Bouton's stuff, Volume 2

[Gare]

A WIP. And has been so for about a year (!) because m ore in theory than in practice, I have to work for a living. Because the admin tells me to.



I just have admired the design of a really good water pistol, and occasionally organize controlled mayhem situations in the back yard with the neighborhood kids. WE do not have helicopter parents in our neck of the woods!

This is the first time I've drawn one, and the first time I used an existing product as a reference. My "model" for this session set me back $1.69 + NYS tax.


I've modeled two others over the years—I'll put them on my Non-Xara art soon.


My Best,

Gary

[Ron Duke]

A WIP. And has been so for about a year (!) because m ore in theory than in practice, I have to work for a living. Because the admin tells me to.



I just have admired the design of a really good water pistol, and occasionally organize controlled mayhem situations in the back yard with the neighborhood kids. WE do not have helicopter parents in our neck of the woods!

This is the first time I've drawn one, and the first time I used an existing product as a reference. My "model" for this session set me back $1.69 + NYS tax.


I've modeled two others over the years—I'll put them on my Non-Xara art soon.


My Best,

Gary

MAN!
I wish I had your eye for shading and lighting!!!

[Gare]

Hi, Ron—

I discovered after playing with what is now an entry-level modeling program that I had no problem navigating the representation of 3D space on (or in) the modeling window. Maybe being left-handed, or just plain weird helped.

Now that a significant portion of working in a modeling program tucked away, I had almost a year for nothing else to do but work with CorelDRAW v2, and a modeling program. I had to have bilateral hip replacements and once I learned how to approach the P{C side-saddle style, I practiced and practiced.

By creating scenes that have lighting, reflections on objects, and shadows, I saw how a simulation of real-world stuff should look, Imitation, imitation, imitation in CorelDRAW, and then in Xara. and more than 20 years later, the "extras" in a drawn scene are more easy for me to approximate.

THe best feedback device ever taught to me was from the book, Drawing ion the Right side of the Brain.

"Draw what you see, not what you think you see."

{People draw smilies to represent a human face because they're not looking, examining a human face. These people presume an eye looks like a dot, a smile is totally contorted to go from ear to ear.

A good teacher of physical art would tell you to draw a still life, and a critique of it is simple. If the fruit or whatever don't look like the source, you're not looking at it correctly.

This is a cartoon, drawn out of my mind (I'm frequently out of my mind) with no reference. Once I had a pencil sketch of it the living room real world, I scanned it and then put the bitmap in Xara, locked on a bottle layer.

Then the textures and colors. You'll see an awful lot of shapes in the wireframe version. Look at the close-up. All those different shapes have slightly different shades of orange. I think I showed, a long time ago, how to make clouds by adding alter after layer with different gradients and transparency values.

This is how I achieved a mottled surface, suggesting bumps, on the pumpkin skin.

[handrawn]

Gare - yes you need to be able to see what you want to draw yes...

myself I went through all that and came out the other side.. now what I draw [for myself] is far more interpretive as here [done by frettle aka handrawn in another place]:

https://www.talkgraphics.com/attachm...0&d=1533411544

[Gare]

Well done, handrawn! I’m envious; the freedom you obviously enjoy in your work—that’s the way painting should be—no constrains of stroke and fill. I failed oil painting at University. I never quite sussed an area of expression foreign to me. I began with pen and ink at age 6, and I stuck with what worked for me.

Lay-Zeeeeee!

About this retouched piece:

1.) It took about 4 hours using Xara. I spent 2 hours getting nowhere with P’shop and decided to cut my losses. I needed often to get between the pixels so and area would resolve up smooth.

2.) My choice of Charlez was a deliberate one; I wanted to choose an image I liked to look at for a few hours, and it’s also the best example I could quickly find where the text was intrusive, laid out poorly and just ugly.

3.) Absolutely no sexism was intended, okay? If I’d found an outstandingly ugly magazine cover with a guy or an infant, I’d have used it. I’m very sensitive (I think) to exploitation.

4.) The Administrator is cool with this.

At right, the finished cover. In the middle, where the multitude of shapes are that cover the text and in a lot of areas to replace areas of the dress, arms, and so on.



At right, the finished cover. In the middle, where the multitude of shapes are that cover the text and in a lot of areas to replace areas of the dress, arms, and so on.

Retouching with Xara feels quite natural to me, even though I usually use the Paintbrush tool and other tools in Photoshop. I’ve only done one other retouching session in Xara; a pristine 1958 Cadillac that had a guarding fence around it to keep kids off the spectacular set of wheels.

My Best,

Gary

[wizard509]

Your retouch looks marvelous Gare. I can't really tell what you did. I assume the left side is the image with all the gunk removed, while the right shows the text you added. Is that correct?

[Gare]

Let me try to explain visually, with a different example, Larry. The text was both in front of and behind her. It took 93 shapes, with different gradients and transparencies.



More obvious now?

[Fred C]

At right, the finished cover.

Here may be the point of confusion, "At right". Should be "At left..."

[Ron Duke]

Here may be the point of confusion, "At right". Should be "At left..."

That is to say, your other "right".

[Gare]

Fred,

You're right.

I mean you're left.

My Best,

g