Dawing on softwares

[woodwater]

the big problem seems to be drawing the clearest part of the night sky close to the horizon.
i used the smudge and blur tool to give that cloudy look like in the painiting in the link but its not coming out well,at least in Sumo.
im not using xara for this as it seems unsuitable for coloring

http://www.lassenart.com/index.asp



http://www.lassenart.com/MoreInfoFor...OriginalID=721


any suggestions?
I heard he uses aerography as well

[gwpriester]

How do you mean Xara seems unsuitable for coloring? Xara is precisely what you need to achieve a smooth multicolored gradient!

This image http://www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/...llery%205.html (let your cursor hover over the image until the color appears) is entirely vector with no smudge tool and no blur.

[woodwater]

How do you mean Xara seems unsuitable for coloring? Xara is precisely what you need to achieve a smooth multicolored gradient!

This image http://www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/...llery%205.html (let your cursor hover over the image until the color appears) is entirely vector with no smudge tool and no blur.

well the transparency tool is helpful and Sumo doesnt have it, but im struggling with the rest

[Rik]

I'd love to see/know what you're drawing so that the Xperts on the forum can see what it is you're struggling with?!
Then, maybe they can help you.

[gwpriester]

Have a look at the two links at the top of the page Rik. I am sure you could recreate some of the skies in minutes.

[Rik]

...but im struggling with the rest

I know what you mean Gary.

I thought that woodwater was struggling with something specific and an Xpert like you would have been able to help in an instance.

I was just curious as to exactly what it was?!

[angelize]

Perhaps this may be helpful. Woodwater, you can indeed create paintings like in your links with Xara but you have to remember that xara is a vector illustration program not a raster painting program. When working with a vector illustration you work with shapes and paths or lines.

Envision your painting as being made up of shapes. In my very simple example there are two shapes the background rectangle and the island. I used a linear fill on the background and used the profile sliders as shown to sharpen the point where the colour changes, thus creating a horizon.

make an attempt at using Xara to create your drawing and post it here, don't worry about how good or bad it may be, just make a start and that will give us a better idea of how to help you.