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  1. #31
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    Apr 2011
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    Default Re: Fleur DeLis

    It is really self-explaining like it very much

  2. #32

    Default Re: Fleur DeLis

    Gary, your reply is both eloquent and informative.

    I always compare vector drawing to sculpting with clay. You start with some basic shape. By adding and removing clay you work slowly towards a final sculpture. The process of vector drawing follows a simular flow, as you've so aptly described above.

    The thing I like most about Xara is that it allows you to 'sculpt' your image in an intuitive way, with great artistic freedom to experiment and refined perfection if needed.

  3. #33
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    Oct 2002
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    Liverpool, N.Y.
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    Default On Sculpting

    Hi Ho and thank you, Fred—

    Actually, if anyone was interesting my personal timeline of acquiring and becoming proficient in software, it does relate to your sculpting paradigm.

    My first two programs were Aldus PageMaker v 3 and CorelDRAW version 2 I think, back in 1990. I needed work and the papers all mentioned proficiency in these programs for PC/Windows shops.

    I, too, was amazed at how "plastic" vector shapes are, and then one (unfortunate) day when I had to go in for hip replacements, my wife brought me a graphics book and my jaw dropped at this wondrous rendered model on a train. I asked myself how much learning it would take to get a handle on 3D sculpting, in addition to recovering and my workload at the time.

    So it's almost a quarter century later, and somewhere along the line I says to myself, "Self? Why are you doing this 'either/or' stuff? Why give up drawing for modeling?? You've been doing a physical drawing every day for almost 35 years!"

    Happy coincidence Chris Dickman and Gary Priester turned me on to Xara Studio, which was licensed by Corel, and then became its own thing after 5 years and then MAGIX has the program under its wing now.

    The short version: there are more similarities than differences in computer art programs. If you just ignore the UI and get to the essense of the program, learning one helps you learn a different one, and for me, a literal symbiosis happened where today I probably use no less than 3 programs—the strengths of each— to make one single composition.

    Yeah. Sculpting is cool! :)

    My Best,

    Gary

  4. #34
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    Oct 2002
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    Default Re: On Sculpting

    Click image for larger version. 

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    This is mostly an illustration I did in Xara. Actually, I did the compositing work in Xara; Graeme's body is a model, but the rest is drawing, scanning, photography...Xara.

    -g

  5. #35
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    Oct 2002
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    Default Superhero

    I have had a love affair with comic book art since I was old enough to read and buy one of them (10¢ at the time, I recall). So I wanted to create a generic superhero, but wanted him physically fit but not on 'roids like Superman and other comic book heroes are drawn today. I thought Ryan Reynolds was superb as the Green Lantern because he was physically fit and a good specimen of humans, but not bulging at the seams.

    Give kids someone they can dream of becoming like, without the over-the-top physique.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    My Best,

    Gary

  6. #36
    Join Date
    May 2006
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    Texas HillCountry USA
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    201

    Default Re: Summer is for ice cream

    Superb art and fonts...

  7. #37
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    Oct 2006
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    StPeters, MO USA
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    Default Re: Summer is for ice cream

    I echo laser1, very nice Gary.
    Larry a.k.a wizard509

    Never give up. You will never fail, but you may find a lot of ways that don't work.

  8. #38
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    Oct 2002
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    Default Captain Apex

    Thank you, both.

    I cannot claim that the lettering is mine, though. Blambot-free and commercial comic book typefaces

    is a terrific resource for hand lettering. I have a small but functional collection. Sift through his pages and notice there's a "F" for free and a "Pay" for not-free. If you're into comic strips, patronize the guy.

    I haven't used my drawing board in a few years; Captain Apex there is a hand drawing I scanned and finished in Xara after some auto-tracing, and I've been doing hand lettering for decades, but digital fonts that faithfully represent the tone and humanity of a hand-lettered phrase is a real time saver as long as it represents your intention.

    I think I did three poses of him; here's the last: Click image for larger version. 

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    The halftone dots are a little exaggerated, but hey; you can't spend forever one one single piece. One of these days I'll make a Giveaway of the Month on the Xone of seamless tiling halftone dots in common comic book colors such as flash and orange and green so members can clip shapes to the "textures" and make your own authentic vintage comic books. Today, the "Graphic novels" use high-resolution printing and you don't "see the dots" anymore, but I'm kind of nostalgic for the days when comic book paper was of the quality you used to wrap fish in, and the resolution was something like 35 lines per inch. :)

    My Best,

    Gary

  9. #39
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    Jun 2002
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    Default Re: Captain Apex

    Well I think Captain Apex is a hit with me Gary although the last drawing he looks more muscular in the legs. I learned to copy and draw from DC comics sent over from Vancouver by a really kindly aunt in the 50's all that the UK had was The Eagle with colour only on a double sided front page. UK rationing hadn't finished when it was first released so therefore the lack of colour when you compared it to the DC comics but it always tried to educate it readers as in the centre pages it had fantastic cut-away drawings. It's terrible the things you still remember from well over 60 years ago.
    Design is thinking made visual.

  10. #40
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    Default Re: Captain Apex

    Quote Originally Posted by Albacore View Post
    Well I think Captain Apex is a hit with me Gary although the last drawing he looks more muscular in the legs.
    Captain Apex had been working out at the gym between issues.

    Seriously, I’m not a top-notch figure drawing artist, and a superhero is a challenge. What I don’t want to do is build a physically impossible character, male or female. Comic books are for kids of all ages, and part of the charm is the dream in the reader’s mind that they, too, could become a super-fighter of injustice. Superman is out of their reach: it seems like every issue, Superman acquired a new power as the writers were strung out for plot development. On the other hand, Hal Jordan was just a regular guy like all of us until a dying alien gave him a super-charged ring and made an ordinary human a super-hero. Now that sort of dream-fulfillment is accessible to everyone. And Hal Jordan, both in the comics and as played by Ryan Reynolds in the ill-fated motion picture, was a guy who went to the gym regularly, but Schwarzenegger he was not. Give a kid a star they can reach for, and possibly grasp.

    It’s funny, Albacore, but I believe that a lot of members on tg whose early years were spent with a pen or pencil also spent a lot of time emulating characters we saw in comic books. Which got me into trouble when I attended art school because heroic figures are generally drawn to 9 heads, while average people are drawn to about 7 heads. “Un-learning” can be an educational experience, too! 

    I, too, was a “DC Comics” sorta kid. When our neighborhood friends used to get together on Saturdays and do comic book swaps, I eschewed Marvel Comics characters because they spent way too much time pondering Right versus Wrong, they had a lot of angst, and I just wanted to see Superman hurl a big alien at the sun, you know?

    However, you flash forward half a century and I’d venture that Zack Snyder is struggling with rebooting and reorganizing the DC brand for motion pictures. I thought the dialog in “Man of Steel” was copped right out of “Watchmen”, that Supes was willing to let Zod destroy half of Metropolis and countless lives for the sake of an action-packed finale to the movie, and ultimately violated the canon, not in the least by removing the guy’s red underpants and trimming that forelock off.


    On the other hand, the Marvel movies are witty, action-packed, and I genuinely like the inner reflections that Tony Stark (who else could play him except Robert Downey?!) and the others take a brief swig of, but don’t get drunk on questioning the super-deeds that must come with super-powers. They’re 3D, they’re funny, and I think that’s because Joss Whedon plays such a heavy production, writing, and directing role for the Marvel Universe. Add to that your weekly dose of kindred “Agents of SHIELD” (Clark Gregg is both authoritative and hysterically comedic in a deadpan way, like Bob Newhart), and you’ve got characters who don’t just save the USA, but save the world. I like a comic series that is Nationality Blind. Their credo is to protect the innocent and helpless. End of credo.

    My Best,

    Gary

 

 

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