Pastel brush?

[Toonicorn]

Hi, all!

I'm wondering if there are any brushes for Xara DesignerPro X10 that are the equivalent of the pastel brushes available in Photoshop? Brushes that really look like pastel strokes when you use them? Thanks!

[gwpriester]

Ask this question in the Xara Brushes forum. http://www.talkgraphics.com/forumdis...2-Xara-Brushes Maybe someone there has already created such a brush.

[angelize]

Hi toonicorn,
You could take a look at the pencil and chalk brushes that come with Xara they could reasonably simulate pastel. Or if you have some pastels and paper you could easily draw some strokes and scan them. Then the scanned images could either be vector traced for a vector brush or crop it as close as you can and then use the background eraser to remove the background and use them as raster brushes.

[handrawn]

Hi

over in the brushes forum Frances [angelize] said:

Hi toonicorn,
You could take a look at the pencil and chalk brushes that come with Xara they could reasonably simulate pastel. Or if you have some pastels and paper you could easily draw some strokes and scan them. Then the scanned images could either be vector traced for a vector brush or crop it as close as you can and then use the background eraser to remove the background and use them as raster brushes.

apparently that forum does not accept replies [at least, not from mere mortals like me] so I'll reply here:

I hate to disagree but you cannot stimulate pastel in xara.. certainly not in the way photoshop does it and the reason is because of the way that the brush work is rendered

in photoshop the rendering is done by laying down a pattern made up of of pixels and 'gaps'; when you brush over an area already covered, some of the gaps get filled, some do not - this stimulates the building up of pastel

in xara, an art brush stretches the pattern along a line which is not at all the same thing - a scatter brush uses a bitmap that repeats and there is no infilling of what went before, just overlay

that is not to say you cannot try, but I can almost guarantee it won't look the same [challenge here someone? ] - you really need a pixel mode here, which xara does not have

[handrawn]

PS - if I really had to do this in xara I would not use a brush - I would use a bitmap fill as a texture - but that is not always practical

ok - and someone may come back and say - what if I use vector scatter in xara as Frances suggested - well, that does not infill either it will still just overlay and it is the partial infilling with graduated overlay as halftone pixels are covered/cover that gives the effect... that would be almost impossible to do with vector as there is no matrix and therefore it would be 'all or nothing'... but I am willing [as ever] to be proven wrong....

PPS and then there is paper texture to think about......

[angelize]

I have to apologize because Toonicorn was asking about v10 and art brushes are a feature new to V11. So there are no Pencil and chalk brushes in V10.

[challenge here someone? ]

What a great idea! And if each person who gives it a go adds some brief instructions we can all learn from each other

For my attempt you could create 2 or 3 shapes and give them a flat fills . give them each a fractal plasma transparency adjust the fractal transparency of each to vary the transparencies ( click the arrow on the infobar to open the profile sliders and experiment with those too. Once you are happy with your shapes you will need to make bitmap copies . select your shapes and with the freehand and brush tool selected create your brush. Experiment with the brush settings randomise spacing, rotation, scaling and more. I've attached a .xar file that can be dissected.

A repeating artbrush in V11 might be an interesting method to try however it would not be usable in v10 or older.

@Handrawn: You are right about the brushes forum (partly) It is a moderated forum and it is meant as a repository but you should be able to respond to a thread to thank brush contributors. As this is a how to thread IMO this discussion is better here so I'm merging the other thread into this one.

[Albacore]

Use Frances's brush but also have a look at Xhris's brushes set right at the very bottom of the link given above. I had this set on my H/drive for years and still use them. For Xhris put all of his brushes in this one doc. This means all that I need to do is open that doc and copy out of that doc. I even now save my new brushes into that doc. and use it like a library still using the layers like Xhris did.

[handrawn]

nice brush Frances - personally I would call that a 'splatter' rather than a 'pastel' effect in the photoshop sense.. but a good brush, and useful

[stygg2003]

Use Frances's brush but also have a look at Xhris's brushes set right at the very bottom of the link given above. I had this set on my H/drive for years and still use them. For Xhris put all of his brushes in this one doc. This means all that I need to do is open that doc and copy out of that doc. I even now save my new brushes into that doc. and use it like a library still using the layers like Xhris did.

Thanks for reminding me of Xhris's brushes, I forgot I had that doc. tucked away on my H/drive. They are excellent brushes and Frances's new pastel brushes are excellent too. Good find all round today

Stygg

[handrawn]

thought I'd better give it a go - worked a bit better than I expected - but more crayon-like than pastel .......