Interweaving vines with 3D text

[dcahall]

I've sort of bowed out of this thread, and I think I may have muddied it up instead of clarifying stuff regarding the fills I used in the Hacienda drawing.

Big point here:

A shape can have a fill and a transparency type. What I did was give the ground shape a certain fill type, a linear gradient, and then a fractal transparency type.

-g

I fully understand this now. I do not think you muddied it. I just missed the point of how to achieve certain parts which I now see as very important. I am making a pretty big revision but am not ready to post. I actually want to take my time and hopefully get MUCH closer to what you have been trying to teach. For me, personally, I think it is an important point to be able to put things together in a much more professional/artist approach as a base to build on in the future.

I am asking you to stay tuned because I hope I meet your 300% improvement objectives. I think it is important in the learning process and I appreciate your feedback. I feel that even when I fail in some of these exercises I learn something and try to incorporate these things in the next exercise (if appropriate).

BTW: Do no know if you say another post today about "glow". I am kind of assuming you are still headed in that direction for this month's tutorial.

[Gare]

BTW: Do no know if you say another post today about "glow". I am kind of assuming you are still headed in that direction for this month's tutorial.

Yep. I'm targeting Friday, or after the weekend for a new video: "Neon and other noble gases"

-g

[stygg2003]

Just a bit of fun for a change

Stygg

[Gare]

Here's another version of the simple Mexican-style house, attached.

I used a "speed drawing" style in the Official Guide's video promo, if you go to about 22 seconds in from the beginning:

on YouTube. I originally created a bitmap brush to "speed draw" the tumbleweeds, and then simplified it.

And, yeah, this probably should go back to Stygg's thread on fractal fills.

My Best,

Gary

[dcahall]

This is my final post of the Interweaving Vines. Even if I have still missed the mark somewhat, I think I have made a ton of improvements and I have learned a lot about using various aspects of XPGD.




As always though, your comments/suggestions are welcomed.

[Gare]

This is my final post of the Interweaving Vines. ... comments/suggestions are welcomed.

It looks a little "flat", Dave, as though the three dimensional properties are being fought by this 2D "sense". But you know, this is a primitive art style, very common until in the Old World, the concept of perspective was discovered and the style spread.

Problems you might learn from by addressing (or not, because this is getting real old, isn't it?):

• I believe that the reflecting pond would be at a much more severe angle than the one you depict. I realize that you want the reflection to be visible, and also realize you spend well-invested time in figuring this one out. But the reflecting pond needs to cant at a sharper angle, or the arch needs to be in a more forward-rotated perspective to make the two agree visually with one another. Again, and this is for everyone's benefit here: steal three building blocks from your kid's room or your grandkids' collection and build the arch. Then get a shallow dish and put water in it and build the darned scene so you can get a sense of the perspectives.

Now your horizon? Technically and artistically, because there really isn't distinct detail in either the sky or the grass to gather visual detail about where "vanishing points" are to then use these points against your foreground, and this probably makes no sense at the moment, so in PlainSpeak: worry about correcting the perspective shared in the scene by the pond and the arch, and don't care about the sky and grass because they are fine. Hint in the future: all objects in a scene share the same perspective, so if you have vanishing point references set up, a grid or lines, the objects HAVE TO share the same perspective you've defined.

• The shadow cast by the arch on the grass is unrealistic. A shadow HAS to be darker than the surface it casts upon. Suggestion? Make the grass lighter and less saturated.

• Because your shadow is casting as though there's a light at the viewer's point of view casting into the scene, you gotta be true to that setup point in other areas in the illustration. Therefore, the sides of the arches closest to the reflecting pond need to be slightly darker than the front face because they aren't being hit as directly by your light source as the front.

You've made Xara Xone a lovely place to enter! Thanks! Sorry to say the new forthcoming webpage design won't be as pretty!

My Best,

Gary

[dcahall]

Thanks for the feedback. These are excellent points for me to work on in the next "exercise" but in spite of all of that, I feel I did learn a lot about how to use the tool for the future.

In particular, the shadow was the most disappointing to me. I had a lot of trouble trying to create it because of the complexity of the arch, text and vines. I tried a lot of different approaches and was just not happy with the results of any of them. I turned it into a bitmap copy and tried to adjust the color but ran into additional problems.

At one point, I had done a better job of adding the perspective to the pool but in this final version did not do as well. I think I finally got a little tired and just said "that's if for this one, move on to the next challenge and be aware of the short comings for the next time". I think I have learned another valuable lesson as well and that is "KISS". I think I tried to go a little far and should have stayed with some basic things and get them done correctly.

IMHO - it is all part of the learning process.

[dcahall]

Here's another version of the simple Mexican-style house, attached.

I used a "speed drawing" style in the Official Guide's video promo, if you go to about 22 seconds in from the beginning:

on YouTube. I originally created a bitmap brush to "speed draw" the tumbleweeds, and then simplified it.

And, yeah, this probably should go back to Stygg's thread on fractal fills.

My Best,

Gary

In particular, I love those Yucca plants.