Band..

[pauland]

I've asked plenty ofquestions here and mostly I use Xara to make graphics fror websites or software interfaces or technical diagrams. I thought I'd share last weekends project: A rock band (ages 13-15 I think!).

They held their first gig last Friday (in a church!) and have been helped and encouraged by members of the church to practice on a Friday and enjoy themselves. The set wasn't at all religion orientated though. It all went very well and it was nice to see my daughter use last years Xmas present in public for the first time (and to sing). It's incredible how accomplished this young band already are. Anyway, I digress.

We recorded the performance and I made a DVD as a keepsake for the band members. I thought I could at least do an inset and got carried away and did a cartoon version of the band (using a tracing technique). Thought I'd share it with you. BTW, this is the finished version - the DVD has hit the streets (or palms of the band members families, in this case). BTW, this was only part of the DVD inset.

Hope you like it.

Paul

[jclements]

Very nice!

I bet Egg could have some fun animating and integrating this in Flash with some of the music fromt the CD.

[williamdruid]

This is pretty cool! Haven't had a chance to try the tracer yet but it looks like it works. Good luck to your daughter and the band. Willy

[pauland]

Willy - it's hand traced - not using the bitmap tracer at all!
jclements - Hmm. Might give it a go myself!

Paul

[John Rayner]

Neat Paul...

Although this might have been better in the xara gallery... Did they end up with faces, or is that part of the name...

[pauland]

Yes, I didn't think about the gallery (I didn't think about what I do as going into a gallery!).

No, no faces. I did it all on a Saturday afternoon/evening to be handed out on Sunday morning. There were plenty of tweaks I could have done, though I wouldn't have attempted the faces.
All I had to work with was some snapshots from a video and I don't know the band members well enough (my daughter excepted) to be able to fill in the facial detail. I think it worked well with the blank faces. When printed it was quite small - nobody has commented about the faces so far.

It's been a very rewarding and pleasurable exercise in using Xara.

[sallybode]

Nice drawing. With drawing people, whether you get a likeness that is close or not, some will be happy and some won't. This way they will see themselves unchanged with time.