Turtorial for Gold Coin

[handrawn]

oh put your brown nose back in the cupboard Gary

this forum is for chat about illustrator, irrespective of who sponsers it - no reason not to link out to alternative ways of doing things, but if I filled the xara chat forum with illustrator, inkscape or serif workflow, you would likely get very sarky

[Soquili]

As the forum moderator, I see no reason to relocate any of the posts within this thread.

Peter was very kind to provide steps to create the image using Illustrator and Rik kindly provided steps for Xara.

A HARD rule to not mix application information within a forum can be more disruptive than helpful. I'm sure myladeybugg can decide to try or not try Xara Designer Pro X.

Steve remember that myladeybugg did request the steps to reproduce the image using Xara.

[handrawn]

oh you are forum moderator here Bill - I thought you were, and then when I looked [late] last night I guess I mis-read

I think the request is still no reason not to post xara helpful info in a xara related forum [where xara users are much more likely to see it] and link through, but your call - not the end of the world like I said, maybe Rik will do [has done] both

[Albacore]

Let's not get a rash over this! Everyone who knows me knows that I prefer to draw in Xara but work decides what programme to use. Looking at Rik's instructions there is not much in it both of us really missed the hard parts of getting the embossed part of the coin to look really correct. Yet is best to make these instructions down to a line colour as you never know the ability of the user. I think the 3D tool in Illy is great as it prints well which is something that can't really be said for either the Bevel tool or the 3D tool in Xara. Also the ability to map art onto a revolved object be it vector or bitmap. It took me longer to get comfortable using Illy than it did to use Xara but that is neither here or there, many things come into choosing the correct software to use, it is only a tool to get things done.

[myladeybugg]

Well I am attempting the instructions for Illustrator first since that is the program I already have. I am a total noob to this but learn very quickly. I am trying to get the stars to go all the way around the inner circle but can't seem to figure it out. I have used the rotation tool but the last stars are overlapping the first stars. I'm sure its just something I did wrong. Any ideas?

[Albacore]

I counted 33 stars in your coin going around about 2/3's of the way which means a star every 7 degrees approx. Hit Ctrl+R to show rulers,if the Smart Guides are not on hit Ctrl+U to turn on, now drag a guide line from the rulers that run down the side out to the centre of your coin that will give you a vertical guide, now from the top drag a horizontal guide down to the centre of your coin. The smart guides will give you a light cyan line running off at a angle once you reach the centre point. Now if you open your rotation dialogue box with your star selected and enter 7 if you want to C/wise or -7 if you want to ACW hold down Alt key and drag the reference point to the guides centre and the hit copy in the dialogue box. If you have CS5 or later I think you can type how many copies that you want but I have only CS3 so I have to keep using Ctrl+D to Transform again and again to rotate the star around the centre of the coin. I hope this helps and please remember to press F1 to bring up the Help programme and then enter "rotation" in the search option which give great help.