Using Xara Designer Pro X10 to color drawings for a book. Help

[ggrace]

I have a line drawing that I did in xara designer pro x10. I need help on the coloring process for filling in characters and foliage with color.

[Gamerprinter]

It might help if you posted your .XAR file or a .JPG version of it so we could see. Not knowing how you did the line drawing, are there interior areas of white space you can select and apply colors? If not you'll have to create an outline shape of the areas that need color fills.

Just guessing, you mentioned filling in foliage with color. Sometimes I use a water color palatte - soft colors. Then pick two colors to use as foilage, I imagine that being two shades of green. Use fractal color fill with a soft transition between colors. To me it has a very water color result and looks good, even natural and as if not created in vector - painterly, in style. I would use a similar scheme in other objects that need filling and use of solid colors where appropriate. Again, if you posted the artwork you intend to color, it would help a lot in coming up with the best solution for you. Not doing so, leaves me guessing on how best to approach your needs.

The map image below shows what I mean by using fractal color mixes and achieving a water color look. I used a scanned hand-drawing of pen and ink lineart (something I whipped up) then proceeded to create the shapes for various content that needed color, and took the steps described above to achieve the final look? Note the deeper water sections are their own shapes with varying percentages of transparency applied on a stack of semi-transparent layers. Also I use bevels extensively in my work to emulate surface depth - it helps to depict a map.

Does this help?

[ggrace]

[Gamerprinter]

Can't see much in the second illustration, but it depends on what you want your final to appear as. You could use solid colors or the water color emulation I suggested already. Use the pen tool to draw the interior shapes, lower the freehand smoothing down to 8 to 12, drop the line width to 0 pixels and draw in all your interior shapes (shapes that need color). Once shapes are created choose a color palatte (a range of 8 or so colors that complement each other), and start filling shapes with colors or color mixes.

[ggrace]

Thank you for the help so far. so far I've been trying to use the fill tool to color in the shirt, hands face, etc. It worked once for the left hand but won't work again. Would you have a solution for this? Thanks again

[Gamerprinter]

Here I did a quick shape creation and application of the color fractal fill. Also once the color was done, I applied a stain-glass transparency so the linework could show through. You need to create shapes for everything: sky, background hill, flowers, rock seat, person, etc. The first image to the left shows the outline shape of the tree in default solid black. I used 2 shades of brown to create the color scheme of the tree trunk, with fractal color fill applied. Does this help?

[ggrace]

That helps a lot, but could tell me how to outline the shapes? Lol sorry I'm all new to this

[Gamerprinter]

Select the Freehand and Brush Tool (a popup label tells you which tool your mouse is hovering over). Insure to set the Freehand Smoothing to 8 - 12 by lowering the bar from 50% down to 8 to 12 (its the first option on the top of the window when you have the Freehand/Brush tool selected.) Next set the line width to zero (this is the first of the two drop down menus on the far right of the tool menu at the top of the window). You can draw freehand uncontrolled, but that's a bit fiddly to do. I often draw in short straight line lengths as I trace, by hitting Ctrl at the start and end of each short straight line drawn, as I slowly trace the intended shape. This is a basic drawing function that you'll have to learn. Once you connect and close the shape, it will be ready to apply color fills.

I'm sure there's a video tutorial on Xara.com that shows using the basic Freehand/Brush Tool in operation if you need more help.

[EJ]

Outlining the shapes before filling is tedious, even if you get faster at it with practice. To do the detail in the figure would be a pain since it looks like your shapes are overlapping single lines.

If I was doing this I would start my drawing in Inkscape (or possibly in CorelDraw) where for years it has been possible to fill any shape straight away using the fill tool. It is not necessary for the shape to be closed in the Xara sense. In Inkscape overlapping single lines constitute closure for the purpose of filling. Your drawing would be very simply coloured with this technique.

Unfortunately Inkscape does not import Xara files. Or at least it did not last time I played with it. There may be an export format now in Xara that can be imported into Inkscape possibly a pdf but I would do the whole thing in Inkscape.

cheers, Erik

[Albacore]

Grace you could always try this to your drawings and it will save you a bit of time: http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/wo...orkbook_4.html
Mind you it all depends on the type of illustration that you want and the line type that you use anyway try Garys solution to your problem and come baack if your not happy with the results. Can I make a suggestion as well when using Gary's method you might want copy all of the lines in the area, will need to hold down the Shift to select more than one line at a time, your trying to fill first (Ctrl+C) before you start filling the open shape as at the end of Gary's instruction in breaking shapes you can paste (Ctrl+Shift+V) our lines back and then bring to the front of your drawing by pressing (Ctrl+F) at the same time. Hope that helps and you can make your lines slightly heavier as well.