Interweaving vines with 3D text

[BeanPole]

I have given my "Happy Easter" another go at it. Don't think it's totally finished, but I believe it is an improvement on the last one. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank You!


angelize,

I did create about 5 different leaves and skewed some of them. Does the vine look better?


Gary,

I changed the colors, but I moved my letters to have the sky as a backdrop. How are the colors now? Do I still have color separation?




PS The vine so obscures the letters, not sure how to get around this, unless I just drop the vine!

[Gare]

Gary,

I changed the colors, but I moved my letters to have the sky as a backdrop. How are the colors now? Do I still have color separation?


PS The vines so obscure the letters, not sure how to get around this, unless I just drop the vine!

@Beanpole—Problem #1 is making it hard to discern the solution to Problem #2. I really can't see if there is enough color contrast, because of all the leaves in front of the characters.

I really don't want to discourage anyone from experimenting and I do see improvement, but if everyone would please consider this:

If you've posted more than 3 cracks at a composition, and the current one is better in one area, but worse in another...the problem is with your "process".

IOW, your game plan going in isn't sound. And you're patching your original idea and diluting it, because you didn't work from the General to the specific.

Example? BeanPole, would you mind? Me, I'd have started with an outline drawing with white fill for everything, to see how the composition looks in general. Then, with great deliberation, I'd start mixing up textures, fractals, gradients, and other fills, comparing one to another to see how they balance and influence the overall graphical idea.

If this sounds like the long way about things, look at the time you've invested so far.

And I'm singling BeanPole out here for criticism. This is just advice and you can then choose to ignore me in a minute or two.

Sadly, computer graphics programs offer this enticing thing called "instant accomplishment". There is no pencil sketch, you go straight from idea to finished drawing.

Or do you?

Let me introduce a different fill type here; fractal fills are okay, but they cannot represent everything because there are only two types of fractals. Open the Fill Gallery, and if it's not populated, download some of the fills from Xara's server.

There's gotta be a bitmap in the Fill gallery that does a better representation of bare earth than trying to use a fractal fill.

I've attached a piece that has a "grass" brush in it. I encourage anyone here to take apart this drawing. It's a little bit of this and a little bit of that—an extrude, a brush, some gradient fills, and fractal transparency.



But I believe the piece succeeds because I had an idea of how it should look before I began it. Then, and only then did I decide on what features to use and I built the piece a little at a time, checking for artistic balance, color coordination, editing the grass color so it has contrast in both light and dark grounds...basically sweating the small stuff all along the process.

-g

[dcahall]

Thanks Gare - I downloaded them and now I am going to take the night off :-)

[BeanPole]

Gare,

I do see where you are coming from. I am not an artist, so I am not founded in the process - yet! Thank you for your file I will surely study it. I have learned so much in the last 2 1/2 months, and yet I know I haven't even scratched the surface of all of Xara's capabilities. I look forward to more tutorials. I appreciate your improvement on my grass. Any ideas on how to make my bunnies look better?

dcahall,

Great idea! I am going to download Gare's example and I too am going to take the night off.

[dcahall]

@Beanpole—Problem #1 is making it hard to discern the solution to Problem #2. I really can't see if there is enough color contrast, because of all the leaves in front of the characters.

I really don't want to discourage anyone from experimenting and I do see improvement, but if everyone would please consider this:

If you've posted more than 3 cracks at a composition, and the current one is better in one area, but worse in another...the problem is with your "process".

IOW, your game plan going in isn't sound. And you're patching your original idea and diluting it, because you didn't work from the General to the specific.

Example? BeanPole, would you mind? Me, I'd have started with an outline drawing with white fill for everything, to see how the composition looks in general. Then, with great deliberation, I'd start mixing up textures, fractals, gradients, and other fills, comparing one to another to see how they balance and influence the overall graphical idea.

If this sounds like the long way about things, look at the time you've invested so far.

And I'm singling BeanPole out here for criticism. This is just advice and you can then choose to ignore me in a minute or two.

Sadly, computer graphics programs offer this enticing thing called "instant accomplishment". There is no pencil sketch, you go straight from idea to finished drawing.

Or do you?

Let me introduce a different fill type here; fractal fills are okay, but they cannot represent everything because there are only two types of fractals. Open the Fill Gallery, and if it's not populated, download some of the fills from Xara's server.

There's gotta be a bitmap in the Fill gallery that does a better representation of bare earth than trying to use a fractal fill.

I've attached a piece that has a "grass" brush in it. I encourage anyone here to take apart this drawing. It's a little bit of this and a little bit of that—an extrude, a brush, some gradient fills, and fractal transparency.



But I believe the piece succeeds because I had an idea of how it should look before I began it. Then, and only then did I decide on what features to use and I built the piece a little at a time, checking for artistic balance, color coordination, editing the grass color so it has contrast in both light and dark grounds...basically sweating the small stuff all along the process.

-g

Thanks for sharing this file. I do have a couple of questions.

When I started pulling things apart it appeared that part of the image that comprised the ground was a fractal. How do you do that and still have the ability to apply a gradient fill?

The second question I had was about the roof. Is that a blend?

There were a couple of other objects that I could not "pull apart" (like the building and the circular window in the side of the building). Are those bitmap copies or clipped objects?

Lot of valuable stuff in that little image.

BTW: At one point I did try that approach of creating very basic objects without any fancy fills or such just to get an idea of how I wanted to put together the final picture but still did not get exactly what I wanted. I do think I am moving in a better direction though.

[wizard509]

Gare I took your hacienda apart and I think the way you did that was clever. The only thing that I am still stumped on is how you did the roof.

[angelize]

Hi everyone here is that example I promised Dave.

remove the clip view and you will see how I used a couple of seamless tiling bitmaps (which are included in the re uploaded .xar) and the mold tool to create the illusion of depth. The shadow adds to that depth as well. I also used the mold tool on the pool. Both the pool and the ground were given a floor perspective. I corrected the gravity defying arch and the vines needed to be anchored to the ground so I wound them around one of the pillars. I hope this helps

Edit: @Larry: I had a suspicion but I downloaded the file to confirm it. Gary used an extrusion for the roof. It's a wavy line extruded and positioned.

[stygg2003]

Dave, hope this helps to unravel the mystery of the ground with a fractal and gradiant fill?
The roof is as Francis says and the circular window is 3 shapes, grouped then sliced from the building shape, then try the extrude tool!

Stygg

[dcahall]

@stygg2003: I have looked at your .xar file but I am not being successful at reproducing the steps. I do not get the right colors for the fractal plasma on the second step. Then I still do not see how you applied a gradient fill to a plasma fractal for the last step. What the heck am I doing wrong?

[dcahall]

@Frances: Some vary interesting things that I overlooked. How did you achieve the feathering at the top of the lawn? I did an ungroup and it went away but I could not find mysterious object that was producing the blur effect. I also clicked on your lawn and looked at the fill and it just said many. Isn't it a fractal fill?