June 2014 Video Tutorial - Creating 3D Semi-Transparent Cubes in Xara

[Big Frank]

gary
watched the tutorial and as always a very easy-on-the-brain way to learn new visual concepts & techniques
i highly recommend it and all the others to all artists new and old

but... i noticed a fairly important error, though, whilst watching
perspective - even if you're drawing freehand, it matters
our eyes/brain use the perspective of other objects to judge our own position/distance in the great scheme of things
get perspective wrong and the viewer's eyes/brain calculations subconsciously go "huh?"
at least mine did when you freehand drew the red lines of the rear faces of your cube (ps. backside means but/bootie in uk-english)
when I do a "huh?" i always like confirmation before making a fool of myself (doesn't always work ofc)
i took a screenie of the video and dropped it into xara - the black target is where you placed your rear centre point



i then drew the three vanishing points of the three known faces
which gives me the actual lines of the three hidden faces



and so the white target is the actual position
you can see the perspective is fairly out



which will hinder any further attempt at realism in that drawing

i know how hard perspective is to get right when you do it freehand
but it's a big subject worthy of its own thread
other than that, i liked the effect and also the textures, very handy to have