New to Xara

**Albacore** · 29 January 2017, 10:22 AM

Online there're quite a few hairy animals drawing tutorials for Illustrator that you can use as a reference as I used one to draw my Weimaraner a few years ago but it is now lost in a H/disc crash. Here is one for a portrait of the head and shoulders of a dog but it's a mammoth task: http://blogs.adobe.com/adobeillustra...g-Portrait.pdf
If I was doing it the way described here I would draw it in short spells taking days between each spell as you would get tired and frustrated too quickly. There is another Illy tut which shows how to draw badgers which is much more accessible and easier but still could take some time: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorial...tor--cms-21846
Now Illy uses different brushes from Xara products so you might find the making of custom brushes a lot harder than the way these tuts. do it in Illustrator so be prepared for a bit of frustration. I am quite surprised that Egg didn't give you his Pointer for his own tut for Chewbacca: http://www.xaraxone.com/guest/guest40/page_1.htm which is fine as your Shetland/Rough Collie hair is about the same length.
Hope that helps and also have a look at the Brushes page on the site here on TG.

**Rizack2** · 29 January 2017, 12:53 PM

The bitmap tut was totally Greek to me, so I tried the Magnetic Lasso. I first must create a page then add my ping tube of my dog. It seems only 3/4 of the dog is hilighted not sure what I did wrong other then maybe the ping is too big for the page? Also when I select a section with the lasso tool I must cut copy and paste. Where do I paste it to another layer, I don't see how to do that anywhere?

**Egg Bramhill** · 29 January 2017, 01:47 PM

What's a ping tube?

Where do I paste it to another layer, I don't see how to do that anywhere?

Open the Page & Layers Gallery. Select Layer1 then in the menu above hit "New Layer".

**Acorn** · 29 January 2017, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by PhilM

The Magnetic Lasso

Phil, surely the Magnetic Lassie.

Acorn

**Albacore** · 30 January 2017, 01:42 PM

Many years ago Xara used to include clipart with the software and in the animal section they included 2 collies. This one is more relevant to you as it is a drawing of a Shetland collie which you could look at and get some insight on how it was achieved. The only thing wrong with using clipart if that it has been converted maybe from other software not just drawn from xara. It should be the basis of how I would attempt to draw this dog but to my mind it lacks a huge amount of hair which can never be said about the actual dog itself. That why I posted the tuts on how it was done in Illy and the one Egg did in Xara of Chewbacca.

**Rizack2** · 30 January 2017, 01:47 PM

In our PSP group they call any type of ping picture with the background removed for layering.

**Rizack2** · 30 January 2017, 01:51 PM

Albacore that is a very nice job on a beautiful Collie!

**Egg Bramhill** · 30 January 2017, 07:16 PM

I was trying to draw the dog and the best I could achieve was collie-0.jpg. Then I read Albacores reply where he mentione chewbacca, which I'd forgotten all about. It gave me the idea of trying out Xaras new art brush. My experiment led to collie-1.jpg a better result but I gave up at this. A better result but very tiresome creating in Xara. I far prefer the stylised one in Albacores post above.

**Rizack2** · 30 January 2017, 11:35 PM

OMG bramhill those are gorgeous, I am so jealous. I spent three days trying to understand just layering. My husband uses my computer solves layering for me in fifteen minutes. I would load a background to my work space file>open >pictures select >open, then when I would add a ping pic of my dogs i could never get it over the background. I would then select background for my husband and he clicks insert in menu bar> image> from file > select > open and there it is, sheesh I must be lame. Psp was very easy to layer things and move them. Am I to understand this correct this was done the same way chewbacca was?