Re: how to create the grunge floral banner

I am wondering if anyone can tell me how to do a banner like this one:

http://qvectors.com/misc-vectors/grunge-banner-vector/

using XaraXtreme. I do not know how to use this program and find it hard to teach myself how to use it when it does not cover specific things I want to do such as the grunge effect, creating swirls etc.

Hoping someone could give me a quick tutorial on how to do something like the image above.

Thanks

You can always download the clipart from that site and open the AI into Xtreme?

From there you can pick it apart and see how the original author constructed it.

Be sure to read the Creative Commons license if you plan to use the artwork.

I'd imagine you'd draw the floral things with the Pen tool. And then import some texture and give it a run with the bitmap tracer. Ungroup the traced image use the shapes of it to make the paint splashes. Find some grunge font at dafont.com.

Use some splatter texture from cgtextures.com.

The swirls and flowers are no problems as if you do a search on those topics there are plenty of either EPS, AI or PDF files available which you could use. I would also suggest that you have a look at this workbook from Gary: http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook24/page_3.htm

The trouble with using Xara for doing this grunge look is that Xara and Illustrator have very different brushes and in Illustrator it is far easier to make a convincing Grunge effect by using the pathfinder after expanding the stroke. What you could try is to use the Pencil draw a few lines where you want the Grunge effect to be and select the Petal Brush, "Convert the Line to a Shape" through the arrange menu and ungroup the resulting shapes. The select the shape that you want to apply the effect to along with a few of the ungrouped petal and then do a Ctrl + 2 (Subtract Shapes). If you have any problems following the instructions please come back and I will try to do a mini tutorial for you but please have a look at Gary's Workbook first.

with a little bit of fooling around i managed to make this