February 2015 Video Tutorial -- Creating a Casino Poster Part 1

[Barbara B]

Creating a Casino Poster Part 1



There’s so much to learn about Gary’s method of poster-making, that the video had to be split into two parts. This month, you’ll learn how to create a roulette wheel-style circle to border the text on the poster, and then you’ll see how to create a headline from ordinary text that looks like neon lighting. Don’t gamble on creating your casino night poster without checking this month’s video out first!

Then show us your neon, wheels, cards, dice, chips ......

[fridolph]

The tutorial is easy to follow. All you need to do is to get the exact measurement of the wheel.

[Gare]

Thanks for the vote of confidence that the tutorial is easy to follow, fridolph. I was tempted to create the entire poster tutorial in one month, but shuddered at having to produce another half-hour video like January's.

I can simply stand outside and shudder: -9° F (-22.8° C.) this morning in Central New York. February has been worse than January!

So let's duck inside and go gambling!

—Gary

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Gary,

Had a go at producing the text element. Didn't follow your tut to the letter but very close. One thing I found interesting is when looking at your method I thought " If the drop shadow is down & right that indicates the light source is up & left, so therefore the bevel should have the same light source which in your tut is exactly the opposite. It's quite a suprise to see how something so simple as the bevel light source direction changes the look of the final image. I attach my example.

On the left is my creation keeping the same direction of all the light sources, bevel, shadow & highlight. This gives a very plasticy look.

On the right is exactly the same image apart from the bevel of the text has the light source the same as in your tut, down & right. This gives a far more glassy look.

By the way the text on the attached xar file has a named colour and it's fun to drag the named colour onto the colour editor to instantly change the look. I'm a great enthusiast of using named colours

[Rik]

The Roulette Wheel part is really interesting.

I've never used your 'blend' method to intersect a circle.
That's really, really interesting.
Gonna give that a go, for sure.

OK. A bit of math is involved, so, I'm gonna see if my method of just cloning and rotating, and cloning and rotating, and cloning and rotating (you get the idea!) is easier or is it worth working out what you want to achieve and then doing that in one go.

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Rik, Didn't want to distract from Garys tut so I answered your question HERE I hope

[duganfry3]

I know this is an old video but I'm just learning. I'm at 4:49 where after making the blend, Gary ask to "Hold shift. Scale the control circle to converge the triangles. I duplicated the circle but when I hold shift to bring in the circle, the triangles do not converge. They stay the same. What am I doing wrong?

[Egg Bramhill]

The circles & triangles are a blend along a curve. With the blend selected, look at the status bar, bottom left of the Xara window. It will state one blend.
Now with the blend still selected, hold down the Ctrl key and select only the circle. The status bar will say 1 shape (inside)
Holding down the Shift key reduce the circles size using the control points.
The triangles will move towards the centre.