Celebrate 35 years of Xara

[csehz]

I knew it but scrolling through that list saying - Gare you wrote really a lot of books!

[Gare]

I knew it but scrolling through that list saying - Gare you wrote really a lot of books!

Hey, Csehz!

Well, it's what I've been primarily doing to earn a living for 24 years! I moved from creating artwork as a primary source of income, to teaching what I do. It's worked out okay until Lynda.com, YouTube, and other entrepreneurs turned the web into a tutorial store.

That's why the timing was perfect ot bring videos to the Xara Xone. You know, I used to write almost 2 books a year, and the books were priced at about $25 US. Today, I write about one book every 2 years. Paper prices went through the roof when Third World nations got into Desktop Publishing, which put a severe squeeze on Europe and the US for paper. People get a break on Amazon and the eBook version of my work are a little cheaper than the Dead Tree version.

But I will not fight a trend. After this book is out which I'm finishing, I'm going back to video tutorials and downloadable tutorial files...more or less like I did on Xone, but my subjects will be more inclusive of other popular software in addition to Xara. And this is why the site for my future work will be independent of tg. No hard feelings on my part. I'm just trying to survive using my head...because my back and other body parts are good for writing, but not for paving highways or building building for a living!

If you want a cheap laugh when you are bored, got back to Amazon, and do the "Look Inside" thing to see examples of my writing about other software.

Hopefully, you'll find that the "Author's Voice" is the same for all types of creative software.

And that was something that took quite a while to learn how to do!

Oh, stay tuned here. Bob gave me an idea; I'll post some shapes you can fill with these textures, and point you to a tutorial (as a refresher) on how to skew and shade pieces of these textures to create easy 3D shapes. Frances did a great job with the textures, as well as Bob with his Monty Python flying rodent urine piece.




Agreed folks?

ØZONE...it's Ø the Zone.

Gare

[Gare]

Here's something to do with the textures. In the file there's a completed design, and at the right is what I started with. I made a copy of the design to put on top of the textured drawing and then used Multiply transparency to shade the design.



Anyone want to try this? I skewed the textures in an attempt to make the texture look compatible with the angles of the design.

I'll bet anyone can do better, and if this is of interest to you, I have about 19 other different designs based on an isometric view of a cube.

Heck, these might even make good icons, no?

My Best,

Gary