Stop & Post March 2012

Welcome to Stop & Post March 2012.

Logos, stereograms, page layouts, illustrations, cartoons, typography experiments, glass work... February was a month full of variety again. And we saw some posts from new members as well :) Welcome aboard! Thank you all for sharing your work!
If you haven´t posted yet, well... March seems as good as any other month right? You already know the drill... Go ahead and post whatever you have been doing. It doesn´t matter if it´s already finished or not, as long as it has been done with Xara software.

Happy posting!

Just playing with lines and moulds.

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Just finishing up on this website revamp. Hopefully done design wise, just back and forth with content.

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and trying a bit of a logo re-do for another site revamp, top is original that I did ages ago pre-xara I think, and bottom one is the new final result (I think!), probably not a whole lot better but it should hopefully be a bit fresher looking on a new site design.

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Fred - Where was that design when I was doing drugs? ;))

That's really very elegant.

I've been working on a new series of stereograms using layers of transparency. I'm in en experimental mode.

Those I really like.

Gary, those are all great, especially the third one.

Penny

Unbelievably great, Gary! You always amaze me with your stereograms. Just terrific!

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Fred - Where was that design when I was doing drugs? ;))

That's really very elegant.

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Thanks for compliments, Gary! Drugs, huh? (recently or back then..60's--??) ...Oh, the secrets of a great sustained art career:D

Just a very few of your stereograms give me a 'drugged' feeling when I can't quite get them to pop into view. This last group re: transparencies work well.

Regards,

I've been working on this for a while. It is a "skin" for the music software I use. The image shows just a small selection of the work, there are more than twice that number of instruments and many more effects, as well as a mixer, all of which had to be done. Its a massive amount of work and if it wasn't fro Xara, I don't think I could get through it. The knobs are multi-frame animations done is a specialist application, KnobMan, but the rest is Xara. Because I used to get complaints about blurry images, I export everything at 300 dpi and then down-res it in Photoshop to 96 dpi. That seems to keep the bevels and text nice and crisp. For this skin, I also used Photoshop's Lighting Effects (in the Render group) on each background image. It is faded back - 24% transparency using Hard Light blending mode - so it is quite subtle but it makes a big difference to the overall look.

It started out looking nice and clean, like the second image, then I downloaded a few "old metal" textures and applied them liberally to age everything, using different transparency modes to achieve the desired effect. The clean version is called XTRO and I've called the grungy version XTROapocalypse. I've made half-a-dozen or more skins for this application, Synapse Audio's Orion, but this is easily the most complete and best designed of the lot. Previously I have concentrated more on usability than style but this one combines both to really good effect, I hope.

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Hi Garry. These were the first ones that I was able to see. I was able to view all three of them on my iPad for the first time. I went and checked some of you older stereograms but they do not pop for me. I'm not sure why. I can view stereograms on paper just fine but not on a computer screen. Any tips to view them?

By the way, excellent job on the three I did view. =D>

Paul

Interesting image Fred C. It reminds me of Guilloche patterns used in security documents and banknotes. I´ve researched about the subject sometime ago. I remember there´s an interesting illustrator tutorial around that i bookmarked at the time along with some documentation, but didn´t have the time to do something about it yet :( It can lead to very interesting results as in your image. Thanks for posting.

Appreciate your comments, Miguel. Yes, Guilloche designs...with Xara's Blend (along a curve), Contours, and Moulds and Dimitry's Spray, Xara is addictive. Sure beats the old Spirograph.

Regards,

@ankhor
I really don´t know. I remember that the first time i saw the depth (some years ago) was the most complicated, but after that first time i was able to see it easily. Then i never saw another stereogram until Gary started posting their work here on Talkgraphics. Unfortunately i never managed to perceive the depth again. I have no problems seeing 3D in movies no matter what the system used.

@BONES
Impressive work there. Can you post a more detailed view of the glowing(?) blue knobs?
It´s not easy to render realistically so many surface´s materials and light. I find it quite challenging and sometimes i do play a little in Xara trying to find ways to achieve certain effects. Fortunately Xara is quite flexible allowing to stack several shapes with different transparencies, gradients, whatever needed to make it work.
Interesting to see Xara used as a GUI design tool.

Wow! Those are really impressive!
I love the concave detail~!
- Andy

what you say about this
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Originally Posted by MEB

Impressive work there. Can you post a more detailed view of the glowing(?) blue knobs?

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As I said, they are created in a specialist application. It allows layers and these are a mixture of vectors and bitmaps.

Re: Stereograms - I have never been able to see anything in them, ever. I think I am too well trained as an observer to do whatever it is you need to do to see them. I suppose its a neat trick but I really don't see the point.

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Originally Posted by BONES

I think I am too well trained as an observer to do whatever it is you need to do to see them.

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ah - unlike us 'artists' who are not at all trained as observers, obviously :p

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I suppose its a neat trick but I really don't see the point.

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I suuppose if you can't see them then you wouldn't, would you :D

having said all that - impressive skins

No, I am trained as a military observer. Trained to look through things, rather than at them. It gives me a great eye for detail but not much else for my work.

Line drawing of a Snow Lion - a mystical Tibetan animal.

Exquisite line work, Fred. The tail especially.

Final Snow Lion in its natural environment ;)

Really nice drawing Fred.

Quite magical and the color version answers the question of why the feet appeared to be floating.

Looks amazing Fred. Can´t wait to see the finished piece.

Excellent work, Fred! Always interesting to see what you are working on; thanks for posting.

Well done Fred you’v captured the true essence of Oriental art with great use of fractal fills and gradient colour fills. I think it’s FAB

Thank you all! Will keep you posted.

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ok started back work on my Lady Gaga image I posted in January, made a bunch of progress finished the bicep and torso... going to either start on the face or the legs next...

Awesome Rian.

How are you and what have you been up to?

(Rian's Xara Xone Featured Artist Gallery)

I'm doing good, did 6 years in the navy got out last June, and am starting school here starting in April. Havent been drawing much lately but trying to get back into it. Been doing a lot of photography though, but Im going to try to start drawing more.

Excellent, Rian. Good luck with school and don't lose touch. :)

An unfinished project I'm working on, using a seamless techie background I posted recently.

A sample for a possible commissioned stereogram. No go ahead yet.

Looks good to me Gary.

Welcome back Rian. Nice work on Lady Gaga image.

thanks a lot :)