March 2013 Video tutorial: Creating Neon and other Noble Gases

[stygg2003]

Gary, the row of V's in the top shape of South of the Border, is the shadows made using the same technique as the arrows?

Stygg

[Gare]

The green "cartoon exclamation" Vs around the hat use exactly the same technique as all the rest of the neon in this tutorial, stygg. You create a thin and a thick line, offset the thin one a little, bland the two, copy the blend and convert line to shape, make the shape nearly invisible, use the Shadow tool to create the glow around this nearly invisible shape.

Take the finished file apart and see what I did.

-g

[stygg2003]

I've sorted it now Gary, I knew how to do it but today it appears Xara was being a little quirky, when I copied the blends into a new doc. and selected change line to shape to make the shadow, all I kept getting was lines, so I thought something was done different, any how it's working fine now and I've completed the V's, she must have got her maths. in a twist

Stygg

[angelize]

I used the techniques from the tutorial to create this self portrait in neon.

I have a question for you Gary. Why create the extra shape for the glow? why not just apply the glow shadow to the blend?

[Gare]

Because you might want to:

—reposition it independent of the neon.

—want to pout a drop shadow on the neon blend for an additional effect, while keeping the glow. You can't have a drop shadow and a glow Shadow tool effect at once.

—put the glow object in front of the nepn, as I did with the hat. It makes it look more diffuse and a little more photorealistic.

-g

[angelize]

Ahh yes it does give you more creative options. Thanks. My husband saw my neon portrait and now he wants me to do one of him!

And that's my own handwriting too. I used the freehand tool and my graphics tablet. I made sure that pressure sensitivity was turned off. The portrait part was traced from a photo.

[angelize]

Here is the neon portrait my husband requested. He loved it