Drawing is too hard...

Hi,

I'm not sure how I should say this. I want to embrace a workflow and stay with it. Either it's one tool, or two tools, and they need to be the best for me. I mean just for me.

I tend to create bad art and coder art most of the time if not all the time. I can stay consistent, kind of, but it's always few graphics and bad graphics. I feel able to start to overly like and love them, but eventually someone will somehow tell me that my art is bad. And it is even objectively bad. It gets recognized as coder art (graphics drawn by a non-professional) by 9 out of 10 people.

I could pay someone. But what format will I get? I threw away my Illustrator cs6 copy, because I didn't know how to select things, and now all Adobe software is cloud. You can just pay them €280 per year, where as I had just paid 600 for unlimited usage. I'm not sure if you can keep using the cloud products after some like 2 years maybe? And I still don't know how selecting works, it selects all I touch with the rectangle. X )

I don't know how to approach the whole thing. A few minutes ago I thought I could make a scan of a pliable wire, and that would be the ulimate "bezier tool". I tried it.. that method is just bad.

Xara is okay, but ... just okay. Affinity is what you can expect for €50. Corel Draw 2019 did not start, splash screen forever.

And.. to be honest, I once wrote some app of my own. With some libraries (Antigrain, Clipper) and some blur code and things anyone could comprehend with enough time. It got a complicated mess. I was unable to rescue my code, because it was all just to special-case like. I felt like throwing it away after investing a huge amount of time and erased it. Like, there were fixed rules what paints on what, and I would need 20 years of coding to get anything that is really better.

Now I have a 32x32 pixel drawing app that is kind of cool. It's possible to write such a thing in one day, really, and fix bugs for just one week and never notice any more bugs. But when you look at Celeste (game) there's like insanely cool pixel art. Why even bother to create 32x32 sprites that are on par with Game Gear art at best.

There's cheap stock art, should I buy tensor flow chips and make an AI learn how to draw?

I'm blind, kind of.

I'm afraid my post sounds creepy, but it's my honest opinion.

Tnx for reading...

PS: If you know anything for me, like, if I should start learning Illustrator maybe, or just anything, would be cool to hear from you.
PS2: I'm from Germany, please forgive me my bad English.
PS3: Wrong sub forum also.

Welcome to TalkGraphics

No software will make you an artist. First you have to have some talent. Outstanding art has been made will all the programs you list. But the artists use the software as a tool. The same way a non computer artist can use a pencil or brush or even a can of spray paint to create amazing images.

But you can learn to be better or to use what talent you have better.

Here is a link to the XaraXone archives where there are almost 20 years of tutorials. Start with some of these and see if they help. You will need a copy of Xara but almost any version will work.

Gary: You have not posted a link to Xara Xone in your post.

So, please click HERE for the one that I know of.

Thanks a lot. I took the link Rik posted and I'm glad you posted. It will be quite some months that I feel I want to invest into vector and pixel graphics, because... forgetting it as a hobby didn't work either, so... I have to learn.

If you want to have a bit of fun, whilst learning to draw, why not visit the Challenges forum and have a go at creating.
It's a great way to learn the tools you may need to come up with your creation(s).

Memory loss. http://site.xaraxone.com/archives/ This has links to my Xara Xone tutorials and Gary Bouton's.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

... You will need a copy of Xara but almost any version will work.

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Except 15.0

It may be that you need some measure of talent. In my case even tracing something ALWAYS turns out different from the vision in my head. Trouble is when I ZOOM in to the vision in my head, the details are never clear, and no matter what I draw, it looks wrong. Give me a technical drawing and I'm good. Art just isn't my thing.

Having said that, you can look at some (even expensive) art, and it looks like it's been done by a child, but it sells well. Art is in the eye of the beholder, There no way to determine good art from bad art ... It's all art, and somewhere there's someone who will like it.

Well I started with Xara X1, and have gone through Xara Pro 4, 5, and now Xara Designer Pro x11, and I am a professional cartographic illustrator creating maps for the tabletop roleplaying game industry, and video game strategy guide content creation - I'm one of the top game cartographers in the world, and I use Xara almost exclusively. I do use 3D software for elements in some maps (and some maps completely done in 3D), but I don't use Adobe anything, Affinity nor any other graphics software. Xara is the software that makes my artistry work. So different strokes for different folks - maybe Xara is not for you. I have over 1000 published maps, and almost all of them were created in Xara (those maps that weren't completely created in Xara were finished in Xara.)

I have a long running thread in the Xara Graphic Chat forum called Fantasy Maps created using Xara, if you'd like to see samples of map work of mine created in Xara, to see what you can do with the software.

well I'm not one of the world's top anything, but I can draw....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by me2

I don't know how to approach the whole thing

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you need to focus - software has manuals and help and you are going to have to study these as well as tutorials - you are going to have to keep it simple and draw simple things whilst you learn the tools, before you can move on

I use xara for making vector asset, but my drawing program of choice is corel painter; I have been using painter since the days of Fractel 5, 15+ years ago, and I am only some sort of expert in my kind of art, and in the uasage of 25/30% of the program which is very complicated

yes drawing is hard, and the bad news is it stays that way... even when you have learned the program that does not make you an artist - it is stll down to you to know when something is right or wrong, finished or unfinished, derivative or original; and you have to be prepared for others to still not see what you see because not only beauty, but understanding and appreciation, are in the eye of the beholder

Thanks guys... thanks a lot. I'm already working on it. Give me one year, and ... I mean, my time frame is one year. Just so. On 19.08.2020 I'll see how the drawings look like. Maybe I'll show them then. I'll be drawing things the coming time, no matter if it's art or not or how it looks just now. Just drawing. Yep. Thanks and take care and ideally see you 12 months later with things done.

I’m afraid I'm not great at drawing at all and don’t really enjoy doing it, but along with perspective and understanding light etc, I do recognise it’s one of the key fundamental requirements for producing better quality art.

Sharing your progress and ideas to a relevant online community, and as Rik mentioned, taking part in challenges can be beneficial (and fun) and help raise standards, particularly when mixing with experienced artists. Personally I find this provides a little extra motivation to do something that I wouldn't normally do.

If you look through the Xara art galleries and see examples of the type and quality of output you eventually want to achieve, then Xara software will probably be the program to focus your time on, learning it inside and out, warts and all. I think there is great merit in this approach, everything becoming second nature knowing where everything is, what it does and having the ability to workaround problems when it doesn't actually do what you want it do straight out of the box.

I would say though, workflows nowadays are seldom just contained just within one program and I wouldn't be blind to alternative options if they do what you want more quickly and efficiently.

An example came up recently on the forum where someone (Rik) was drawing a mechanical gear cog. You can easily and effectively do this in XDP, but if you then had to draw a further 25 cogs with varying numbers of teeth and hole radii etc, using Affinity Designer's cog tool would save a lot of time and effort.

Anyway, good luck with your journey ahead - I'm quite excited for you. Keep us posted!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by me2

Give me one year, and ... I mean, my time frame is one year. Just so. On 19.08.2020 I'll ...

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I need more time. I declare the time frame thing postponed to 19.08.2021.

.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

the funny image

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hehe

...

I've decided to do the 7 days AI evaluation thing.

Edit:
I have already managed to draw a thing like a message box saying something, just by installing Ai.

Attachment 127451

Edit 2:
Now it shows me a template dialog that hides all its buttons I have to click under the taskbar, on my FHD notebook.

The dialog window is not resizable or maximizable, but I can move the window to the top, and I'll see part of the buttons. Also, there is a 1 in 4 chance that Windowskey+D for showing the desktop will place the dialog in front of the taskbar (which is just normal, the Windows 10 install is just one day old and I did not set anything special at all, like automatic hiding, unusual position etc). But clicking the dialog window does not bring it there. So, whatever place I place this window, this is all I can see of the buttons.

Attachment 127452

Me, using Ai for 20 seconds.

Okay, cancelled the subscription. That was short. Ai CS4 did work very well (not really the scripting), so, no Ai hate. Actually I like it. I'll re-try next year. I should never have sold my CS4 copy.

To my surprise I found an Affinity Designer trial. It's quite good.

Though, the docked color picker on the right is never in context, does nothing or adds an unwanted stroke width. It's broken.

But I was able to draw another smurf house (no idea why that, maybe covers all I need). It looks a bit sterile. That smurf has germaphobia.

The ClipView/Powerclip feature in Affinity is good. I guess I'll buy it and try with that.

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=D> All of this would be a lot easier in Xara. But perhaps we are prejudiced.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

=D> All of this would be a lot easier in Xara. But perhaps we are prejudiced.

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I'm currently just staying away from Xara because it said "do not nudge" too often to me. I know I need a bigger document with bigger margin then, but it's like i get into a Xara-world where.. ... where you are afraid of ..Xara-wolves?...I mean.. it's hard to explain. Also I don't know what the Xara cloud is. It talks about web design at some point, and I didn't even know where the original Xara product is placed. Never tried it.

Sorry about the wrong comparisons.

One thing I found difficult in Affinity is casting a shadow on a bunch of things. I thought when I put shapes into a group and try to drag-drop a transparent black onto that group layer, that shadow so to speak would only be cast onto each shape in the group. But Affinity makes it also show at the transparent part of the group. Isn't that wrong, and doesn't Xara do that like you "would expect"? I'm going to try.

Couldn't get a shadow from the big green circle onto the things below. But I guess there is a (non-destructive) trick, in Affinity.

Attachment 127455

Yep, Clipview just does what you would expect. Affinity doesn't, yet.

I just tried to uninstall Adobe. CC eats 7% CPU for idling in the traybar... you know what? Adobe cannot be uninstalled. I ended the CC process, but in Windows 10 add or remove features, I can try ten times to uninstall Ai, it will just do nothing, and CC replies with "you have Ai installed, I won't uninstall either." Isn't that nice...

I have installed the new Designer Pro from xara.com, the desktop product.

Unfortunately it only does this:

Attachment 127456

Attachment 127457

and quits. Or .. crashes, depends on.. how you view it.

But maybe the new Xara version is just unhappy that I have installed Xara 365 like 30 minutes before? Maybe a DLL thing.

The computer is a new Lenovo X1 (gen 6, but only a few months old, says Lenovo serial number texts). And has Windows 10, installed two days before, with updates. User: Unfortunately me. :D

Right click the Xara icon and choose 'Run As Administrator'. Your errors are related to .dll's, they probably didn't register correctly.

If that works, you can start Xara by just double clicking, no need to Run As Admin again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris M

Right click the Xara icon and choose 'Run As Administrator'. Your errors are related to .dll's, they probably didn't register correctly.

If that works, you can start Xara by just double clicking, no need to Run As Admin again.

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Thanks!

I had planned to install Windows 10 anyway, did that just now. Then installed it and now it installed VC runtime DLLs, which it did not when I had 365 installed. I guess 365 just placed some bit too old DLLs there (in the same folder in program files).

And this time Windows did not tell me that I should enable unsafe software sources. For some reason in the old install it did, like, some Windows store thing.

It works.

:)

Some things are a bit weird in Xara compared to the other programs I have tried now, especially the selecting shapes in Affinity is a bit easier. And I never understood why Xara 6 or so introduced the temporary document view for groups, or how I could get the old things on double-click. But that's all, I guess, if I take into account that ClipView works a bit better, I guess, I should just buy the new Xara. And pray. ;))

Edit: Oh, and in Affinity the outline of a target shape (ClipView clipping shape in Xara) draws just fine with a few clicks, but in Xara it somehow led me to add a stroke to all clipped shapes and some other problems, and I just copied the clipping shape to get a fresh outline with nothing attached. I'm not sure what's better, but Affinity felt faster.

Ok, smurf house in Xara.

Attachment 127458

In Affinity, it's cool to select a clipped shape and copy and paste it, and it will appear within the clipping shape. Xara can do that only in the temporary document view? Which blends away what I do, I lose track of what I'm creating, and I omit that thing since it was invented in Xara 6. And 5 or so could let you stay with the existing shapes in view. I'm not sure, maybe I'm totally wrong. But the handling in Affinity is not bad. I wish the good things of Xara plus the good things of Affinity were combined into Aff.. Xaffinity.

The color picker bug was apparently only there because I had converted lines into shapes. And maybe there's a way to cast a shadow on a group of shapes, maybe some Affinity user knows something.

Another one, in Affinity. Colorful because of the workflow, somehow.

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