January 2015 Video Tutorial -- Tracing Is Not Cheating!

[Egg Bramhill]

But not puny results

[Hajeem]

Wow to you both!
Gary's newest tutorial made me realize two things: the full potential of the programme and how much I need to learn. This is why I recently started with learning from the workbook tutorials.

Hélène

[Gare]

Wow to you both!
Gary's newest tutorial made me realize two things: the full potential of the programme and how much I need to learn. This is why I recently started with learning from the workbook tutorials.

Hélène

Hi Hajeem,

Just take it slowly and methodically. Some of the first Xara users, such as Gary Priester (and me) were "bootstrappers"—we basically had the documentation and CorelDRAW experience to help us better understand Xara's tools and power. But other than thast (and that's not a lot) we were on our own to learn the program, and to help others. And yes, Gary P.'s excellent Workbook series covers a lot of the basic info that you need to eventually grow into and own the program.

It's in the Archives area of Xara Xone, and all you do is to click this link.

Gary Priester's Workbook Xara Xone series


My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

Eric, it seems as though you and Maya are just too fast to address and successfully complete a challenge. I wan to thank you for posting the wireframe view in XAR's native file format so others can eventually learn from it, and your approach and skills.

Interesting things happen when a glass object is brightly lit when it's on a surface: the shadow takes on the color of the glass in places, as you see if you look carefully at the image I posted. If you don't mind, I'd like to take a crack at adding the shadows to the dinner scene.

Maya, your work is astounding, and if this were a real contest, I'd have to disqualify you, not because your work is wrong, but that it's award-winning all the time, and I want to give others a chance to with this hypothetical award.

Wait: I got it. Winners excluding Eric and Maya, for their finished trace get to study with Maya for a week.

I think that's fair. :)

I have another image challenge coming up and it's going to be a little different, and definitely approachable by beginner to intermediate artists.

[Egg Bramhill]

Yes Gary, re the shadow. As stated I'm going to give it a whirl too when I get the time.

On the matter of Combine Shapes:

Gary: I’ve not experienced gaps when a “slice and dice” operation is performed, but I’m usually unobservant, so it goes. One thing that creates a gap is having an outline width on any of the shapes to be processed. If, for example, each shape has a 1 point outline, when you do intersect shapes, the product will not have the precise intended dimensions. Always remove outline widths before Boolean-ing.

I attach a simple example xar file showing what occasionally happens when slicing. I can't say it's my experience that Combining either with or without a stroke makes any difference. Have you an example?

[Gare]

Hi Eric, I've attached my own Xara file. I did not use Slice because it does indeed produce a weird and undesired product, but to tell you the truth, all these slice and dice features are Boolean operations, and frankly when I first opened Xara, I noted that "Slice" is not in the vocabulary of Boolean ops. It could mean that the vocabulary from the quite limited Boolean phrase book is wrong. The only have stuff such as "A plus B" which is Add, and "A without B" which is subtract. So if the leaf is the desired result, all I did was do an Intersect and the leaf is a valid, proper shape.

I've got an example on page two that shows it you want an array of a specific value of squares, like a chess board, if your source square has an outline, you'll get a different value thean if you create the array with a copy function.

My Best,

Gary

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Gary,

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[Hajeem]

Thanks. I put the link in my favorites :-)

[Gare]

Eric—

I'm happy to stand corrected about the relative widths of squares with and without outlines. I come frrom a background of CorelDRAW, where you have the option of placing outlines inside, outside, or right on the centreline of a shape. Illustrator and Photoshop offer the option, too. And I've never taken the time/hence been positive where the "cutoff point" lies.

It's the world's loss that you plan more cookie jars—your work has been consistently top drawer all throughout this thread, you obviously have a profound understanding of tracing.

My only suggestion/observation is that you'd do better with a tyeface that contrasts more with the jar. I didn't catch it or read it at first glance.

I thought I'd through this out: Barbara and I go boot sale shopping ("flea market" and "garage sale" n the States) and I collect jars for whatnots around the home. When the jar is a collectable and not a true antique (or worse still, a reproduction) and signage on the jar is painted, first laying down a coat of opaque white as the undercoat, and then brightly coloured text can be applied (or dull text), and it's supported by the undercoat, similar to T-shirts that have white or other coloured text on it.

If this helps approach simulating reality beyond curving the text.

[Gare]

@Maya,

When I referred to you as a "ringer" that was a compliment. Back-handed, but we seem to play rough on tg to begin with.

What Gary meant was, : Oh, here comes Maya. She's a professional artist and if I offer a prize for this tutorial, she'll naturally pick it up as always!"

Self-taught or not, you know the road very well to a successful piece that you and everyone else likes.

The only reason I made the comment, is you remember Macromedia? They had a yearly art contest, and after I won three times in a row in three different categories, the Brand Manager contacted me and told me they were shipping me every Macromedia product IF I'd quit entering and give others a chance.

That's a "ringer"; someone who superficially appears to be an amateur, but wins every hand, usually at Poker, usually experiences an untimely death depending on his Poker adversaries.

Okay, so we're more tolerant of ringers than in days of old. Brad Pitt got kicked out of a Las Vegas casino recently for playing 21 and card-counting. The management told him he was welcome any time after two brutes escorted him out...he just couldn't play 21 anymore there.




-g