May 2012 Tutorial - Create Seamless Patterns in Xara Designer Pro X

[Gare]

Mike, I slummed it, and offer another way, similar to what you proposed:

You put a layer on top of your drawing layer, and then every color shape you add, you do in Transparency>Stained Glass blending mode.

The Xar file attached used a drawing I stylized, filtered and then saved as a bitmap. Then the shapes on top are all Stained Glass. Which is fine only if you don't mind duller colors in areas that are not white on the bottom layer.



—Oooh, the colors, —g

[handrawn]

that one I like a lot Gary - is it dull, or just 'pastel' ?, and the composition is great

good tiling one and all

[Gare]

Thanks handrawn—

Technically, chromatically, I'm not certain the effect is either dull or a pastel. "Stained Glass" is simply a renamed "Multiply" blending mode, which in photography is based around the real world subtractive color model. The result color is always darker than the color you begin with. So it's not a perfect solution for coloring in a B&W drawing, but it's interesting.

If anyone would like to more than a sensible person would (!) on the subject of Xara's Stained Glass mode, there's a well-written paper on it >>>here<<<.

Keep on posting, folks! Let's see if we can top the number of views we had back on January's tutorial!

My Best,

Gary

[angelize]

here is one I did to quickly replace the butt ugly desktop image that comes with windows 7 on my new pc.



happyface.xar

[angelize]

Here is another one, this time I used bits and pieces of my Rhododenrons drawing and tried to artfully arrange them. I have also included the .xar file for the Daisies tile.
rhodotile.xar
daisies.xar

[PhilM]

You could use Live Copies so that as you edit an object on one edge the one on the opposite edge automatically updates.

And going further than that you could set up a 3*3 array of live copies of the whole tile design, so that everything you do in the centre tile automatically repeats all around and all the edge overlaps are done automatically. However, I've just tried that and it doesn't quite work. This needs a bit of thought...

Phil

[Gare]

@Phil—

Using Live Copy is a terrific way of quickly making variations on a tile that is set up properly, and thanks for suggesting this, Phil!

Here's an example; you have to be careful about using the Shape Builder and the Ersaer on a Live Copy that has a shadow, and I don't see where you can specify that the Live Copy lands precisely on top of the original, but none of this is a deal-breaker. All you do after Arrange>Live Copy, is select the two of them, Ctrl+Shift+L, align centrally, and you're good to go.

Try experimenting with the attached Xara file. You need the Pro version.



My Best,

Gary