The 2012 Xara Xone Tree-Trimming Collaboration

[molucca]

Tree lights. I add a few every year.

Rich

[Gare]

Okay, okay, it might seem early; heck, Wal-Mart isn't even open all night for Black Friday yet, but here it is...the 2012 Xara Xone Tree-Trimming Party. I figure a lot of us actually have a life, and although you might want to participate, as the holidays grow closer, your free time inversely proportional.

This will be a Work in Progress until, let's say, the 22nd of December. I'm open to suggestions along the way because this is our collaboration, but for the moment I'm attaching two files: one of the full tree, and one of a section of the branches, you you have a good view of it when designing an ornament for this location.

Every few days I'll copy posts on this thread to a tree, a cumulative thing, updating the tree until 12-22.

Ornaments are great, and so are popcorn and garland strings. Let's hold off on the tree topper, because that's sort of a Place of Honor, and let's see how the tree shapes up on the ornaments side of things before "finishing" it with the star, angel or other decoration.

We need gifts below the tree (see the tutorial Frances and I did for November!), and if anyone has a truly great idea for a background other than the original, I'll try to provide a version with an alpha channel on request, but I sort of like the dark, subdued background for contrast.

@stygg, I'll have a mantle shortly in a different thread, for your card and for others.

My Best,

Gary

[molucca]

A Xara drawing of a garden object. Environment colored.

Rich

[Gare]

Thanks, Rich!

I thought I'd get the tree started today. I've added a popcorn string and tow of the splendid ornaments that Rich has donated to our tree-trimming:



I see there have been a lot of downloads of the tree files.

Would anyone like to chime in now that the ice has been broken...to mix metaphors?

-g

[molucca]

An ornament from a wing set. I used two sets of wings as a brush, and applied a line profile for shaping. A little color adjustment in Photoshop. Just a vision I had.

Rich

[Gare]

Thanks, Paul. I'm going to hang onto this latest file and let other members post their ornaments, and then fit them in places in the upcoming weeks, okay?

Thanks again!

Gary

[angelize]

Here are two more ornaments all done in Xara with a bit of noise from FF and a gemstone also created in FF (run as a plugin from Xara )

[angelize]

I was originally going to post this in the clipart forum but I thought it might look nice nestled amongst the branches of out TG tree. If anyone is interested I have posted some vector snowflakes, including the one I used to make this, in the clipart forum http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...s&goto=newpost

[Gare]

Thanks, Frances!

The snowflake is glorious, and if no one comes forward with an angel or a star or something appropriate for the top of the tree, I'll put the snowflake on top in the weeks to come.

Speaking of snowflakes, giving, and ClipArt, here's a thumbnail of the attached file—I did three snowflakes in Xara, all ready to embellish and use on envelopes or the web or wherever they won't melt.



I see two very nice free apps for making snowflakes: the one that's online and I really can't help you with it, except tell you to just experiment, is >>>SnowDays<<<

And then you have a very small app, <<<Vector Snowflake>>> you can download for Win, Mac, and Linux, and this is perhaps the best of the lot. I don't think the Scientist is Evil at all—he's pretty generous, actually!

Oh, and >>>Make-A-Flake<<< requires Flash, but you can use the onscreen scissors to cut away a triangle, and save as an EPS file.

Good luck, and make sure no two of them are alike, okay? You don't want to tilt the universe or create a black hole or anything.

-g

[Gare]

November 26th version.

Now, because this is all vector—object-based—I'll move things over in case we start running out of room.

So can we please start running out of room?!

That was an un-subtle plea for contributions.



-g