June 2015 Guest Tutorial Tips and Tricks - Cast in Gold by Frances Proctor

June 2015 Guest Tutorial Tips and Tricks - Cast in Gold by Frances Proctor


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Turning everything you touch into gold isn’t a fairy tale any longer, not when your turn to the Guest Tutorial this month. Oh Lord, who does the copywriting for the Xara Xone!? With the aid of a tutorial file toy download, Frances Proctor will show you how to begin with a free typeface, and steps later you’ll arrive at lettering that looks as though you mined it during the 1840s in California! All it takes to the path to virtual riches is a little time and the latest version of Xara Designer. Get your miner’s cap on for some major fun!

Show off your new goldsmithing skills in this thread.

I enjoyed working through this tutorial a lot, Frances, thank you! It never ceases to amaze me how many different paths one can take in Xara to wind up with similar, sometimes identical results. I never considered applying the bitmap image as transparency, for example. The bitmap was created using Filter Forge, wasn't it?

As a long-time practicing alchemist, when you're finished using Frances' text example, you might feel like trying your new skill out on the traditional alchemist's symbol for gold, shown here. The purist of the (known at the time) metals, gold still holds a fascination for metallurgy workers and jewelry stores everywhere. :)

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My Best and thanks again, Frances,

Gary

Thanks Gary, and yep you are correct the bitmap I supplied for this tutorial was indeed created in Filter Forge, it's a simple perlin noise with a few tweaks. Filter forge is an amazing tool to pair with Xara :) I love the fact that it has six different types of noise to use as starting points and you can edit and tweak them almost infinitely! As well as the basic settings like roughness, scale detail contrast brightness etc each noise panel comes with 4 or five different profile settings (this allows you to adjust the basic algorithm to produce soft cloud like textures or things like plasma or sharp and spikey like electricity and also you can create custom profiles by using any of a number of editable curve functions including a completely editable bezier curve! Now multiply this by the six different noise types and you truly are only limited by your imagination :)

Thanks for this tutorial, it is always itself interesting to follow someones steps in menus where I rather rarely get, so good learning. Well this gold version is made by man fingers :D

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Looks good Csezh although your gold could use a little buffing :)

Nice one csehz, see you struck it rich with the gold, don't spend it all at once :) Not got round to doing this tut. only read it but as you said, it's really good, will pan for gold later today :D

Stygg

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Originally Posted by csehz

Well this gold version is made by man fingers :D

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"He's the man,
the man with a heart of xone...
Your Art's your own..."

It took me over 10 seconds to figure out your joke, csehz. :)

-g

A great tutorial, Frances.
And many thanks for getting it up on the Xone, Gary.

The hard work, by both of you, is much appreciated. :-bd

So, here's my effort.
Some of my values are different to the tutorial, but then, I didn't choose the recommended font size!

Thanks for your words, well yes there were not enough buffing on that gold that is sure :D

Gare no jokes in that this man with a heart of Xone, because he already missed these tutorials :)

Very good to see you back!

Thanks, csehz, and for anyone who cares, I'm diligently working, piece by piece to get June Xara Xone up.

Sad to say that my brain bone is connected to my leg bone due to some unfortunate surgery, and my leg is not mended yet.

I will have to make amends.


-g

Thanks for the ideas in the tutorial, Frances!

I see everyone has used variations of the original tut. by Francis so I have done two, Gold 1 I used the Fizzy.jpg from an earliar Francis tut. and the clouds.jpg in Gold 2.

@Maya - Luv the new Avatar, really cool :cool:

Stygg

There are some great golden treasures here! Thanks Rik, Maya, and Stygg. I'm glad everyone is having a great time with this tutorial!

@Stygg: the fizzy one looks good!

Personal preferences, stygg.
But, I prefer the first one, in Post# 12.
For me, the edges need to be a bit sharper, but otherwise, a very good job. :-bd

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Originally Posted by Rik

Personal preferences, stygg.
But, I prefer the first one, in Post# 12.
For me, the edges need to be a bit sharper, but otherwise, a very good job. :-bd

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Cheers Rik, in the second image I was trying to create a sort of gold dust being blown off the gold but not very successfully I'm affraid, perhaps add another layer on top to get that effect but not worked out how to do some bits of gold dust- yet! :rolleyes:

Stygg

Cheers Francis, that Fizzy jpg was from a Christmas Card tut. of yours a while back.

Stygg

Last one I promise :D

Stygg

I think that is totally inspired and terrific, Fellow Alchemist Stygg!

:)

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Originally Posted by stygg2003

Last one I promise :D

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Stygg till the next month no need for such promise at all! :)

Thank you for your kind comment Gary, made my day :D

@csehz- cheers csehz, and come on, it's not like you to not have ago at that alchemists symbol for Gold :D

Stygg

:) Stygg you are trickily motivating :) You will see eventually on the weekend I will come up with such an alchemists symbol that Xara will give the fractal noise on it :)

Good work on the Alchemists symbol Stygg! I look forward to seeing what Csehz comes up with :)

@Stygg—

If you'd like some inspiration (from me??!?) or just a neat background, here's my contribution to better alchemy through science:

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It's a whole bunch of alchemy symbols for metals, plus a few Celtic runes characters.

Embedded in a XAR document, free for all to use, Bouton's Express Permission (BEP).

My Best,

gare

Thanks a lot Gary, those symbols are really good and hopefully I will come up with some ideas.

Stygg

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Originally Posted by angelize

Good work on the Alchemists symbol Stygg! I look forward to seeing what Csehz comes up with :)

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Thank you Francis, glad you liked. I also look forward to what csehz comes up with? I knew I'd push him into doing the symbol ;)) and besides he comes up with some neat ideas.

Stygg

The Book of Signs, originally published in 1934 written by Rudolph Koch (who was also a typographer and did a few nice fonts) is largely a book you can download for free if you subscribe to some reading site (who charge $).

But Google books will show you several pages from the eBook, along with explanations of symbols.

Example?

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Just remember that with Frances' tutorial—and just a lot of tutorial we have here—you're not limited to a target shape the author provided! I have the hardest time convincing people who have bought a book I wrote (so why am I complaining?!) that you don't have to start or stop at the file I provided. Use you own along with the principle I shared with you.

Improvise.

Innovate.

Recreate.


-g

Another variation...

Woah! Maya, that's really nice bulGIng text! :)

-g

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Originally Posted by Gare

Woah! Maya, that's really nice bulGIng text! :)

-g

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Thanks Gare!

nice tutorial this month @angelize!

here's my attempt. i'm thinking of trying another using @Gare's suggestion this weekend but with the gauntlet being thrown down by - ahem - someone, there's probably gonna be some good work posted up by the big dogs and I'll just stay under the porch :eek:

Nice effort Mikey, buried gold hey, nice touch.

Stygg

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Originally Posted by mikeymopar

nice tutorial this month @angelize!

here's my attempt. i'm thinking of trying another using @Gare's suggestion this weekend but with the gauntlet being thrown down by - ahem - someone :eek:

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I'm familiar with that gauntlet. It's the Velvet Fist, right?

Hey, everyone take their time. Post well thought-out quality stuff. The real showcase this month, aside for a new Xara product release, is Frances' tutorial; I arrived home too late after the injury to get the video tutorial done for June. July for sure some fireworks!

My Best,

Gary

Здравствуйте.
Фотографий Нет и загрузка файла материалов не работает http://site.xaraxone.com/tips-and-tricks/cast-in-gold/
Это урок может есть в видео?

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Originally Posted by And_22

Здравствуйте.
Фотографий Нет и загрузка файла материалов не работает http://site.xaraxone.com/tips-and-tricks/cast-in-gold/
Это урок может есть в видео?

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Google Translate:


Hello.
Photos No and uploading a material file does not work

http://site.xaraxone.com/tips-and-tricks/cast-in-gold/


This lesson can eat in the video?


Mods, any help here? This is the first post since June 2015.

I don't believe Frances' tutorial can eat. My tutorials used to suck, though.

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And_22

I'm sorry the link is broken. Here is the tutorial file for June 2015. Your second sentence is not coming through google translate. Can we try again?

Прости, что ссылка сломана. Вот учебный файл за июнь 2015 года. Ваше второе предложение не идет через google google. Можем ли мы попробовать еще раз?

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Ok, all the figures are missing as well. I'm reporting to Magix that all the figures and downloads are 404. Here is an archive of the figures.

Хорошо, все цифры тоже отсутствуют. Я сообщаю Magix, что все цифры и загрузки - 404. Вот архив цифр.

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Originally Posted by Barbara B

Ok, all the figures are missing as well. I'm reporting to Magix that all the figures and downloads are 404. Here is an archive of the figures.

Хорошо, все цифры тоже отсутствуют. Я сообщаю Magix, что все цифры и загрузки - 404. Вот архив цифр.

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: D Спасибо, буду учить урок.