to run it I'd get the message Genopal is not working properly and my comp. froze? Glad I kept all those Genopal pallettes you gave us a while ago :D

Stygg

Hi Stygg—

Well, it's a beta, your machine might be the culprit, or your Deity of choice might not be taking kindly to you, after you put your McDonald's wrapper into a street busker's violin case.

Let me see if I can't communicate this to Sivam, who is a chum and the engineer behind GenoPal, and as far as the tutorials goes? I did both a wood and a wallpaper screen cap locked on a hidden layer on the second page of the document:

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I'm writing him now, Stygg.

Thanks, Gary

I can't use GenoPal either, a box pops up telling me I have to download NETframework v4.5 and I'm wondering if I do download it if it will make changes to the way my programs run or cause them to not run or ????????? Should I download NETframework v4.5 and does it require removal of older versions already on my machine????

I'm waiting for an answer for the lead programmer, sorry, Maya!

I believe that I did have to download the new Frameworks and install it because GenoPal needs it.

However, I can say...and this is only my machine...that it worked, the thing obviously installed..and is running just fine.

I would be a rude so-and-so to publish his email here. Try snooping around the site for additional help/information. I'm sorry to be putting this on the member, and if you like, just use my own palettes provided in the Xara document to do the tutorial.

Yeah, GenoPal; is much more fun to integrate with Xara...I'm not the guy who programmed it, though.

Here's a couple more schemes, because that's the best I can do, sorry!

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-g

Well, Gare, I downloaded and installed the NETframework new version 4.5 but GenoPal still won't function. I tried the Windows look for a answer thingy and it had none only to send forth my info (I didn't) but it did highlight where it felt the problem was which I copied out here (the starred-out part is my change):

C:\Users\*********\AppData\Local\Temp\WER957B.tmp. WERInternalMetadata.xml
C:\Users\*********\AppData\Local\Temp\WERABE9.tmp. appcompat.txt
C:\Users\*********\AppData\Local\Temp\WERAF44.tmp. mdmp


Thanks for the other colors image! Guess I'll have to just use that.

I've got an emergency request into GenoPal right now.

Please don't let this be a show-stopper, folks. I, and many people I know, use GenoPal quite successfully, and besides, he use of GenoPal is only tangential to the gist of the tutorial this month. It's a perk, not the heart and soul of what I'm trying to teach.

Please don't let this glitch end the tutorial, and if anyone has installed it successfully, pleases post her, okay?

Sorry and thanks,

Gary

Does this help in the least?

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Well, I gave it another shot by trying it through compatibility mode and still it won't fully launch -- just says it's stopped working. Another look at the problem details gave this:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: genopal.exe
Problem Signature 02: 1.0.0.0
Problem Signature 03: 545c8c45
Problem Signature 04: mscorlib
Problem Signature 05: 4.0.30319.17929
Problem Signature 06: 4ffa561c
Problem Signature 07: 48b5
Problem Signature 08: 34
Problem Signature 09: System.IO.FileNotFoundException
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Aarrrrgh! This wasn't my day, but here's one using the tute (yes, I know it's pretty plain and a bit distorted). Would have liked to use the GenoPal color picker options...but oh well. :rolleyes:

Off-Topic with a Seasonal excuse to all our members in the USA:

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Football and Black Friday!

Cheers!

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Crow Haven

Aarrrrgh! This wasn't my day, but here's one using the tute (yes, I know it's pretty plain and a bit distorted). Would have liked to use the GenoPal color picker options...but oh well. :rolleyes:

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It's moody. I like it. Three thumbs up for your above and beyond the call of doody efforts! :)

-g

Well I have always sucessfully run Genopal 1.0 without problems but my machine won't run this new version either. I get the same errors Maya does and the program won't run. Luckily I can still use version 1 though I'd love to play around with this new version and see how I can use it with Xara and a couple of other programs I like to use. Also the help video wasn't very helpful I found it hard to follow without audio. Perhaps he should get you to do a video for him :)

Any how here are a couple of compositions. The first uses your hard edged breakfast images and the second uses a mug of piping hot chocolate that I created. It's mostly vector except for the steam. You might recognize those wisps Gary ;)

The handle of my mug was bugging me I just didn't like the way it looked so I studied the hand of the hard edged mug and I made my mugs handle a little more hefty and less noodle like lol. I also adjusted the perspective of the floor to better suit my mugs perspective.

@ Gare -- Thanks! :) Have a happy day too!

@ Frances -- Those look great, and I especially like the changes you made in the last image with the cup and the added texturing for walls and wood! =D> I sure wish I could drink that hot chocolate!

Played with the beachball background this time, trying different colorations, adding some sand on it and switching the ball & light angle...

Another... turning the colors and shapes into a moonscape...

That looks like the moon landscape.
So, when did you go there, Maya?!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rik

That looks like the moon landscape.
So, when did you go there, Maya?!

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Imagination can take me anywhere anytime! :)

Very cool Maya!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

Very cool Maya!

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Thanks Frances! :)
That beachball Gare made has to be designed of some tough material to survive the lunar sunshine temperature of around 130 C and nighttime temp of -170 C.

Just got round to doing this tut. after a week of dental problems :'( and I see you guys have been busy, all excellent posts. I've not done two versions of the coffee cup but done two in one :D Love that beach ball on the moon Maya :D

Stygg

Very good coffee cup Stygg, relating the left wall that is intendly seems falling? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by csehz

Very good coffee cup Stygg, relating the left wall that is intendly seems falling? :)

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I left that left side so as to not have that boxy squared off look Csehz, however have altered the right side to lose that blue slither I had left. Very moody we artists (ha ha :D) That coffee cup is an old Photoshop tut. I did in Xara.

Stygg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stygg2003

Just got round to doing this tut. after a week of dental problems :'( and I see you guys have been busy, all excellent posts. I've not done two versions of the coffee cup but done two in one :D Love that beach ball on the moon Maya :D

Stygg

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Thanks Stygg! :D I hope you're feeling better after the dental work...have some coffee!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stygg2003

I left that left side so as to not have that boxy squared off look Csehz, however have altered the right side to lose that blue slither I had left. Very moody we artists (ha ha :D)

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Well really it releases that closed boxy feeling so absolutely understanding, artists need freedom! :D

Well just for you csehz I straightened that left wall up, few props behind it holding it up ;))

Stygg

I based this image on the backgrounds tut., hope you like the various tut. pictures. I said the tut. pictures guys!! :D

Stygg

Ooops! I got the "collectors" shadow wrong. The shoulder shadow in the first image is behind the picture. This was bugging me so I corrected it and placed it on top. :D

Stygg

I really like what you did Stygg. If I may, one small criticism, I noticed is that the girls shadow does not match angle of the shadows cast from the art on the walls not that it necessarily has too, and it seems too hard edged in comparison.

I like it, Stygg, it's a fun idea using the tute images! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stygg2003

I based this image on the backgrounds tut., hope you like the various tut. pictures. I said the tut. pictures guys!! :D

Stygg

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There are quite a few gals on tg, too, stygg; and no, I do not request you to do a "beefcake" version of this composition, the give equal time to the Fairer Sex.

Is it okay to say "sex" on tg? :)

I think you've outdone yourself, stygg. I can't imagine anyone taking on as ambitious a background for a foreground person as you've done. Composition is fine, but your lighting is a little muxed up and this is mostly because the scene is so ambitious!

Paintings on adjacent walls will not/cannot have identical drop shadows, because we'll assume from the person's shadow that there is one primary light source, and yet the adjacent walls are 90 degrees in opposition. They're getting similar, but not identical lighting.

I'm too stupid to calculate this out just by hand, so I pulled two renders that might help you. By the way, it's a nice touch to split the shadow so it falls on both the X and Z planes (if this was produced by a camera or a modeling program).

Attachment 104996

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Look carefully at the shadows cast by these frames. Compare what's happening to the frames on the right wall as opposed to the wall the girl is looking at.

(Just trying to see if everyone was paying attention)

I can envision a magnificently complicated scene lit by multiple lights, especially if this museum had directional lights over each painting. Oh, also? Paintings are usually hung at eye level; consider what a pain in the neck, literally, it would be to view a painting 10' high on the wall!

Critically, I give this work high marks, stygg, regardless of my observations. You invested the time, you learned from your own observations, you show initiative, and you probably go out wearing matching socks.

My Best,

Gary

Thanks for informative feedback Gary, will file the two images for future reference. It was somewhat ambitious of me but went ahead and then posted knowing it was not 100% but if you don't try and then post, then you will never get the feedback such as I have recieved from you of which I am extremely pleased with.

Stygg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

lighting is a little muxed up and this is mostly because the scene is so ambitious!

Paintings on adjacent walls will not/cannot have identical drop shadows, because we'll assume from the person's shadow that there is one primary light source, and yet the adjacent walls are 90 degrees in opposition. They're getting similar, but not identical lighting.



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This shows what I was thinking very well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gare

Paintings are usually hung at eye level

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True. Sorry I hadn't noticed the eye level part in my initial comment, although I have seen paintings in museums hung very high.

First, @ stygg— your attitude toward your work is even greater than the obvious amount of time and consideration, if such a thing is possible, man. Compositions are hard: no two ways about it. That's what prompted me to do some stuff on backgrounds this past month. It's just too easy for someone with talent to knock off a perfect foreground illustration and call it finished.

@ everyone: I'm exceptionally pleased that many of you took my striped wallpaper example in new and interesting directions. I realize part of this was due to the fact that GenoPal's server was serving up garbage instead of a stable product. I can and will say, "keep trying", because the public beta of 2 does indeed work for some artists, no idea what the criterion is, but I've been in contact with the programmer who apologizes (for being understaffed for one thing) and assures me that a stable version will be posted soon.

In the meantime, I sampled the area I showed in the video three times, and created a wood color palette once, and then rolled all the stuff up into an *.aco file. Yeah, it's an Adobe Color file, but it works flawlessly in Xara. All you do is unzip the attachment, have a document open in Xara and make sure you can see both the UI and the ACO file icon (which sort of means don't have Xara maximized onscreen), and then drag the icon into the page in Xara, not the color bar.

The colors will appear on the color bar, so in advance, it might be a good idea to load a preset page from a template that has very few colors attached to begin with.

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That said, as this thread progresses, I see that Maya and others have tackled the beach ball (instead of kicking it), and overall I think you are all "getting it"...that a composition must have more than a single "hero" all alone by itself in the foreground.

Some of the most successful paintings in history were deliberately created to lead the viewer's eye from one area to another, let it rest on important stuff, let it move onto more trivial areas...it is a symphony done with vision.

My Best,
Gary

@ Maya - thanks for your kind remarks, it was fun although ambitious :D

@ Larry - thank you also and you were right in your observation Larry as Gary has shown.

My Best
Stygg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wizard509

...I have seen paintings in museums hung very high.

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Oh, when they hang a painting high, it has committed a capital offense in a state where the gas chamber and the firing squad have not been adopted.

Grin, Duck, & Run
Attorneys at Tomfoolery,

Gare

This is me trying to add steroids to this thread.

I've drawn a second image against pure white, but have a grid in perspective on the Guides layer for assistance.


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As you'll see, the camera angle is closer to the ground than the mug and donut picture, and it can probably live with one wall, or three walls, or none. You decide, you're the designer, you give the foreground a nice background. There's a lot of colors from which to sample, and the floor can be wood, tile, you name it.

Wot say?

-g

Thanks for the new background file Gary and also I've altered my Art room image trying to implement the points you posted. It's still not perfect but I think improved it a little. The upper pictures are a bit high but with your tomfoolery lawyers I should only get 25 years :D

Stygg

=D> That's nice, Stygg!

Well, I tried a new background for the flower vase this time...