January 2014 Video Tutorial : Drawing Plastic and Chrome What's the Diff?

[Gare]

Well guys this is as far as I've got with the tut. but will have ago at the next stage of inserting the chess floor image into a drawing. If you were drawing a room with walls, ceiling and floor would you see in the chrome drawing the two walls, ceiling and floor plus whatever was facing front on to the sphere? I mean like another wall with a door perhaps ? :rolleyes:

Stygg

Stygg, you're being too literal with my instructions. Don't follow my example to the letter—your reflections are a little too details, when the emphasis should be: sky at top, horizon in the centre, and ground on the bottom. There is no single formula for drawing metallic spheres, and I'd suggest you concentrate on the metallic and take a pass on doing the plastic version for the moment. I think I overwhelmed some members with Too Much Information (TMI) :(.

Let me back up and provide some more examples. I did this years ago; a chrome logo for The Administrator and me. I've attached the Xara file.



You see, it's all about "sky on top, grounds on bottom", at least this is one tried and true visual solutions. I have a friend Rod Norman who taught me how to draw this stuff with makers in the 1970s and I'm pleased that I even came close to the work by Airbrush Genius Charles White III.

This might have been in the Xara Xtreme Official Guide; I don't recall. You can see the entire process in the attached file.



And here's another volley of "chrome versus plastic":



The interesting thing is that if you take the eyedropper tool and sample what appears to be the red herringbone reflection in the bottom of the green plastic sphere...it's not red, although it looks that way, doesn't it? Optical illusion: it's olive colored!


@stygg—you've demonstrated time and time again that artistically, once you "get it", you understand the essence of an artistic principle, you fly, man...you fly. So take it slow and easy with the chrome, remember "sky, horizon, and then ground", and let's see what you cook up, okay?

@ csehz-You are soon going to become a Professor at Xara Academy! (we actually registered the domain name a few months ago, but there's nothing there right now). I love your approach to the tented studio reflections!

@ Maya—I think I'm going to ask you to be the Featured Artist at XaraXone this Spring. Get your portfolio together, okay? I'm serious: you draw hit after hit like a good FM station!

My Best,

Gary

[Crow Haven]

Gary, that's very kind and I'm flattered you'd consider my work, but there's so many others here who can offer far more in Xara art and techniques than I!

[Gare]

I won't listen to that!
Hands over ears: La-la-la-la-la....

[Crow Haven]

Really, though, if this is about wanting the .xar files for my eye drawing, etc., I'm happy to send them to you Gare. I'm not the person to ask for tutes, as you will see, since I rarely even use layers with Xara and just "wing-it" as I build an image pretty much on the fly.

[Gare]

We'll take this discussion private, okay, Crow?

Thanks!

-g

[csehz]

+1 for Maya to be the Featured Artist once, +1 to see also tutorials from her :-)

You know Maya that eye in Art Gallery immediately made me your fan, seeing that you registered in 2001 in TG of course also clicked on your profile to look there the galleries. Searching also after past posts realized, that you are one of those vector heroes from the beginning, who drew better with Xara Xtreme and posted better in 2002, than I will with Xara Designer Pro XX in 2020

So hopefully Gare will just convince you in private and neither will be technical issues. It is not about the .xar files, that eye is your copyright. And we have seen a lot of .xar files already, it is much more about your working/translating process, even would read happily a similiar interview on XaraXone with you like Ron Duke had last month.

Anyway I will try these chrome spheres yet

[stygg2003]

I agree with all Csehz said in #24 Maya, I'm definitely one of your fans after looking through your gallery, brilliant, and a tips and trick tut. would be great. Saying to Gary you'd be no good at doing one because you wing it, well that was my excuse when I did the Alien sky T&T but believe me Gary is great with guiding you through the process and never loses your particular style of delivery, believe it or not, it is enjoyable. Go for it Maya

Stygg