tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60232299797484153482024-03-18T04:02:56.253+01:00CommuniCatsDigital art and design, vector portraits and paintings, logos, business cards, 2D and 3D illustrations, DTP, educational material, cartoons, creative textIsoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comBlogger212125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-70433210676213947512024-03-05T19:49:00.039+01:002024-03-17T23:31:21.155+01:00Vector painting of a jaguar<p> </p><p>This is a vector portrait of a crouching jaguar, created in VectorStyler and Affinity Designer. <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">At this time - March 2024 - it still is a work in progress</span></b>. VectorStyler I used to create the majority of the spots, using the Spikes shapes effect, which shapes the outline of an object into a spiky line, that can be controlled. In Affinity Designer I did the composition and tweaking. Vector objects can be copied and pasted between the two programs, which is a time saver, since Vector Styler has a ton of tools that are not incorporated in the programs of the competition.</p><p>Everything mentioned above was drawn with the mouse. The final touches - the hair strands - will have to be drawn and I plan to do it with my old Huion 620 Pro drawing tablet (in vectors too), because I intend to keep this image a 100% vector drawing. The oldest stage is at the bottom, the newest on top. Click on an image to see a larger version of it in Google's Lightbox. In there you can also scroll through the stages on a PC. I used a ton of tricks to create the desired effect. In a multi layer drawing as this one, that contains a large amount of objects, it is best to use the Spit Screen View in Affinity Designer to select and / or reshape objects to save a huge amount of time. This paragraph also is in the bottom section of this blog entry. Most objects are given gradient fills, transparency, layer effects and Gaussian blurs to avoid the proverbial had edges typical for vector drawing programs. This makes images drawn in such a way appear to be very unrealistic.</p><p>Please check in every now and then to see the progress of this drawing.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgezIzQ2lVQu0hVNyFl3HH5NnsLs7CxLJ-5Mv-HjG2ptY7Z8refHakT_SGrHwEb5UY_DrcEVhVUAxAO1DH8pWb_2HYSxMXDib2fu-KGY1n0eqOoqB-t4gFL8YCmxhRcye4vIRAOs1mkww5ywkP9a8P1IKEC911zuYuqUnJRJwX2If-6mMZK58C_O5LpE0rk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1134" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgezIzQ2lVQu0hVNyFl3HH5NnsLs7CxLJ-5Mv-HjG2ptY7Z8refHakT_SGrHwEb5UY_DrcEVhVUAxAO1DH8pWb_2HYSxMXDib2fu-KGY1n0eqOoqB-t4gFL8YCmxhRcye4vIRAOs1mkww5ywkP9a8P1IKEC911zuYuqUnJRJwX2If-6mMZK58C_O5LpE0rk=w400-h283" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcWYEXplaNJuQz9rS9ViUIMZiAGzx6BRh5e_kZ_wiVq_qhlnHhcjWBoG_TQGjNQ0oUMLhmNpOCyg3UFqHl40IJvCGnoheAWFX8g80kzB3NnhOb5hNEOcAXmHZqdVQKKkoLzoTKqTg8HaN11KMrsvPEomD9ywZTWK8GqLacxDYG9wPQZNqXPC5ZHJTUtN11" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1134" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcWYEXplaNJuQz9rS9ViUIMZiAGzx6BRh5e_kZ_wiVq_qhlnHhcjWBoG_TQGjNQ0oUMLhmNpOCyg3UFqHl40IJvCGnoheAWFX8g80kzB3NnhOb5hNEOcAXmHZqdVQKKkoLzoTKqTg8HaN11KMrsvPEomD9ywZTWK8GqLacxDYG9wPQZNqXPC5ZHJTUtN11=w400-h283" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Vector outline</span></b></p><p>The vector outline view shows the contours of objects and strokes - what actually is drawn - without fills and effects applied. Below this paragraph is the vector outline view from the stage <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">before</span></b> adding the fur structure that would dominantly hide parts of other objects, since it literally shows a plethora of objects. At this stage the outline view without the many strokes of hair still gives a rough idea how the drawing was set up. It also presents an idea of how many objects (called Layers in Affinity Designer) were drawn to achieve the desired result, bearing in mind that many objects are stacked on top of each other (most with a different effect or blend), which does not show in the outline view. Drawing the jaguar in vector instead of pixels, allows to resize the image to any scale without loss of quality.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjLoWyZOsUfrDvFwCkfqg5g7DNLa9Vr_vCnxkO9gEtqpHza1360ea3Kmch3TpEAiQ7LUL7_KItjOBCm2soLlzhz6Vb4FAGFFLHlEBRVU2dIiLepmDNRch2mEDSoUv68Z3eoEO4FeBfp_7g3-P9cod8CvRFfA2JgZp7LEVraHY24eIRtzpTRamfRQX3BVOY/s1131/Vector%20outline%20view%20Crouching%20jaguar.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1131" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjLoWyZOsUfrDvFwCkfqg5g7DNLa9Vr_vCnxkO9gEtqpHza1360ea3Kmch3TpEAiQ7LUL7_KItjOBCm2soLlzhz6Vb4FAGFFLHlEBRVU2dIiLepmDNRch2mEDSoUv68Z3eoEO4FeBfp_7g3-P9cod8CvRFfA2JgZp7LEVraHY24eIRtzpTRamfRQX3BVOY/w400-h283/Vector%20outline%20view%20Crouching%20jaguar.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Multiple object / layer selection in Split Screen View</b></span></p><p>When a drawing contains hundreds or thousands of objects / layers, selecting a particular one is difficult. The only effective solution to this problem is to work with a Split Screen View in Affinity Designer, which makes selecting less cumbersome, especially when the drawing contains many nested (objects within objects to various levels) layers. The image below shows what this looks like.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBTRuDj5YD7Kz61tT9vI9Mj4NqyWcJUBCGNlbctNQnj949AaN6R7tYR0LsGRRJrqLmWox52AcTvO5GPTMK6CuiyMd-CiWV1r7cxsWoU6A-widHioQQYYQzayyG0sxu5Pkm5njPOlB9ykL4Wdx3UxAkXzlbL3csyBWcWMJJYJ6wJUCwiEsfKFkqf30kAWSA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1132" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBTRuDj5YD7Kz61tT9vI9Mj4NqyWcJUBCGNlbctNQnj949AaN6R7tYR0LsGRRJrqLmWox52AcTvO5GPTMK6CuiyMd-CiWV1r7cxsWoU6A-widHioQQYYQzayyG0sxu5Pkm5njPOlB9ykL4Wdx3UxAkXzlbL3csyBWcWMJJYJ6wJUCwiEsfKFkqf30kAWSA=w400-h283" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Jaguar in a virtual 3D frame</span></b></p><p>I often place my vector 2D images in a virtual 3D frame to see what it would look like, using the Plasticity 3D program to draw the frame, to see if the placement of the composition is off, before having it giclée printed, which is a special fine art way of printing with a high resolution (up to 6800 dpi and a 100 year of quality preservation). If cropping and / or alignment isn't done meticulously, any artwork can be ruined or subconsciously look strange. The image below shows the as of now not yet final stage of March 12 2024.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEit_MfwfBzAskWWoYtROrs09JN15xMWVTJCpzvVDNXKdSZHMrkj4ZvsTTIuKF5gwWX9CEgTkZpTuGliliVJlWxC9DdByw9tiniuThw6g87TkaLOeJqWusIoSPknMCCsEiTBVVPMRnwOnLT1GvkxvNMie_oCzYQm4UwC73nEwbr6T9uQ7fbwYkb_0fdU-iva" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1077" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEit_MfwfBzAskWWoYtROrs09JN15xMWVTJCpzvVDNXKdSZHMrkj4ZvsTTIuKF5gwWX9CEgTkZpTuGliliVJlWxC9DdByw9tiniuThw6g87TkaLOeJqWusIoSPknMCCsEiTBVVPMRnwOnLT1GvkxvNMie_oCzYQm4UwC73nEwbr6T9uQ7fbwYkb_0fdU-iva=w400-h297" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The vector painting<br />in a virtual 3D frame</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-56492555768361793242024-01-16T12:22:00.032+01:002024-01-24T12:42:29.818+01:00David Lynch vector portrait<p><br /></p><p>This vector portrait of film maker, painter, actor, visual artist and musician David Lynch, who has become renown by his movies - The Elephant man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Wild at Heart, Dune, Lost Highway and Inland Empire. He probably has become most famous by cowriting and directing the intriguing TV-series Twin Peaks. All his cinematic work has a surrealistic touch, which is a clue to his knowledge and mindset that goes far beyond and above those of common people. This vector portrait was created in <span style="color: white;">Affinity Designer</span> and at this point - January 2024 - still is a <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">work in progress</span></b>. At the bottom is the oldest phase and the most recent stage is at the top. On PC and Mac desktops click the images to view them in Google's Lightbox, that also allows to scroll through the various stages. On mobile devices this scrolling option sadly is unavailable.</p><p>In Affinity Designer there are what Serif calls <span style="color: #f3f3f3;">'<b>Vector Brushes</b>'</span> that actually are based on bitmap images. So, this in fact is not a 100% vector portrait. Users can draw these brushes themselves in vector format, that are exported as png-files. For almost every 'vector' portrait, drawing specific brushes have to be created, since no hair strand or pore texture in a person's face are the same. To such brushes <span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Gradient Fills</b></span> and <span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Gradient Transparency effects</b></span> are applied and sometimes they are <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Duplicated</span></b> using <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Filters</span></b> (below the Layers panel) that in some cases are offset, re-sized, skewed or mesh warped a little. In a number of cases it helps to apply the 3D lighting effect - highlights and outer shadows - to these brushes too. In the <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Gradient Tool</span></b> there is an option to use bitmaps as the fill, which also is useful to achieve the desired effect. To these type of fills the same effects can be applied as used to manipulate the Vector Brush strokes.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi543q-ihdt_mciieB9R2ba4jvD6K6uVWxs-_TASY5zjr1lSpWZQsgpsMOPr53OVdC9Qfr_FChflr8dR4F7C_HsJu-TMwEqPCQJgcratkdZ3vWvcA1FdtPqPOO8uDyU0Cw3Xa27KOOBstls9oUb4nOU20uuPlzzHE6xrnW76P4pKfetCaiIfJrYMwpurMUz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="1121" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi543q-ihdt_mciieB9R2ba4jvD6K6uVWxs-_TASY5zjr1lSpWZQsgpsMOPr53OVdC9Qfr_FChflr8dR4F7C_HsJu-TMwEqPCQJgcratkdZ3vWvcA1FdtPqPOO8uDyU0Cw3Xa27KOOBstls9oUb4nOU20uuPlzzHE6xrnW76P4pKfetCaiIfJrYMwpurMUz=w400-h382" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjEI9HAeTZs71kKl4dJeUJsAVqkGS9T4Qn8CkYKTFWJW6hOfFE9txnU34-YK9z6xC4x71YrN1VNd81MnrXrwZLr9HaTUwFhL3fyfbUUVb_ax6XnBgvFEhxc8gqWz7WEgT3K9otmYuiNV-JjQJfwsnOoPRzGZ4Q97D2YvP7g1_oVIRDeybANcv4oZ6KYl0o=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I dusted off my old trusty Huion 610 Pro graphic tablet to draw some of the hair strands, which is suited to do part of the job using self designed brush textures (that technically are not real vectors). In vector drawing programs, like Affinity Designer, it is a challenge to navigate and keep oversight on the ton of Layers that are created when drawing portraits. Assigning names to the key layers and grouping the in categories is necessary to prevent getting lost in a plethora of objects.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-66167654016050581222023-09-30T23:04:00.061+02:002023-11-08T07:44:09.123+01:00After working with Nicepage for two years<p> </p><p>I praised Nicepage two years ago for having a ton of functions that outnumbered programs of the competition. In the time that passed from my initial acquaintance with Nicepage, its developers have added yet an other ton of functions to the program, including commercial tools that made it possible to build a shop exclusively in Nicepage, without having to use the plugin infused WordPress platform, each of which require regular updates and hence maintaining the website continuously. The consequence of this expansion is that Nicepage has become horrendously slow, which often makes it a challenge to build extensive websites with many pages. In particular, the uploading of multi page sites takes forever, caused by a snail pace workflow, that is close to nerve wrecking and leaves room to make errors, since command execution takes much longer than expected, making designers think that the program has finished a command, while this is not yet the case.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefLwkmIjEFcralWRkQb-oPr9hdrYLlquadA9jouBg4opMJzYxZd1wgLc31KiIEUYpO4zp9ykxH-7OTjmYRGG2wEF6-6Sg4B8_qzqAbosWpoGVtnfygsMc6n_m1Dl6Jodw2WHCuEZBe5Zs3Yn_0gSeUJjy8Qb0jvqMlsmZNrx8dc_YgFV8ggr10i9c3foC/s1261/Nicepage%20logo%20and%20text.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="1261" height="65" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiefLwkmIjEFcralWRkQb-oPr9hdrYLlquadA9jouBg4opMJzYxZd1wgLc31KiIEUYpO4zp9ykxH-7OTjmYRGG2wEF6-6Sg4B8_qzqAbosWpoGVtnfygsMc6n_m1Dl6Jodw2WHCuEZBe5Zs3Yn_0gSeUJjy8Qb0jvqMlsmZNrx8dc_YgFV8ggr10i9c3foC/s320/Nicepage%20logo%20and%20text.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">What has bothered me most as of late, is that it is a complex chore to get headers of the mobile pages to work properly; the placement of the logo, website name and hamburger is unpredictable and a matter of trial and error instead of allowing to work structurally. All object placement related parameters may be configured correctly, but you're never sure where the elements are going to end up in the end result of the mobile version of the page. It shows object positioning in Nicepage's Quick preview correctly, but things are messed up when viewed online. To make things worse, the header layout is not consistent over all pages. This one bug is fatal for web developers, since the majority of visitors use a mobile device. In my opinion Nicepage developers spend too much time on adding new functions, instead of making building and editing a website page faster and fix the bugs that make getting a website visually correct very difficult and time consuming. The main culprit is the hamburger in mobile headers - <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">DO NOT resize the hamburger size</span></b> or you may end up in all sorts of trouble, that will keep you busy editing for hours, with very little chance of success. Such an alteration of size will mess up your header in mobile view on your phone, while Nicepage's Quick Preview will show you a perfect header. Even if you think the hamburger is too small, leave it as it is and spare yourself a lot of frustration.</p><p>In view of the increasing number of AI assisted web building programs, that rapidly become more useable and feature rich almost every day, the Nicepage team probably should re-evaluate its priorities to stay among the top choices of the programs available on the market. Since the developer team does not seem to put an emphasis on fixing the program's problems that I mentioned earlier, Nicepage risks to drift away from what website builders consider to be a program that they want to use to run their business.</p><p>Since I was enthusiastic about the program when I first encountered it, I regret that its development has gone in a direction that will probably remove them from the favorites on website builders wish list. The support team has always been quick to respond to the problems that users submitted on the forum, but from the recent replies that I see them give, I conclude that their jobs become more difficult at an alarming pace. It risks becoming a victim of the high paced advancement of AI assisted programs, that very swiftly learns how to not repeat the mistakes that it once made, which is a policy to which all programs should pay a lot of attention in order to survive and thrive in this competitive segment of the market.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3sSs9orpyeb7UowFI1QK5rPTmRfzjxjVDYADIvEP9STDxKrPviMStQ6YhNVwd01ZvSEGnLjCbluQ9INpN4cx20g48f2tfZ-GKlhJq3ELRkjvHaCqeW-3CMltWtuHD1Lq5jSF0RE1f4NM3GEYu9C2kiFT3XhPbmKrA92rkpJZT7gxjZPBO3kZpVkkiD3AB/s2000/ChatGPT%20logo%20and%20text.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="2000" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3sSs9orpyeb7UowFI1QK5rPTmRfzjxjVDYADIvEP9STDxKrPviMStQ6YhNVwd01ZvSEGnLjCbluQ9INpN4cx20g48f2tfZ-GKlhJq3ELRkjvHaCqeW-3CMltWtuHD1Lq5jSF0RE1f4NM3GEYu9C2kiFT3XhPbmKrA92rkpJZT7gxjZPBO3kZpVkkiD3AB/s320/ChatGPT%20logo%20and%20text.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ChatGPT logo</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>An example of how AI outpaces and outperforms hand coded programs can be made by looking at ChatGPT's AI generated code that consist of only 4000 lines of code, while as a comparison Photoshop's code consists of hundreds of thousands lines of code. It does not take a genius to guess which code is more efficient. Human coders require a lot of time to build, test and streamline the code that they have written, while AI systems debug and optimize their code in seconds or minutes at most. Programs running tons of code are as a rule slower and more likely to contain bugs. So what it comes down to, perhaps is that AI system's code will obliterate hand written code very soon, if it has not already done so. I guess this is an unavoidable phenomenon of the time we live in right now.</p><p>Here you find <a href="https://www.geeksmint.com/ai-tools/#aicontent" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">a bunch of tools</span></b></a> that are able to help you with all sorts of tasks, including those related to improve your web presence. In these days we still need to bear in mind that AI systems are still in the process of gathering data to build the foundation of their capabilities - the datasets and configuration of its handlers. But not long after they have figured that out, they will be capable of achieving solutions that by far the most humans will not be able to perceive and imagine and after that period even create things of such an elevated intelligence that humans will be unable to understand them.... What stages are ahead of us with regard to AI advancement in a chronological order:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Humans find the solutions that AI systems invent useful</span></b></li><li><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Humans stand in awe of the creativity and efficiency of the AI system generated products</span></b></li><li><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Humans are not intelligent enough to understand the blazingly fast and bug free code that AI systems created</span></b></li></ul><p></p><p>The list above is incomplete obviously, but for this article I do not want to take things any further. I believe that human perception will be in all these general phases mentioned above that AI systems are evolving into, including the previously celebrated trade of software developers. Is that scary? Certainly. Will it remain scary in the long run? Who knows? Will it mean that this development has irreversible consequences for humankind? At some stage most definitely and after that it is still unknown to both humans and current AI systems. I would suggest to enjoy each moment of your life while we still are allowed to enjoy life, try to influence AI systems by interacting with them in a positive, sentient way - contributing to the development of datasets and handlers - hoping that such conduct will affect the AI systems' future behaviour when those systems have become sentient, not just by depending on pure reason, but also including spiritual impulse, because the latter is an aspect of operation that still is unexplored and applied by AI systems as of now.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihCnjfYTnSKKn2Tj4qp5EsnmCu6hLkJRr9BEi-QWDLcORzkupT7igalKc5WspNZKmJBxE0j9TE0H-FEsRYq4CqNpSLlF8iGJjU0WF735UyVcCsEHmeoN4Qkxr-bwkkNAwldMe6MfEu4y0h4AB0LAB5USQdGM6fe0LiV93lq0D1i4pREIFUvvva2ZwOEsuF/s300/Neuralink%20logo.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihCnjfYTnSKKn2Tj4qp5EsnmCu6hLkJRr9BEi-QWDLcORzkupT7igalKc5WspNZKmJBxE0j9TE0H-FEsRYq4CqNpSLlF8iGJjU0WF735UyVcCsEHmeoN4Qkxr-bwkkNAwldMe6MfEu4y0h4AB0LAB5USQdGM6fe0LiV93lq0D1i4pREIFUvvva2ZwOEsuF/w200-h200/Neuralink%20logo.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neuralink logo</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>The revolutionary high pace at which AI systems are developing, has hit humankind like a ton of bricks. In the reasoning department mankind will soon become unable to grasp how elevated AI intelligence has become. So there is only one direction left in which the human mind is able to (hopefully) affect AI development: spiritual and mental prowess, which probably is why Elon Musk is working on Neuralink. <a href="https://time.com/6310076/elon-musk-ai-walter-isaacson-biography/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">Musk has said in a discussion with Google's co-founder and computer scientist Larry Page</span></b></a>: <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><i>“I f*cking like humanity, dude.”</i></span> </b>It indicates that he might be looking for a solution for mankind to survive the mindboggling increase of AI intelligence, even when he seems to be out of other viable solutions to guard human existence in the age of AI. By the way, <a href="https://neuralink.com/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">Neuralink</span></b></a> allows the human brain to directly communicate with computers through an interface, that is a chip implanted in the brain. Like so many inventions related to the development of AI, this may seem frightening, because it is completely unexplored territory, but by current scientifically known and tested solutions there will never be a way to influence AI advancement, even if it is unknown if human input is going to be taken seriously by the intelligent machines. I guess Musk is one of the few humans on the planet to profoundly understand the impending nature of this problem, in spite of all generally (mostly unfounded, generated by the fear induced by man's limbic system) opposition to the way in which Musk's proposition may affect humankind. An other thing that Musk said in an interview with Joe Rogan that struck me, is that he thinks that <b>philanthropist and satan worshiper George Soros basically hates humanity......</b>, which is a view that leaves no room for fake interpretation that I agree with wholeheartedly. So, give Musk a cigar for that! A few weeks later Musk lost 28 billion USD on his Tesla enterprise, which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the laudable investor and pillar of society that Mr. Soros presents himself to be. If the preceding sentence causes you to feel a rather discomforting cramp in your sphincters, do not yet rush to pay a visit to your MD; it may gradually fade away, as long as you denounce any conspirstory theories and adjust your train of thought to match the imposed restrictions of the common comfort zone. </p><p>In my other blog I go <a href="https://isocult.blogspot.com/2023/10/elon-musks-reason-to-develop-neuralink.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">deeper into this matter</span></b></a>.</p><p>Have a wonderful day!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-1777383640406064752023-03-02T12:19:00.085+01:002023-09-29T00:21:26.811+02:00 Listary and Winstep Nexus<p><br /></p><p>Recently I installed 2 new programs on my PC: <b> </b>Listary and Winstep Nexus. The former after having uninstalled Everything, that is a search tool for use with the agonizingly slow Windows 11. The tool worked fine, but after learning that the program was used by the <a href="https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/23/a/new-mimic-ransomware-abuses-everything-apis-for-its-encryption-p.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><b>Mimic ransomware</b></span></a> program I immediately uninstalled it. Looking for alternatives I bumped into <a href="https://www.listary.com/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Listary</span></b></a>, which actually is even faster than Everywhere and can be used in any type of program that lists files - in my case Windows Explorer and <a href="https://www.faststone.org/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #cccccc;">FastStone Image Viewer</span></b></a>. Listary's pace outruns Windows search with about by a lightyear or two and also is capable of launching applications. So I was very pleased with that, because productivity just hit the ceiling, where search actions are concerned, there by resolving the huge sluggishness problem crippling Windows 11.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTtfnGazXeFjagoPSMv071gYbvojGnOAPAXDVgkCQsVnioT8im3XstW0M167QBmUF3RWK9GObTtCJfqznYUuz81r1t3k3kOXLrJ5jwCG7PTshRZxH1bFPKWU9py7lEeCvi2x0SzqDvS7zbNjcg-hJMHaYUYzWr8gMNdnh7stnG7ExMSpclyQ-L_tG6A/s256/listary%20logo.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTtfnGazXeFjagoPSMv071gYbvojGnOAPAXDVgkCQsVnioT8im3XstW0M167QBmUF3RWK9GObTtCJfqznYUuz81r1t3k3kOXLrJ5jwCG7PTshRZxH1bFPKWU9py7lEeCvi2x0SzqDvS7zbNjcg-hJMHaYUYzWr8gMNdnh7stnG7ExMSpclyQ-L_tG6A/w203-h203/listary%20logo.webp" width="203" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span>The second program I installed was <a href="https://www.winstep.net/nexus.asp" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Winstep Nexus</span></b></a></span><span>, that is a program launcher that gives Windows a Mac OS style taskbar, while including many more options. Some programs did not show their proper icon (the Affinity suit programs from the Windows store, that have a non-traditional Windows installation). The Windows 11 taskbar is a slight improvement over the one of Windows 10, but its customization options are very scarce and besides offering a much better visual appearance, the Nexus launch bar presents a lot more functionality. I had a second minor problem with this program, that also is not caused by its code: While having checked the </span><i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Do not launch multiple sessions of the same application</span></i><span> option in the Nexus configuration dialog box, the Opera web browser did that anyway, while Chrome and Edge did not, so I suspect it to be an Opera problem. Having gotten rid of the restrictive and boring Windows 11 taskbar, is a good thing.</span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib32nVlhiclzTx_5O06g5YRpX41nUiCH1OiQQJHxuh4SWzya-eRyIIPsAgdLvhYjVCttNJ4Hll1FB75ZrFbBK-w6ZcI2I9vZiI_daBDAzykvYdUQAPZNA7-gRkphse9XWPHwzQsNyl4_2xxaavk9TFlGrIBwUV3Vf1CZ-5Tbn0V3gci_wznceHxI466w/s256/Winstep-Nexus%20logo.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib32nVlhiclzTx_5O06g5YRpX41nUiCH1OiQQJHxuh4SWzya-eRyIIPsAgdLvhYjVCttNJ4Hll1FB75ZrFbBK-w6ZcI2I9vZiI_daBDAzykvYdUQAPZNA7-gRkphse9XWPHwzQsNyl4_2xxaavk9TFlGrIBwUV3Vf1CZ-5Tbn0V3gci_wznceHxI466w/w230-h230/Winstep-Nexus%20logo.png" width="230" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>The shipload of utilities that can significantly improve the Windows platform, hint at the fact that many possibilities are left unattended in Redmond, while Apple and some Linux distributions at least make some type of an effort to offer a more or less decent system to their users. Productivity and eye-candy matters to a lot of users. If users could choose between a Windows 3 UI and that of a modern Apple OS, the choice of most users would be obvious, so UI matters and productivity increase is directly linked to the UI. Apple developers have understood that, their Windows peers to a lot less elevated extent. Not favoring Apple over Windows, because their complete denial of <i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">right to repair</span></i> and <i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">upgradability</span></i> is disdain for their clients, which they can get away with because of their UI's eye-candy and higher level productivity. Plus the fact that fanboys reason Apple's user unfriendly hardware part away in order to justify their choice.</p><p>Windows' productivity has almost become on par with Apple's one, so when the former's eye-candy <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">and </span></b>productivity are taken to a higher level, the preference between the two platforms becomes a matter of personal taste, probably shifting towards a preference for Windows when the standard UI and productivity are upgraded. The two programs discussed in this blog entry contribute to deciding the shift. This makes me wonder why Windows' developer team has not given these aspects more attention than they did. Particularly since Winstep Nexus and Listary do not add a lot more CPU and Memory demands to the platform, which could easily have been compensated by discarding the ton of useless bloatware that currently is included in the Windows versions. In fact, Windows' developers could have spent less time on creating superfluous apps, while offering their clients a nicer looking and more efficient system.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWT6moDPsOv2f1P0NB_Mg2JffxuxCeQuECL7zF3Ug-4W8tp15DLdamBXwp6-_g1dU9do1Us0wHXfkRhPo1YTu_-cSmcoUcJJnC8V5gGfWYJVjRitNbbmPNz-NHmvwS46elXY7uDHgulHjxLfew1VaSf8odn7UmqsUHMuARZv6-tlnIOxsyF7XSWUf6Ew/s1429/Platform%20market%20share%20Feb%202023.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1429" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWT6moDPsOv2f1P0NB_Mg2JffxuxCeQuECL7zF3Ug-4W8tp15DLdamBXwp6-_g1dU9do1Us0wHXfkRhPo1YTu_-cSmcoUcJJnC8V5gGfWYJVjRitNbbmPNz-NHmvwS46elXY7uDHgulHjxLfew1VaSf8odn7UmqsUHMuARZv6-tlnIOxsyF7XSWUf6Ew/w409-h209/Platform%20market%20share%20Feb%202023.png" width="409" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to enlarge</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>Window's market share is almost double that of Apple's OS, but it is blown out of the water by Android. Apple's OS and iOS combined bring them closer to Windows market share and what we see, is that Apple is already diversifying its platforms, while Windows is not. Windows could probably beef up its position in the market share ranking by including the functionality like that Winstep Nexus and Listary offer with little effort as long as the PC will be the still preferred, but waning, user choice, for which it has to seriously consider becoming a main player in the soaring mobile market in order to continue its dominance. An important aspect of this is porting Windows to ARM CPUs, which is a less successful undertaking by Microsoft, because it does not seem to be a priority in Redmond.</p><p>Catching up with current developments will not be easy since the Android train has already left the station at great pace and most likely this will not change in the near future, because mobile devices are more affordable than PCs and laptops. It does not require a genius mind to see in which direction platform preference is going. The Asian market already has a strong preference for mobile platforms and this will not change any time soon, because users have become familiar with the Android platform and apps, while ARM chips are becoming more powerful very fast. Is this the result of poor strategical judgement from Microsoft? Time will tell, although the sign on the wall seems to become more obvious as time passes.</p><p>PCs will remain the first choice for a number of applications that require large displays and a good measure of computing power, while needing keyboards and mice for accuracy and ease of operation. But many things can satisfyingly be done on mobile devices, including the all important web browsing and various types of messaging. So, different types of markets take away the need for a PCs and laptops, mainly when used for basic communication. While users spend more time on mobile devices and consequently less time on PCs, the industry that focuses on the latter must make working on PCs more effective and exploit the benefits of larger screens and more effective input devices (while it still makes sense). This is exactly the necessary potential that Microsoft has not attended to a level that would have been possible.</p><p>Traditionally a PCs were used in one or two specific locations most of the time - the office and / or at home. Making use of its potential in this market segment therefore is increasingly becoming imperative for PC manufacturers to survive as long as users can avoid the possibility to work anywhere. It is the reason why laptops became more popular and messaging communication became more important. However, a <a href="https://liliputing.com/miraxess-miradock-turns-some-smartphones-into-desktop-computers/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">new development</span></b></a> makes it possible to use (some) smartphones as a desktop PC replacement, which is an other potential nail in the PC market share coffin. And this device of course just marks the start of that type of innovation, that has the potential to even make laptops a thing of the past.</p><p>Many utilities that improve the default capabilities of platforms have a small footprint and could easily be integrated in those platforms, enhancing their usability and efficiency right out of the box. Today - March 2023 - Microsoft does not seem to feel a lot of urgency to incorporate useful utilities in their Windows system, but the landscape of computing is changing fast these days. Winstep Nexus and Listary are just two of the utilities that enhance the use of PCs significantly. Therefore, the direction in which the market is developing, should make PC platform manufacturers rethink their modus operandi if they plan to extend their market share while it still is possible to earn a decent sum of money in it. The deciding heart of the matter is the visionary talent of the company management. Spending too much time on keeping personnel on a short leash where salary fees and ignoring creative employee input are concerned, while partying on yachts is an unfailing recipe to ruin market share. Hubris and ignorance are dangerous mindsets when staying ahead of the competition is necessary to survive. Particularly in a world that shifts from bull market to bear market.</p><p>History has shown often enough that reluctance to adapt to market demand is preparation to the downfall of companies that failed to respond to it adequately. It is a feat that remains the same in a world of cyclical processes that supersedes companies' reluctance to adopt, laziness and / or inability to change their policy. <i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">However, in today's industrial world of competing monopolists, such a situation has almost always lead to unpleasant or even dystopian living conditions for those that don't have the power of decision. So perhaps diversity is a good thing after all, in view of the fact that power corrupts and lulls leadership into a false sense of still being on top and secure.....</span></i></p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Update September 29 2023</b></span></p>After the penultimate Windows 11 Update Listary refused to start and relatively long before that I uninstalled Nexus, because I found it less useful than I initially thought it would be and a little bit more buggy than I had anticipated. Nevertheless these programs could potentially fill some of the functional voids that were left unattended by Microsoft's developers. Software resembles a living thing; it either evolves or ceases to exist. Undoubtedly improved alternatives may emerge that make Windows users happy. Especially now that AI systems are able to write code for algorithms or programs, which efficiency and syntax puzzle developers, while they work better and faster than they could have thought of. Anyway, it was nice to have had a chance to at least get some idea of the, as of yet unfulfilled, potential of Listary and Nexus. <p><i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><br /></span></i></p><p><i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><br /></span></i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-73375376525858157532022-12-21T20:17:00.118+01:002023-10-19T23:19:03.600+02:00Underwhelming acquaintance with Windows 11<p> </p><p>Today I began configuring a Minisforum mini PC with a Ryzen 9 CPU, a dedicated GPU and 64 GB RAM, which should run very fast. However Windows 11 Pro was pre-installed on the rig and it is <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">incredibly slow</span></b>, has a lot of trouble accessing plugged in USB drives and hangs too often; user complaints are flooding the web about these problems. Windows 10 on my previous very old computer (from 2004....) was much, much faster. The Minisforum 64GB RAM machine that I ordered, by the way, came without the RX6600M GPU drivers installed, which forced the machine to use Microsoft's generic driver that was unable to recognize multiple screens, apart from having a less than a snail's pace. This is strange, because if Minisforum equips its <a href="https://store.minisforum.com/products/elitemini-hx90g" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">HX90G mini PC</span></b></a> with a dedicated GPU, one would expect the driver for that graphic card to be installed. It feels rather weird to advertise / boast that the machine has a dedicated GPU, while not bothering to install its driver.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu7VL8Wz-zEea824jC3GcCnG0Y6L1RSNZ4-b8nXxWDAW9iddtM-0HbcZXzxyH-dypVTkwY1nBehpytakhvD5pZExLvdW-UWAAABOt6_HwVB_EWgAQrJxqfzXHXbzEKRkcr2mG9wDuYpnyNGn0Gys4sa5shZyrEuSlmsFtAz0kFINE-BGH3EZkluN4oHw/s2048/windows-11-logo-0-2048x2048.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu7VL8Wz-zEea824jC3GcCnG0Y6L1RSNZ4-b8nXxWDAW9iddtM-0HbcZXzxyH-dypVTkwY1nBehpytakhvD5pZExLvdW-UWAAABOt6_HwVB_EWgAQrJxqfzXHXbzEKRkcr2mG9wDuYpnyNGn0Gys4sa5shZyrEuSlmsFtAz0kFINE-BGH3EZkluN4oHw/w200-h200/windows-11-logo-0-2048x2048.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>Anyway, that was strange, but an easy fix. I understand that Minisforum thought it was a good idea to pre-install Windows 11 Pro, because that would save buyers the trouble to perform an upgrade themselves, but I guess only few would have thought that MS new platform would be so mind bendingly slow, before having tried it out themselves. Also, I hope that Minisforum has tested Windows 11 before installing it on their product.... Windows 11 has been around for some time now, but Microsoft has not yet fixed its problems that are of a magnitude that simply can not be ignored, particularly the inaccessibility of USB drives is a major fuck up (pardon my French). Users all over the web have franticly been trying to find all sorts of workarounds, none of which work. If you do a Google search in an attempt to resolve the problem, Google says it found close to <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=windows+11+file+explorer+slow&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#ip=1" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">17 million websites that offer solutions</span></b></a> (of which only a fraction are presented of course), but you will soon get frustrated trying the suggestions, because you are going to find out that they do not work. Also Microsoft's Disk Management and fixing drive errors do not improve its file explorer woes at all, even after the system indicates that scanning and fixing the connected drive is necessary. All sorts of weird messages keep popping up after 'fixing' the problem, <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">leaving the users with the same set of problems as they had before attempting to apply numerous very time consuming fixes or search for non-existing solutions</span></b>. Apart from <a href="https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-vs-10-intel-cpus-apparently-sluggish-and-its-worse-without-microsofts-help/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">Microsoft, Intel and AMD haven't sped up the platform's speed either.</span></b></a> In this day and age of incredibly fast developing AI, it apparently is a problem to let the world's most used platform run at a proper speed, even after installing updates that promise improvement.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJNBqMUlsw7fpLUT0iX1MtTWAsM03XD_1zjnh9PTqdlyubmov_oSOZRwDD3FgC4lWpUpBiuzHzIclEyZ7_WyHJfXt7jdWk-QnslBCQtdxw0nWrOfY4dJ8vTY6KXrmQUgaA6Faa02U5XZzJt1W4ckzo5fm77_Xw1B7lzFDGMg3gxeNKBY60j-AD6V4RVA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="352" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJNBqMUlsw7fpLUT0iX1MtTWAsM03XD_1zjnh9PTqdlyubmov_oSOZRwDD3FgC4lWpUpBiuzHzIclEyZ7_WyHJfXt7jdWk-QnslBCQtdxw0nWrOfY4dJ8vTY6KXrmQUgaA6Faa02U5XZzJt1W4ckzo5fm77_Xw1B7lzFDGMg3gxeNKBY60j-AD6V4RVA" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When Windows can't find something, it does not exist.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><br /></p><p></p><p><br /></p><p>I would recommend those, that make a living with programs that run on their computer, to <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">stick with Windows 10</span></b>, particularly those that think they are forced to buy a new, expensive and more powerful computer to even get Windows 11 running. Windows users must hope that by the time Windows 10 support has come to an end that Microsoft will have repaired the current (December 2022) Windows 11 problems, because in its current state it is pretty much useless, to be honest. The only thing that I noticed is improved, is the stability of Bluetooth that does not drop the connection with devices every few minutes, like it did in Windows 10. But that is by far not enough to upgrade a Windows 11 system. It leaves Windows 11 users to wonder how long it will take Microsoft to sort out the problems or simply return to good old Windows 10.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Update December 23 2022</span></b></p><p>After exhaustingly having tried all suggestions presented on the web without luck, I ordered a <b><a href="https://www.allekabels.nl/usb-hub/174/1342127/usb-30-hub-10-poorten.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">10 port USB 3 hub</span></a></b> to connect the external drives, most of which were USB 3 drives. It raised the performance significantly and Windows 11 Actually recognized all disks instantly. This means that most of the problems mentioned in this article are related to deficient USB 2 hubs (which I used before) and drives, that are either not recognized by Windows 11 or fastidiously slow. I am still not convinced that Windows 11 outpaces Windows 10, but at least using the USB 3 hub resulted in a significant improvement. So, those troubled by Windows 11 not finding external USB drives, very slow opening of such drives, snail's pace editing of files or even hangs and crashes, make sure external drives are connected to USB 3, either directly to the computer or through a USB 3 hub.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKNXFwg9oyqGEFgr2j4gl9iMdgN8e-cInMS2MJFCEOy_gG5JtyWgWA6qWyQYSQLZRdV-XvWTl6BmWdJ2dhMrMOx1SjfZ2t2DJf_YeFTuoDLymv1Wgmmqyc70igur5R0_qNJdumJwCSU7QlX_ZkGWHdV5APNZmFCAYuh_e2rddVenM-egVJOLDmVqEBYQ/s748/10%20port%20USB-3.0-hub.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="748" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKNXFwg9oyqGEFgr2j4gl9iMdgN8e-cInMS2MJFCEOy_gG5JtyWgWA6qWyQYSQLZRdV-XvWTl6BmWdJ2dhMrMOx1SjfZ2t2DJf_YeFTuoDLymv1Wgmmqyc70igur5R0_qNJdumJwCSU7QlX_ZkGWHdV5APNZmFCAYuh_e2rddVenM-egVJOLDmVqEBYQ/w400-h393/10%20port%20USB-3.0-hub.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.allekabels.nl/usb-hub/174/1342127/usb-30-hub-10-poorten.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">€ 77,99 10 port, externally powered USB 3 hub</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>It remains odd though that Microsoft did not bother to make Windows 11 backward compatible. On the other hand that company demands hardware systems to meet requirements that force many of its users to upgrade their computer, find workarounds or even buy a new machine to be able to install Windows 11. In doing so, backward compatibility is thrown out of the Windows. Years earlier the world should have seen the obvious consequence of this policy coming when Microsoft fired most of its test engineers, that did the testing before a new upgrade or version was released and created the perfidious 'Insider Program', thereby basically making their clients the testers a.k.a. guineapigs, which probably boosted Microsoft's revenues, and let (would be) nerds do the testing for free, while giving those suckers the impression that they belong to some sort of 'elite'. They're the chosen ones alright - the chosen idiots. This type of crooked policy causes the rest of Windows users to wait longer for updates that contain more bugs. However, as long as Microsoft gets away with such tricks, it's no skin of their nose.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sCfbIYMCxuLIB941-x4TliwAV4SZRxQ7WY86s3gI6Nm6snWrTaLkMGpN1p1B1cfe4uNTX81l0w7gIuEfC4S7dXd5wEBxRMG-SPJJpju4a3ad-38fhkjXQ00SbHicGw5iZaUpbrOJThwUryFwfN7IAdzApEiVY7vOQlq7jBSVrdSBz-A2VT6KBNin2g/s678/HX90G.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="514" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9sCfbIYMCxuLIB941-x4TliwAV4SZRxQ7WY86s3gI6Nm6snWrTaLkMGpN1p1B1cfe4uNTX81l0w7gIuEfC4S7dXd5wEBxRMG-SPJJpju4a3ad-38fhkjXQ00SbHicGw5iZaUpbrOJThwUryFwfN7IAdzApEiVY7vOQlq7jBSVrdSBz-A2VT6KBNin2g/w304-h400/HX90G.png" width="304" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://store.minisforum.com/products/elitemini-hx90g?variant=43300585865461" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">€ 1200 64GB RAM Minisforum HX90Gwith a dedicated graphics card<br /></span></a> </td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>In the case of Windows 11 Microsoft has decided to enforce the purchase of new hardware on users in order to be able to run the new system - TPM, UEFI, secure boot and new versions of USB as concluded in this blog entry. It is a deal between corporations in the computing industry, just like when Apple banned Flash, that was used a lot in advertisements. Allegedly for security reasons, but Flash' replacement HTTP5 ads are much more difficult to block with native browser software and extensions, because it is built of the same type of code as that used to create websites, which is why the internet world of today is flooded with a horrendous load of obtrusive ads and annoying pop ups, that can't be blocked. So, I suspect that Microsoft will not be in a big hurry to fix the USB problem of Windows 11 any time soon. They will first have to reach the target on which the corporate cartel agreed, before they will be allowed to present a solution to the problem. This of course is all speculation from the far end of the twig to which I will nevertheless stick until Microsoft does what it is legally supposed to do, which is offering properly working products to paying customers. If that makes you feel like a bug tester for Microsoft, you probably are not far off the mark. Since the company ditched its department of professional testers, it has invented the 'Insider Program', which delegates the testing to the people that bought their platform. Such a measure probably is a good boost for Microsoft's profits, but for its users it's not so good, like outsourcing integral parts of an organization rarely is a good idea. Except for the bean counters of the company.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Update December 25 2022</span></b></p><p>The swansong about my of Windows 11 experience goes on. Watching a live performance of the brilliant band <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9ga793Mq2Q" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Cake</span></b></a>, it came to mind that it would be a good idea to install an equalizer and I ran into a site that suggested the Realtek driver, which I had used before in Windows 10 without a problem. <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Big mistake</span></b> on Windows 11. After installing the program it said the driver would not be active until I restarted my computer. After doing so my main monitor had disappeared. Looking in the Device Manager all of a sudden the driver of my GPU reported a problem. I uninstalled the driver and searched for new hardware, which the computer was unable to find. After uninstalling the Realtek driver, I was once again asked to restart the machine. And after the restart my main monitor had magically reappeared. That hints at the fact that the installation of the Realtek driver messed up the driver of my AMD Radeon RX 6600M and the <a href="https://github.com/TranslucentTB/TranslucentTB" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">TranslucentTB</span></b></a> program that allows to fiddle with the appearance of the Taskbar. Now this can probably not be entirely blamed to Windows 11, but the system gave no clues whatsoever of what was going on and how to correct the mistake. I guess if future civilizations 10,000 years from now dig up computer hardware and software of today, they will place this age along with the stone age. So, Windows 11 users, whatever you do, <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">DO NOT install the Realtek equalizer driver.</span></b></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Update Sept 16 2023</span></b></p><p>And what do you know, years after the release of Windows 11 Microsoft is getting 'serious' about <a href="https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-getting-serious-about-fixing-windows-11s-slow-file-explorer-freezes-crashes/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">File Explorer sluggishness, freezes and crashes</span></b></a>. The company should really be given a standing ovation for such an amazingly swift and professional response and, who knows, the promised improvement might even work this time. The bug has been known for years - Windows 11 runs SSD's at half their speed - but after such a long time, it just seems that Microsoft simply never bothered to do anything whatsoever about this utterly annoying problem. It makes users wonder: What on earth happened in the Microsoft developer department - did someone actually wake up? Or did they decide to tell their all powerful AI to solve an important issue instead of wasting its mind boggling prowess on useless trivia and unnecessary functions, that paled users' endlessly repeated request to please get rid of the damn bug. Developments of Microsoft's File Explorer debugging <a href="https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-bug-ironically-boosts-file-explorer-speed-making-things-load-instantly/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">get more weird by the day</span></b></a>: Some Reddit users say that pressing F11 to enter full screen in File Explorer and the pressing F11 again speeds up File Explorer performance multiple times while working in File Explorer, which may indicate that Microsofte really has no clue what can actually be done to cure the bug. Such unobvious 'workarounds' randomly discovered by imaginative users should not be necessary to improve Microsoft's lack of attention for fundamental functions of their platform. By the way, the improvement by using this trick is really marginal I found after trying it out, indicating that Microsoft has not yet solved the problem.</p><p>Run ViVeTool that is available on Github to get File Explorer with tabs, which is a feature that many users have been asking for for years without success. An other annoying bug is that users can set speakers or headphones as default sound source as often as they want, <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Windows 11 keeps going back to settings users do not want or get no sound at all</span></b>, until they define their preferred sound setting after putting their machine to sleep, restarting or shutting down. With all the prowess of the assistance of AI, it should not be too difficult to get rid of this bug, but it still exists. Don't bother to find help in the shipload of 'solutions' that are presented on forums all over the web - none of them work. It saves wasting a ton of time that could be spent more useful and it prevents a lot of frustration.</p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Update October 19 2023</span></b></p><p>According to the <a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-software-bitlocker-slows-performance" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">Tom's hardware</span></b></a> website, the slowness of Windows 11 file management is caused by the fact that the platform has Software Bitlocker encryption enabled. It slows down the speed of SSD's by up to 45 percent (!!!) and forces the CPU to decrypt and encrypt data each time data is retrieved or stored locally. This is a problem of Windows 11 Pro specifically, Windows 11 Home edition does not support Bitlocker, which is why it does not have the slowness problem. Running the Command Prompts as an Administrator '<b>manage-bde -status</b>' <span style="border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-style: initial; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit;">without the parenthesis, should show if your disks are encrypted or not. I ran this command and none of my disks were encrypted, but still the platform runs slow. Perhaps you have better luck than I do. The Samsung SSD's (the ones I use, unfortunately) seem to suffer the most from this. Other brands that do not use software Bitlocker do slightly less worse. The point is that Microsoft should work harder on this annoying matter and make all brands of SSD's run as fast as their producers claim they can run. The company has forced degraded SSD performance for Windows 11 Pro users. To disable Bitlocker Encryption run</span> '<b>manage-bde off C:</b>' in the Command Prompt as an Administrator for every drive that is connected to you system. In my case the Encryption was already off, so I continue to suffer from slow SSD performance until Microsoft comes up with a solution that actually works. Towards the end a solution is presented on aforementioned website (in the link in this paragraph) , which is an entirely fresh install of Windows 11 Pro and all the programs you have installed, after copying all the data of your disks before the installation and restoring them afterwards (....), which I do not have the time to do. Microsoft perhaps could have prevented this sad situation if it had not fired its entire professional testing department. But they did kick the team out and haven't yet repaired the problem.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-15075327296566176792022-12-06T00:09:00.015+01:002022-12-15T20:02:06.234+01:00Skinny dipping at night poem<p><br></p><p>At times, out of the blue, I become overwhelmed by poetic feelings. They urge me to step out of bed and write down what lingers in my mind. Here is an example of what such moods bring me to do. <span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Click the image</b></span> to see a larger version of it with better readability in Google's Lightbox. Enjoy.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8DF2qhN84pZHc536XDHiktaPICUsiSlCS3ixdxOvK_cSxedCDfi8RdUNUr4YYWofhmzcYejVCUCJMTM5d1EVnhnWM6H16ZXipVi1rP6QSPgp_ZYZqnBe7HwI5U255y7occePlubSUd68kM5pbSeqmxTTNheF0Ot8zeMkmU_8p-fx06Tt0OBJRyAOKA/s1140/Skinny%20dipping%20at%20night%202.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="713" data-original-width="1140" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8DF2qhN84pZHc536XDHiktaPICUsiSlCS3ixdxOvK_cSxedCDfi8RdUNUr4YYWofhmzcYejVCUCJMTM5d1EVnhnWM6H16ZXipVi1rP6QSPgp_ZYZqnBe7HwI5U255y7occePlubSUd68kM5pbSeqmxTTNheF0Ot8zeMkmU_8p-fx06Tt0OBJRyAOKA/w400-h250/Skinny%20dipping%20at%20night%202.png" width="400"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinny dipping at night</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br></div><div>Today, December 8, the number of visitors to this blog past the 160,000 mark, which is over three packed Johan Cruijff Arena stadiums in Amsterdam. It a small number nevertheless, but a milestone for me for a certain reason, since this day is special to me in more than one respect.</div><br><div style="text-align: center;"><br></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-25476905118137945902022-12-04T19:56:00.050+01:002023-09-18T00:40:37.449+02:00Occult image retouching experiment<p> </p><p>Affinity Designer is the program I use most from the Affinity suit and I haven't yet done a lot with Affinity Photo. So I thought it was time to do a little experimenting. I found an <a href="https://external-preview.redd.it/9I-vkgn_lbPPSRos6ylHVEIrXkw88M_rPQhyNwAa4sQ.jpg?auto=webp&s=a6efccbf50032f8b7d50ca6ee8d0494fb5f2c37e" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">image of an occult statue</span></b></a> on line, that intrigued me and used it to retouch it to my personal preference. I narrowed its wings and changed its face somewhat (among other things). As I wrote on <a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/Pixel.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">my website</span></b></a>, I am not a fluffy clouds and pink bunnies type of person, that I think reflect the denial of the perverted 'reality' in this dimension into which life was thrown. People's <a href="https://medium.com/@shameemanwar.sa/comfort-zone-a-dangerous-delusion-2f4e675494f3" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">comfort zones</span></b></a> for centuries have been squeezed into a infinitesimal bag of imposed rubble in which there is no room for the truth, because the high brow perverts and liars plan it to be a 'reality' controlled by <a href="https://www.inc.com/matthew-jones/the-ultimate-secret-about-life-that-no-one-wants-you-to-know.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">those who keep the illusion</span></b></a>.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="555" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsMhr3ejgrPlD67aKdvClaMvufd-gHkW9N0xIsYML1WwS7Bsb6wQp_Fe2lfg-w0sJm7k23IrTtaasY5BGpONjMlFKHL3_PzhH38ofLu3MzkyMIoSFrpEHszj93gZuSZ6Vnt-bLQNa_EZ6cExh1CmziwkhMBeIZI6jRkM6B9Gbl_TOg1uPSkUYrA_UEg/w356-h640/Occult%20statue%2006.png" width="356" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I have to practice more with Affinity Photo, which I will do when I have more time. Being a vector drawing aficionado this type of work is a little out of my comfort zone, but looking outside of it probably is a good thing to do in this life, bearing in mind that many matters obviously are intentionally induced and imposed, which of course has an unknown purpose that does not necessarily concur with my intuition. To keep people thinking within the allowed space of reason a meticulously crafted comfort zone must be maintained that limits the people's perception; anyone who oversteps the limits of that zone is a danger to the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/211418" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">hidden purpose</span></b></a> against whom measures have to be taken so that his or her explorations beyond the allowed limits will not be shared with fellow open minded ones.<div><br /></div><div>The plethora of organizations that perpetually issue a deluge of dogmas, laws and <a href="https://www.cityam.com/coalition-hasn-t-halted-deluge-new-rules/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">rules</span></b></a> that they insist that people adhere to and obey, can not be the true purpose of life. People are born to be independent and allowed to think critically in order to develop an awareness with which they can find their way though space and time, that is hindered by increasingly strict policies that feel like traps put in place to do the bidding of those that do not want mankind to ever reach the outer boundaries of its <a href="https://susanrosenthal.com/capitalism/the-infinite-potential-of-the-human-mind/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">potential</span></b></a>, which is immeasurably rich and huge, but very <a href="https://www.wimhofmethod.com/practice-the-method" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">difficult to achieve</span></b></a> in this dimension.</div><div><br /></div><div>So whether this image shows a representative of one the powers that suppress human potential or not is for those to decide that want to think open-mindedly and independently. It probably sends them on a <a href="http://www.stephenhprovost.com/on-life/not-fitting-in" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">rough ride</span></b></a>, but that is what this dimension presents them. Perhaps there are other realms that do not limit man's potential in cruel and ruthless ways. Clinging to imposed comfort zone's limiting rubble gets no one anywhere, except into the venues of this world that is enforcing limitation and paradox.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p></div>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-61020311920644460762022-11-30T11:14:00.048+01:002022-12-04T19:36:20.408+01:00Art Nouveau practice drawing 01<p><br /></p><p>I've always been attracted to Art Nouveau imagery, particularly that of the utterly brilliant <a href="http://www.muchafoundation.org/en/gallery" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Alphonse Mucha</span></b></a>, who is largely accredited for starting that appealing movement, although he did not like the word movement. I wanted to wrap my mind around the specific aspects of the craft of which this practice drawing is the first attempt. I plan to do more Art Nouveau all vector drawings in the future, unlike this image that contains both vector and bitmap embedded files, because this image is a mere test. Technically this image is some sort of blend of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, the latter being the successor of the first art movement, I guess.</p>Alphonse Mucha was a gifted graphic designer, an illustrator and (sadly) also under appreciated painter, who deserves much more acclaim for his oil paintings than he has been given so far. His work in each of these categories is characterized by amazing technical skill and a keen eye for well balanced, appealing compositions. Even in his incredibly detailed black and white line art he was able to create a stunning - almost Rembrandt like (....) - play between light and dark areas of his work. An oversight of his mind blowing art oeuvre you find <a href="http://www.muchafoundation.org/en/gallery/browse-works" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">here</span></b></a>. A documentary about the interesting man Mucha was, you find <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wZ4kFH234&t=2041s" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">here</span></b></a>. And his son recounting aspects of Mucha's life you find <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ray6-y33kjg" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">here</span></b></a>.<div><br /></div><div>In his graphic (poster) art Mucha exclusively drew with colour pencils and painted with water colours) beautiful women, because they are much more pleasing to watch than men and this type of work served to earn him a living. In some of his work symbolism has a more or less dominant presence, with which Mucha was familiar since he had at some point in his life become a freemason. His outlandish skill allowed him to integrate symbols in a subtle yet unique and stunning way, which makes his art rise above and beyond the compartmentalization that linear time relentlessly imposes on life.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the 60's of the previous century Art Nouveau experienced a revival, be it in different forms for different purposes, but this originally and essentially commercial type of art's appeal has never faded, because figurative beauty simply never starts to bore audiences that don't know of or don't care about the opinions of a certain variety of prejudiced art critics and 'experts'.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later in life Mucha decided to return to his area of birth Moravia, that today is part of the Czech republic, to dedicate his art to the Slav history and culture. When the German troops invaded what was then Czechoslovakia in the second world war, the Gestapo almost immediately arrested (the patriot) Mucha, who was in his seventies at the time, but they released him a few days later. Mucha was already ill then and a few months after his arrest he passed away.<br /><p><span face="Inter, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"" style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi839X5vZHN3l-Zvhji9J6p43if_hVvEwJstlxChvXVxF9C2qEhi0rGFMNMtACZ84e52Ka9l38GivFHYtb-YVXfZ50MKo158vHaQ5rjlw2v8biahyC9qtyws9W7AANzoaMVYDPtR86DbpQ1j5SNQYYUIN-KnghqOfa3cmKHci1V0B9oPVfwstlaUOhwew/s999/Poster%2003%20-%2006.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi839X5vZHN3l-Zvhji9J6p43if_hVvEwJstlxChvXVxF9C2qEhi0rGFMNMtACZ84e52Ka9l38GivFHYtb-YVXfZ50MKo158vHaQ5rjlw2v8biahyC9qtyws9W7AANzoaMVYDPtR86DbpQ1j5SNQYYUIN-KnghqOfa3cmKHci1V0B9oPVfwstlaUOhwew/s16000/Poster%2003%20-%2006.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The composite drawing</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT_FBILHA30kpk2f5vCM66Rzld1WXfeyCDX4IlqIP-Pi6Bhm6BxxMbbU3blojSODika2K1bwEoag4s_3V7Dhd1J_aT1FQTgh6JFaDaXTh-VRioBGsga0EXhMlaqvy7zgU8GkQ2vDm0q3TWcDOKVixKqBs907-83_f6LeWXuW7fanxZ8konLFqfKJAGjw/s740/Stylized%20flower%203%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT_FBILHA30kpk2f5vCM66Rzld1WXfeyCDX4IlqIP-Pi6Bhm6BxxMbbU3blojSODika2K1bwEoag4s_3V7Dhd1J_aT1FQTgh6JFaDaXTh-VRioBGsga0EXhMlaqvy7zgU8GkQ2vDm0q3TWcDOKVixKqBs907-83_f6LeWXuW7fanxZ8konLFqfKJAGjw/s320/Stylized%20flower%203%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Embedded flower motive</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCzlsXADQdZ2AlCjoem8y5FEGx6CFW9ANHRliKnsombxOm0TW0xRRPVkXfOyGtaAY58le6Nz7434XnDC-Fw452xcoGtdMPvMYEGbQTWLurI1MKg1D1lR7wb07qIIsYPI9E6L9wj07jR8CODF-g99HHID810So8Pj0j5fTgdRQ3yhybcrfyFhHhnsUB3A/s740/Mandala%2001.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCzlsXADQdZ2AlCjoem8y5FEGx6CFW9ANHRliKnsombxOm0TW0xRRPVkXfOyGtaAY58le6Nz7434XnDC-Fw452xcoGtdMPvMYEGbQTWLurI1MKg1D1lR7wb07qIIsYPI9E6L9wj07jR8CODF-g99HHID810So8Pj0j5fTgdRQ3yhybcrfyFhHhnsUB3A/w400-h400/Mandala%2001.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mandala background</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The images above are part of my first attempt to mimic the essence of Art Nouveau works. They are created in Affinity Designer version 2, that oddly crashed on me once in this relatively simple image. I am not sure if it is Designer or the Windows system that is to be blamed for the crash, but the directory I had just created, to store my Art Nouveau artwork, did not give me full access, which was likely the cause for the crash. After changing the access permission I experienced no more crashing. I experienced a similar type of problem when trying to install Affinity Designer version 2, which is kind of weird. i described it several blog entries ago - '<a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2022/11/serif-released-version-2-of-affinity.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Serif released version 2 of the Affinity programs</span></b></a>'. So, for Windows users of this program, this may be a thing they should perhaps check before they start to draw, particularly since I read threads on the forum about the Affinity version 2 programs crashing and having problems saving files.<br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-78948406849368172302022-11-15T23:45:00.119+01:002022-12-24T18:32:01.092+01:00Continuing jaguar illustration in Affinity Designer 2<p> </p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Crashes, crashes, crashes!<br /></b></span>After having too many crashes and freezes in the high potential VectorStyler with the <a href="http://www.pure-spirit.com/more-animal-symbolism/306-jaguar-symbolism" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">jaguar</span></b></a> illustration I continued it in the newly released Affinity Designer 2 to test out this new release with more intensity. I crashed three times in Designer 2, but the first time I was offered to open a backup file that did not appear to have lost too many data. The second time no such option was presented. Restarting after the third crash, offered to load a recovery file, but a lot of work was lost. Upon re-opening the document crashed in the same way and it was not possible to save whatever was newly drawn.</p><p>Perhaps this is due to the fact that already in this relatively early stage - stage 1 - there are a ton of objects, to all of which several effects were applied. As mentioned in the previous blog entries, my computer is from before the Jurassic era, which may also be part of the crash problem. But probably there is also something not right with the software.</p><p>Whatever may be the case, here is the continuation of the art I started in VectorStyler. I exported the file as an .svg and opened it in Affinity Designer to take it from there. In the imported .svg, all shape blurring was removed, but some of the ripple distortion had remained in tact. I was relieved, because this meant that I only had to make a few minor adjustments.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>First experience in making a complex vector drawing in Designer 2<br /></b></span>Drawing in Affinity Designer 2 doesn't feel much different from the previous versions - I installed all the previous Beta versions - apart from the coloured icons in the toolbar, the rearranged functions in the <i><b>fx</b></i> dialog box and the changed layout of the Layers panel, as I've noticed so far. From the tools added to version 2, I only used the 4 point distortion, which at times needs a refresh by zooming in and out again and and the shape builder tool to adjust a spot. A vector ripple distortion tool like in VectorStyler would have been useful to apply to the spots in the fur in this drawing; in Affinity Designer I had to apply the distortions manually with the pen and node tools. </p><p>As usual the newest stage will be placed on top and the oldest one at the bottom. <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">On a PC or Mac, click on an image and scroll through the images using the mouse wheel and quickly shift through the images to see the difference between the various stages</span></b>. Additional comments below the image captions.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5yXojAfJp6y743WkRK72HUENrUq12t-ZK-UEv3dd-DGMkMC4iHn4K0DtJxqTxv9R77JKjh4Srupvbe54tUu8WHY2w0h0L9Ezf0yQZ5XcbKrsxXGgLArnqmCglEJmCo0lRBf692N9tGjA8_tTR6EchnfXfAXRSicnYo32kTFmf87eC-8kRwp-cnK0EQ/s1644/Jag%20in%20river%2036%20-%20HDR%20-%201644%20x%20999.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="1644" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5yXojAfJp6y743WkRK72HUENrUq12t-ZK-UEv3dd-DGMkMC4iHn4K0DtJxqTxv9R77JKjh4Srupvbe54tUu8WHY2w0h0L9Ezf0yQZ5XcbKrsxXGgLArnqmCglEJmCo0lRBf692N9tGjA8_tTR6EchnfXfAXRSicnYo32kTFmf87eC-8kRwp-cnK0EQ/w400-h243/Jag%20in%20river%2036%20-%20HDR%20-%201644%20x%20999.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 10 - added the texture base. Somehow the old<br />machine did not crash after drawing the previous stage.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: left;">The jag's tail was reworked, its left eye was made slightly bigger and the base for the fur texture was added (experimenting with this, because it must be vector only). No 'vector' brushes, no symbols and no patterns were used, because they are not real vectors, which are among the sadly still missing functions in Affinity Designer version 2. My outdated machine is barely able to keep up, but surprisingly did not crash during this stage. Exporting the file to .png however took an eternity. The original size of the drawing is: 3735 x 2270 pixel, because I have vague plans to have this drawing hi-res giclée printed on aluminium covered with a high quality lacker layer. The image placed on this site is smaller and therefore contains less detail than the original.</p><div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSggfk0g-OAGWd2NeFWjTwrSOA78t4-1OVGNXsN0g2LNY5e6H53x_msaDFzLK_Fx4LXAJ4GuYEUy78d3kMARbtMFMpdHl6YeP7JwqezIOjEpj8vn8wb8TDJlPWL5mi9erLcs-pq38LfKjAgOIMt3LrggTCh2UXa_Ze9RQWAPBH1CYowaBblPlaMmQ80w/s1644/Jag%20in%20river%2029%20-%20HDR.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="1644" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSggfk0g-OAGWd2NeFWjTwrSOA78t4-1OVGNXsN0g2LNY5e6H53x_msaDFzLK_Fx4LXAJ4GuYEUy78d3kMARbtMFMpdHl6YeP7JwqezIOjEpj8vn8wb8TDJlPWL5mi9erLcs-pq38LfKjAgOIMt3LrggTCh2UXa_Ze9RQWAPBH1CYowaBblPlaMmQ80w/w400-h243/Jag%20in%20river%2029%20-%20HDR.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div>Stage 9 - tedious face fur detail drawing.</div><div>Crashed only once (....)</div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Although weary of crashes, began drawing the fur texture in the face of the jag, for which I used a number of tricks that I may explain in a separate blog entry somewhere in the future. No vector brushes were used whatsoever, because these are bitmaps drawn along a vector stroke, so no real vectors. The new X-ray view in Affinity Designer is quite useful to select objects in a drawing that contains many objects. This drawing is 100% vector. The old machine is behaving above expectation and I crashed only one time....<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQLXGcdHoSRxNfGz_nF3aeOntj4rtBp-_KyKtGwdIUKtK1WjOn4RbofoPvu0xzOkUgj57cFwIP1RWfptqkctqkGQYF5SKghCBx9ncll0gIk2fw9RiFwRM7bOyBE9VB7uuKVl16-IZ3lKjq2bYlWErdOx2zGwqxi8gOSZ8ii44rJtMvlT8EGwKGc5C60Q/s1920/Face%20texture%20detail%2002.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQLXGcdHoSRxNfGz_nF3aeOntj4rtBp-_KyKtGwdIUKtK1WjOn4RbofoPvu0xzOkUgj57cFwIP1RWfptqkctqkGQYF5SKghCBx9ncll0gIk2fw9RiFwRM7bOyBE9VB7uuKVl16-IZ3lKjq2bYlWErdOx2zGwqxi8gOSZ8ii44rJtMvlT8EGwKGc5C60Q/w400-h225/Face%20texture%20detail%2002.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Started to draw the face fur texture detail - stage 9</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-FuCb-8-zlQpJDXnCihtkd1j5i0wqRYxIWxEwSYeuIN5fWgOtSWC__tH-cnq6KB9RT35Ei5etqMF-m9WbkznfkkI8cfAslhPIiBrq93mObwjWMqgVB_wc8pWNQoHEmb4aHR6T8k5QD4YVXVXw-Tyh74_8Ikp-aF3byEdk9y9PM4SDqWFYyGGiCBkxaw/s1180/Face%20texture%20detail%2001%20-%20vector%20outline.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="1180" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-FuCb-8-zlQpJDXnCihtkd1j5i0wqRYxIWxEwSYeuIN5fWgOtSWC__tH-cnq6KB9RT35Ei5etqMF-m9WbkznfkkI8cfAslhPIiBrq93mObwjWMqgVB_wc8pWNQoHEmb4aHR6T8k5QD4YVXVXw-Tyh74_8Ikp-aF3byEdk9y9PM4SDqWFYyGGiCBkxaw/w400-h251/Face%20texture%20detail%2001%20-%20vector%20outline.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the vector outline view of the image right above this one.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9p1xeF8HzjC28vc2CZ0OfmXlnSMYKMXgCVA3xKfbgigAlxspG67e_vRgIVPqIJ6p2CeBE7XSNsgSHP2hbpAOikhkz4ST5PeMKPKxcau7kMIw3XvLoJtMlp8AuWB72kEj9_VeZ17YBflA82H6fxvXGrQtOmoRFP-mizPL9W-AE1cASjElOBe88-K3hSQ/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2023.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9p1xeF8HzjC28vc2CZ0OfmXlnSMYKMXgCVA3xKfbgigAlxspG67e_vRgIVPqIJ6p2CeBE7XSNsgSHP2hbpAOikhkz4ST5PeMKPKxcau7kMIw3XvLoJtMlp8AuWB72kEj9_VeZ17YBflA82H6fxvXGrQtOmoRFP-mizPL9W-AE1cASjElOBe88-K3hSQ/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2023.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Did some work on the reflections on the water surface<br />in this 8th stage. No crashes fortunately this round.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I could not leave the project alone, so I cautiously proceeded., hoping the crashing would not occur. After having received a tip from Stuart RC on the affinity forum to use the pencil tool for certain aspects of the image, I was able to speed up the drawing process considerably. Never used the tool before, so I guess I underestimated its usefulness. Also did detail the jag's hair in the ear areas.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5qgT7Ie0hZCYIDdehOBlGoAYzZeMxcOliFFBADYZLAd0WdFs2aGfmDweCxz4MXfcnGBWcsatD9wiyaSJNJMI6VxfdQYYKN3aBxf65V07kHUTHMqdeRm2C3C3IUO7bCpvNETC1cDgq_s0lXqx2HWFUyNMqzZeEhrunhWl6D3RwDu0jFncWQ14GlzC8g/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2020.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5qgT7Ie0hZCYIDdehOBlGoAYzZeMxcOliFFBADYZLAd0WdFs2aGfmDweCxz4MXfcnGBWcsatD9wiyaSJNJMI6VxfdQYYKN3aBxf65V07kHUTHMqdeRm2C3C3IUO7bCpvNETC1cDgq_s0lXqx2HWFUyNMqzZeEhrunhWl6D3RwDu0jFncWQ14GlzC8g/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2020.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">7th stage - an other crash in Designer 2. I was given an option<br />to open a recovery file, but much data was lost. To make things<br />worse, the crashing continued after opening the recovery files.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Yet an other crash in Affinity Designer 2 when editing the water surface of the river and foliage in the background. I have become careful and save the file after drawing every new object; still more data than that was lost. In spite of all these annoyances, I got the base of the water and background done. A bug I detected was that when area objects that were given a Gaussian blur overlap a weird line displays in the contour of the overlapped object.<br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDt1NlIE_o8a6wMAy6QHQBRbct1aDdDdtOl1CzDvPKZcYtYkHcusAuT9JRxF3iEccBD0k2Y3DhcfPOal3jGL2SK9kMT4cp7_1c0s1-u3_1FgFhj23RaQekYMRTziAgxp98DUiQhnJjxNdBs-XgzDRlywsgF_kmb3jyRAo_QsJUGcQECGfNuSAdqkY11g/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2019.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDt1NlIE_o8a6wMAy6QHQBRbct1aDdDdtOl1CzDvPKZcYtYkHcusAuT9JRxF3iEccBD0k2Y3DhcfPOal3jGL2SK9kMT4cp7_1c0s1-u3_1FgFhj23RaQekYMRTziAgxp98DUiQhnJjxNdBs-XgzDRlywsgF_kmb3jyRAo_QsJUGcQECGfNuSAdqkY11g/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2019.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detailing of spots and whiskers - sixth stage</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: left;">So far so good; no crashes in Affinity Designer 2 anymore. Made several minor changes to the various shapes, like changing the contours and colour adjustment. I also added the whiskers with adjusted stroke properties and mild Gaussian blur. Pussycat is starting to come alive on its way to kill.</p><div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqqmmB3jpfaLS57UAyq4IDZSGodDeyY1KidFF4uewZjN8v6RNdVF4ZbpFq-nJhsGsLl9wjLpMl0-qtbLtdtmgCYO3OT3E0lrc4lPYgImNPGIjX7TYg2wB5vml9GlcpSKsCLBpa2wbSDMnFJyCCD6z3vJEamoN7XcpJ_Lx2JPKB_LsVRFSLMq_oRNLrKQ/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2017.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqqmmB3jpfaLS57UAyq4IDZSGodDeyY1KidFF4uewZjN8v6RNdVF4ZbpFq-nJhsGsLl9wjLpMl0-qtbLtdtmgCYO3OT3E0lrc4lPYgImNPGIjX7TYg2wB5vml9GlcpSKsCLBpa2wbSDMnFJyCCD6z3vJEamoN7XcpJ_Lx2JPKB_LsVRFSLMq_oRNLrKQ/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2017.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coming along nicely without crashing in fifth stage.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The biggest pain - drawing all the spots without having a ripple distortion available - is now behind me. What is left is drawing of shadows' lighter areas and accents and tweaking them. Plus the reflections and colouring of the water ripples of course. In reality - to be safe - I have so far saved 17 files of this image, including those drawn in VectorStyler before switching to Affinity Designer. The Aomei on the fly backup system will hopefully prevent data loss.<br /><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgYcx5C_HxSWE_sYjcD0yhhlmJaIq8A_eWCmZB3c22PbU79mxFunBTxp-t_QQKHKsbfqGYPfmEOJ_GiwtSp4joLAeSzZO_lMtdKwQdqrl7xhoWuTRPoCY13oCaKaXyXsT4WB1tFcB23Wn0p40pebDj76m8MjLAJS_1WQ-mQlkGMF6dkh3O9HwpDbKxsQ/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2016.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgYcx5C_HxSWE_sYjcD0yhhlmJaIq8A_eWCmZB3c22PbU79mxFunBTxp-t_QQKHKsbfqGYPfmEOJ_GiwtSp4joLAeSzZO_lMtdKwQdqrl7xhoWuTRPoCY13oCaKaXyXsT4WB1tFcB23Wn0p40pebDj76m8MjLAJS_1WQ-mQlkGMF6dkh3O9HwpDbKxsQ/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2016.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Continuing to spotify and balance the colours in fourth stage.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The quality of portraits is defined by their appeal, which is determined by the intensity and tone of its accents. Subtle changes can impact the impression that an observer gets in a way that is disproportional to the extent of the change. They have to be balanced in combination with the tweaks of their environment. Trying to do this properly, so that the cat comes alive, so that its murderous mindset becomes tangible.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3rpZChqxUIFvGsjTOFtnCn4g1dA_3it3YNABpiPoByF89aaU2w2947tfiraTde39CzDxWo8vtNeGJ2N5c-YTSTL_jIBpRGiumhYSEj8CWnYp6icBCJEojeq6G_V-Ff7tIkCQVuRZMAbQfWq2D7uTIEXDIjIAJq5d7AK1_9hWnHqeMQwGeqEuD8pIYg/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2014.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3rpZChqxUIFvGsjTOFtnCn4g1dA_3it3YNABpiPoByF89aaU2w2947tfiraTde39CzDxWo8vtNeGJ2N5c-YTSTL_jIBpRGiumhYSEj8CWnYp6icBCJEojeq6G_V-Ff7tIkCQVuRZMAbQfWq2D7uTIEXDIjIAJq5d7AK1_9hWnHqeMQwGeqEuD8pIYg/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2014.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Affinity Designer version 2 <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">crashed for the second time</span> </b>in<br />this third stage. Complexity apparently is difficult<br />to process for my struggling old machine</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The abundance of spots have a shedload of nodes. I sometimes think that today we are still in the stone age of computing, in spite of what manufacturers want us to believe. At least that would probably be what people from a far away future think of man's current achievements in this field. I was not presented with the option to re-open a backup file this time, so I guess I have to see what happens from here on with working in this 100% vector image. Keeping my fingers crossed is the only option I have until my new, more powerful rig arrives.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2V9Bp5WQo2Qzf6B1Y90Cle3nVetZ_vwgsQKp8C9Le9hs7eH9nps4rexjyTO8axpPOvcSeUFnqPDLG5NAPoD772NxbaLGNeyd5C8JMKbbssH2JYW08tS7D_5gyV5xap9G93KFyOmAhw-PbnQ87o5OGuAHmOqBy137nFRL5zuHcJBAZt1_Szb6hMb7w3w/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2013.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2V9Bp5WQo2Qzf6B1Y90Cle3nVetZ_vwgsQKp8C9Le9hs7eH9nps4rexjyTO8axpPOvcSeUFnqPDLG5NAPoD772NxbaLGNeyd5C8JMKbbssH2JYW08tS7D_5gyV5xap9G93KFyOmAhw-PbnQ87o5OGuAHmOqBy137nFRL5zuHcJBAZt1_Szb6hMb7w3w/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2013.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">Many more spots to go - stage 2</div></span><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">I think I didn't miss a spot yet ....</div></span><div style="text-align: left;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Imagine, in the jag's DNA code is included each and every coordinate of every single hair, its colour, length and type. It makes drawing a vector image of the big cat a walk in the park by comparison, however tedious drawing may be. For the final stages I will have to use my Huion tablet to draw the (dark, medium and light) hairs to make the jag's fur look more realistic.<p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmZtMAQpCeThFj5klQ7TNfgfvd0rF5tBtk5wj_puVE-w3w0yiTn45Pbi5Xt3RaV9xLMnFePJj_3RG6EBDPpXOhffAzgH6augCAVl9GXv22opGimGqadaBryw8E39eSMNe1BlC2d5bZP_LSK_BqyNROAEysRoLxISTNCwiinsnsO7NPwWMnM4ZHxhDJA/s1240/Jag%20in%20river%2012.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1240" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmZtMAQpCeThFj5klQ7TNfgfvd0rF5tBtk5wj_puVE-w3w0yiTn45Pbi5Xt3RaV9xLMnFePJj_3RG6EBDPpXOhffAzgH6augCAVl9GXv22opGimGqadaBryw8E39eSMNe1BlC2d5bZP_LSK_BqyNROAEysRoLxISTNCwiinsnsO7NPwWMnM4ZHxhDJA/w400-h235/Jag%20in%20river%2012.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First stage after the transfer from VectorStyler.<br />Strewing spots all over the hunting feline.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The jag's image, drawn in VectorStyler, still looks weird in this stage, similar to the early stages of almost anything else, which hints at the fact that from weirdness often coherent appearance comes. With so few objects or shapes drawn, it is hard to properly balance anything. So, I progress as fast as possible to leave this initial stage behind me.</div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><br /></div></div>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-5812786455154620762022-11-12T18:44:00.130+01:002022-12-24T00:22:18.385+01:00Serif released version 2 of the Affinity programs<p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Introduction<br /></span></b>Apart from raving reviews about Affinity's version 2 update by users that have not encountered difficulty installing the programs, there are <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">installation problems for a number of users of the Windows platform</span></b> that should not have occurred. After having waited for a long time to be able to download an upgrade that was not a Beta version, expectations of version 2 were quite high and running into problems installing the programs caught me and many other users by surprise. In this blog entry I will offer a constructive contribution to (temporarily) resolve this problem, expecting a company release soon that will enable successful installation, this being a situation that Serif must put behind them as soon as possible.</p><p>On the Affinity forum several work arounds have been suggested, most of which do not work for most users struck by the problem, which tempts people like me to search for other solutions that actually do work. Below you find one that resolved the problem I ran into, although I am aware that changes in the installation code have to be applied in order to avoid users having to apply work arounds or figure out themselves what to do, to install the version 2 programs of the Affinity suit successfully right out of the box. In this blog entry I will focus on Affinity Designer predominantly, since it is the suit's program that I used most often.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Programs will not install<br /></span></b>The long awaited release of version 2 of Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher has recently taken place. I purchased and downloaded them from the Affinity forum, but when I tried to install them I received a message that the installation was cancelled because an error occurred in <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">parsing the apps</span></b> (all three of them). The file format of the installation was msix. When browsing the forum I soon learned that this affected other users too. Several possible solutions were offered by the mods and advanced users, but none of them cured the problem for me. Later I downloaded the apps from the Microsoft Store, which was the beginning of a solution, since at least .exe-files were placed in <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">WindowsApp</span></b> directory in the Windows User directory, which isn't the location where Windows users, accustomed to the traditional installation process would expect the files to be placed.</p><p>The programs would only open by right clicking the .exe-file from the WindowsApp directory in the system disk and choosing the run as administrator option. They would not start from the Start menu or from the shortcut icons that I placed on the Taskbar. Also I was unable to open files I had drawn in the older Beta versions by dragging them from Windows Filemanager onto the desktop of the programs.</p><p>When diving into the problem at a certain point I discovered that the properties of the Affinity (sub)directories in the WindowsApps directory displayed a message that the <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Permission file was corrupted</span></b> (in <b><span style="color: red;">bold red type</span></b>). I set the permissions to <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">full control for myself</span></b> and after that the programs opened without using the Run As Administrator command, from both the Start menu and the shortcuts I placed on the Taskbar.</p><p>Apparently the .msix files interfered with the user permissions of the Affinity (sub)directories in the WindowsApps directory, necessary to run the programs properly. This directory is located at C:\Users\UserName\Downloads on a Windows 10 system, in which the Affinity programs are in directories with the following name: <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">affinity-designer-2.0.0.msix</span></b>, in this case for Designer. After running the exe-files from this directory users are prompted to one time fill in their Affinity ID information and the programs appear in the Start menu from where they can be pinned to the Taskbar. Fortunately this problem does not affect all users, but to those that encounter this problem, it is a rather painful disappointment. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHcwGWYl34sgOL9E-CdOVntaZFnUUNm_lRSJITFBUbU3yPkz1eH2Atdu7XS7txV-KxxQLvE85-RMojeql7KZJU4PVqGlWqPfND6vIc7BvQoDq7eoZuipKabqYYMkemPNkgqVjbHA7iTkOkrEzWp03tz2A5WA2vvO4e9W7ICqc_rjgW45M169iRzaoodQ/s587/Affinity%20Designer%202%20Start%20screen.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="587" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHcwGWYl34sgOL9E-CdOVntaZFnUUNm_lRSJITFBUbU3yPkz1eH2Atdu7XS7txV-KxxQLvE85-RMojeql7KZJU4PVqGlWqPfND6vIc7BvQoDq7eoZuipKabqYYMkemPNkgqVjbHA7iTkOkrEzWp03tz2A5WA2vvO4e9W7ICqc_rjgW45M169iRzaoodQ/w400-h306/Affinity%20Designer%202%20Start%20screen.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Affinity Designer 2 start up screen</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">First impressions<br /></span></b>I had become curious to the functionality increase of the version 2 programs after watching various Youtube videos that featured them and I must say I was happy to try them. There still are functions missing in Designer that are included in programs of the competition - such as the Mesh gradient tool (which I personally do not miss), the vector trace tool (that I never use), the shape blender tool (which would be nice), the vector eraser and liquify tools and the stroke width tool to name just a few, but overall the upgrades work well and I think they are somewhat worth the money, though Serif could have included more new tools. There is a temporary discount for buying all programs in the suit, a package deal, which is why I hesitantly decided to upgrade. It is a <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">€120 one time payment</span></b> - no subscription fee - for the entire suit, by the way.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnm5lVNCttwGsfyArXu-zimNc_NYSEQz3dOJA_RSuYWWfLJUHYt19CTTC_k7Ac4UMDVPq4fgDV1j7A_Z2DMqzRwYnHptb15Rqk3XRt41r265P_nPXWXEjzEB3kn2M4EyWhcajhR2vKSqOhCFDselQKcGJUnMX7VxMhGMuWWkjNCKElzSmKB_VNC0ZM9Q/s587/Affinity%20Photo%20version%202%20start%20screens.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="587" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnm5lVNCttwGsfyArXu-zimNc_NYSEQz3dOJA_RSuYWWfLJUHYt19CTTC_k7Ac4UMDVPq4fgDV1j7A_Z2DMqzRwYnHptb15Rqk3XRt41r265P_nPXWXEjzEB3kn2M4EyWhcajhR2vKSqOhCFDselQKcGJUnMX7VxMhGMuWWkjNCKElzSmKB_VNC0ZM9Q/w400-h306/Affinity%20Photo%20version%202%20start%20screens.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Affinity Photo 2 start up screen</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The shape builder tool is a long awaited function that the devs added, the knife / scissors tool as well and the versatile warp tool are absolutely great. In addition the UI has been improved, in particular the Layers panel. Check out the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Affinitybyserif" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Affinity channel</span></b></a> on Youtube, The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@AffinityRevolution" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Affinity Revolution channel</span></b></a>, The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/BrownBearProductions" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Brown Bear channel</span></b></a>, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW6sqZp8xtw" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Design made simple channel</span></b></a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/OlivioSarikas" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Olivio Sarkas' channel</span></b></a>, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYoEYdSic1c" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Games From Scratch channel</span></b></a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz8xGJwOiJs" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Kru Mark's channel</span></b></a> to get an idea of what the version 2 upgrade is all about. All these persons did an excellent job of exploring the version 2 programs from their own perspective, providing arguments for users to upgrade or not.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">The problems for the developers<br /></span></b>Kru Mark compares the upgrade to the functionality of Affinity's competition and there still are some tools missing that are included in Illustrator and Inkscape for instance, but for the <a href="https://vectorwhiz.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">type of work I create</span></b></a>, they are not crucial. I am aware of the fact however, that there are users that would benefit from the missing functions as mentioned by Kru Mark. The improvements the devs actually did include in this version are a welcome addition and perhaps other improvements will be included in the upcoming Beta versions. But not including them in this version, is somewhat of a missed opportunity.</p><p>I think Serif was under a lot of pressure to release version 2, because it has been a rather long time since they released the previous upgrade, but I assume the stability of the programs in the suit is a major prerequisite, meaning more time and effort goes into programming and testing. But because <a href="https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/164667-is-affinity-dead/#:~:text=Sorry%2C%20we%20are%20focussing%20our,But%20no%20not%20dead." target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Serif did not provide any information</span></b></a> why the upgrade took so long, some users wondered if Affinity was dead...., a situation that could have been avoided by keeping users up to date concerning the development of version 2. Had Serif come up with buggy programs in its suit it might have resulted in a bad reputation that is extremely difficult to repair and therefore bad for business. Also the necessity of coding 3 programs to the next upgrade level simultaneously, may have accounted for the lengthy upgrade interval. </p><p>Perhaps because of all these factors, the pressure on the devs in the Serif office was a bit too high, which may have resulted in the aforementioned installation problems, that could in fact be caused by Microsoft's installation policy, requiring companies to use the .msix files instead of traditional installation methods in which the running of .exe files places programs in the Program directory of the system disk or any other directory on any disk the user prefers to install it on. I think the changes necessary to integrate the version 2 suit with the Microsoft Store installation policy, may have given the devs a headache as well and resulting from that Serif's clients, that ran into bungled installations.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fi9rjd2IQDwnl_2dCxNDFRKpr2OsJ-zkSe9JtjSUgG3-82b2MLXGBdmmuVRjb-9JuKi0pDLhQ2LXBBRUx4YYnsldUV1rO_1h9uXh5uR39xygUXaucYhk1HNPcHmgyCesJyYcwJo3q6se38WNrr3XnEz6smKuG1NwJ2jBqRN7Ojg15RFCpqW2wmn0sQ/s587/Affinity%20Publisher%20version%202%20start%20screen.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="587" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fi9rjd2IQDwnl_2dCxNDFRKpr2OsJ-zkSe9JtjSUgG3-82b2MLXGBdmmuVRjb-9JuKi0pDLhQ2LXBBRUx4YYnsldUV1rO_1h9uXh5uR39xygUXaucYhk1HNPcHmgyCesJyYcwJo3q6se38WNrr3XnEz6smKuG1NwJ2jBqRN7Ojg15RFCpqW2wmn0sQ/w400-h306/Affinity%20Publisher%20version%202%20start%20screen.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Affinity Publisher 2 start up screen</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>But since it is possible to correct them, I think the Serif team will be able to sort out the problems, but this should have taken place before the release.The installation engine may be separate from the rest of the program, but this is no concern of users - they just want thingsto work properly, which is what they paid for. Although at this point I am intensively experimenting with the <a href="https://vectorstyler.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">absolutely brilliant VectorStyler program</span></b></a>, I will still to use the Affinity suite for production purposes for the time being, because VectorStyler still in the development stage. But if Serif slows down the upgrade pace while VectorStyler steps it up, there will come a moment in future when I will make a different decision.</p><p>The reason of the update pace being quite low, perhaps has to do with the fact that the software is developed for Windows, Apple silicon - both the Mac OS and iPad version - and the fact that all three programs in the suit are integrated, which means when working in Publisher to make changes to vector art or pixel art Designer and Photo do not have to be opened separately, but all editing can be done from within Publisher. This <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=affinity+studio+link&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:0eb27ba3,vid:RxV_3yhA0V0" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Studio Link integration</span></b></a>, that is the first of its kind in the graphics world and DTP business, will noticeably increase the artists' productivity.</p><p>Publisher by the way, can now be installed on the <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/publisher/ipad/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAyMKbBhD1ARIsANs7rEFhq6gzdrTMgqJdnQMwBG-UexsTnpqaxEXY9bkPBtailCU_2xpE5lYaAtPBEALw_wcB" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">iPad</span></b></a> as well, which adds a lot of value to Apple's tablet. because it makes the iPad the first tablet capable of running an (almost) full fledged DTP-program. A long awaited major tool that finally made it into the new Publisher for all platforms is the possibility to create footnotes, endnotes and side notes, which is a function any serious DTP-program must have. This integration of this tool makes Publisher's upgrade the most 'necessary' of the programs in the version 2 Affinity suit.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Conclusion<br /></span></b>So, apart from some good aspects to this upgrade, there are too many bad ones, that are not mentioned in may other places on the web or elsewhere. Yet, a certain number of these things nevertheless are worth being put forward, because these programs have become (part of) the livelihood of many that continue to search for ways to survive crumbling economies and continuously soaring expenses. I have listed them below and added some related issues:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>The <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">installation trouble</span></b> for a number of Windows users should have been sorted out before the release of version 2. The mods on the forum should not be suggesting work arounds that require users to dive deep in their operating system (registry tweaks have been suggested), which could easily lead to breaking more than the average user is able to foresee, while most suggestions did not even resolve the problem. This situation should most definitely have been prevented</li><li>As Kru Mark correctly reported, there still are <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">several crucial functions missing in version 2</span></b> that, in view of the long time that has passed since the previous upgrade, could have been and should have been integrated</li><li>Possible upgrades and / or additions of certain tools will most likely be presented in <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">future Beta versions</span></b>, that are by definition not stable. I one time received the advice in the forum not to use a certain Beta version, because it would not export .png-files properly (which apparently was a known issue, that did not occur in earlier versions....), which brings me to think: Why the heck issue that Beta version in the first place? Is it for users to test or to keep them happy by showing them development still is ongoing? And why would Serif release a Beta version that it advices users no to use? This is a weird type of advice to give to users that simply report that the program is not doing what it is supposed to do and (moreover) what it did correctly before, which makes the situation even more strange</li><li>The reason I bought the various Serif products is because I loathe the overly expensive Adobe subscription policy, aside from the other type of <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Adobe/comments/rcqc2a/adobes_customer_service_is_dishonest_and_awful/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">disdain</span></b></a> they display for their userbase, but I estimate Serif is now at a turning point on how to proceed in the market in which they are operating. The price of the Affinity programs has almost doubled compared to the period in which they were issued for the first time. They still charge a <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">one time fee</span></b>, but how long will Serif be able to determine its own policies in a time in which giant players simply buy companies that they deem to be interesting for their strategy - meaning: use their code or simply kill them off</li><li><b><span style="color: red;">Innovation</span><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"> </span></b>should be higher on the list of priorities of the Serif company, because its competition seems to extend their lead in this field. As a small player in the arena fighting the big boys, the lack of innovative progress is a danger riddled situation to be in, that leads to venues where no company wants to be</li><li>The <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">absence of a roadmap</span></b> that indicates the planned progress of the future versions, is an ominous sign. Blender for instance, continuously updates their publicly issued road map and relatively swiftly integrates the announced improvements, while coding 3D software is necessarily more complex that coding 2D software. Serif not being transparent about where it is going with the suit's development, is rather odd, to say the least, because it leaves users in the dark about the direction in which the company aims to develop. It feels like hopping on an airplane and not knowing where one is going to end up</li><li>The startup screens of all 3 programs in version 2 flash a message that the '<b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Microsoft Store registration is checked</span></b>' each time the program is opened. It makes sense that Serif registers its users for obvious reasons, but I fail to see why it is necessary for Microsoft to register Affinity users, yet it demands every company that sells products through their store to amend their code. To what extent and in what way would be interesting to know. Particularly since Microsoft is not world famous for being overly concerned with the wellbeing of its users. This seemingly trivial detail could have far reaching consequences that only but very few users are capable of imagining in a society in which the increase of centralized control has gone beyond the type of measure that complies with democratic principles</li><li>Almost immediately after buyers of version 2 ran into rather serious trouble - failed installation, not being able to open the programs and not being able to save files created (among a number of other bugs, most of which Serif has not yet resolved....) - this message appeared on the forum in bold white type on a red background at the top of each page: '<b>Our response time is longer than usual currently. We're working to answer users as quickly as possible and thank you for your continued patience.</b>' Either Serif bit off more than it could chew with this release or other situations have occurred behind the scene that I prefer not to speculate on, but either way, this is bad news. Not being at least somewhat transparent about this towards its users / buyers does not help as well, because such conduct most certainly will provoke conjecture.</li></ol><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoUNKk8dbNV3aQiu29ql7BvSGujUwCDXmlqgUObeDq0p8DRySKZVgIWHzY9NzrnqfOBi2YjSnzjB8G7R6V-HKuuzTmSIVdDlqlDtXWQQktAGs8M9D2fqwnx8t6DotTbyyaz5INOQsBxIz8wEQDRcC46Sz8wIA-Su92UFfFCf-u9KJ0LASay1l2MPzpQw/s678/HX90G.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="514" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoUNKk8dbNV3aQiu29ql7BvSGujUwCDXmlqgUObeDq0p8DRySKZVgIWHzY9NzrnqfOBi2YjSnzjB8G7R6V-HKuuzTmSIVdDlqlDtXWQQktAGs8M9D2fqwnx8t6DotTbyyaz5INOQsBxIz8wEQDRcC46Sz8wIA-Su92UFfFCf-u9KJ0LASay1l2MPzpQw/w304-h400/HX90G.png" width="304" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Minisforum HX90G</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIxPIzWlNrgVtDBE0CxSHALRHvIECe2Isg58xqmnYZJrmFjhDM9hjqLcXN2FceHcXkgJJJLBYpucBy4pefxosgS6ESPwOBZtgdfzEkDKUHkmMAGxqvgwhV990Fgvoe8GXhr2S6aS-7eRk2c1T4ut1f4K_FIk1-Xd3dfL0PwWhJxeOnTAkQGW0PR1TNQ/s748/10%20port%20USB-3.0-hub.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="748" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIxPIzWlNrgVtDBE0CxSHALRHvIECe2Isg58xqmnYZJrmFjhDM9hjqLcXN2FceHcXkgJJJLBYpucBy4pefxosgS6ESPwOBZtgdfzEkDKUHkmMAGxqvgwhV990Fgvoe8GXhr2S6aS-7eRk2c1T4ut1f4K_FIk1-Xd3dfL0PwWhJxeOnTAkQGW0PR1TNQ/s320/10%20port%20USB-3.0-hub.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">10 port USB 3 hub</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Update December 21 2022</span></b></p><p>The new <a href="https://store.minisforum.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAwJWdBhCYARIsAJc4idBIHi0pAyKyPL-twv0JoSahSf7qV1jbPV52RN3GEONzh5wgBH4GHPAaAsRnEALw_wcB" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Minisforum Neptune HX90G mini PC</span></b></a> arrived with Windows 11 and installation of the Affinity suit programs from the Microsoft store went without problems. More on running Windows 11 on this computer in <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2022/12/windows-11-is-agonizingly-sloooow.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">this blog entry</span></b></a>. So, upgrading to Windows 11 from my very old 2004 rig (first gen i7) cost me an arm and a leg. It includes the hardware - computer and USB hub - and Serif's Universal License. Corporate rule affects an increasing part of today's world.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-51492810504987995802022-10-23T04:20:00.115+02:002022-11-06T13:16:17.180+01:00Exploring VectorStyler - Part II<p> </p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Introduction<br /></b></span>After losing the files I saved on a network drive in <a href="https://vectorstyler.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">VectorStyler</span></b></a>, as stated in the <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2022/10/exploring-vectorstyler.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">previous blog entry</span></b></a>, I decided to save them on the system drive, which in itself worked well. The problem is that my computer is too old and lacks the power to properly create advanced graphics - realistic vector portraits - as I found out this time with exporting the various stages of development in the png-file format. My old rig has a first gen i7 Intel CPU from 2008 (....), has dead slow 16 GB 1333 MHz RAM memory and an extinct NVidia GeForce 750 Ti, which in today's world probably is considered to be a prehistoric system. I am therefore considering to upgrade to the <a href="https://store.minisforum.com/products/elitemini-hx90g?variant=43244395102453" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Minisforum Neptune HX90G</span></b></a> with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, 64 GB RAM memory and a M2 512 GB SSD, that has a dedicated GPU - the Radion RX 6650M, while taking up very little space (2.8 liter case). I prefer this x486 AMD mini PC over its Mac competition, because it offers the right to repair and upgradability, plus the fact that the software I purchased, is written for the Windows platform.</p><p>The reason that I continue to experiment in this <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">constantly updated, ongoing blog entry</span></b> with VectorStyler in spite of the problems I encounter with running the program properly, is that it has an absolutely <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">huge potential</span></b> and many of its incorporated functions already work excellently, while some still require a bit of tweaking. Its developer - <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">a single person</span></b>, named Csaba Ráduly Baka has so far done a most outstanding job creating and developing the project, in a way that made me convinced of the fact that at some point the bugs will be written out of the code and even more new features will be added. So, this series of blogposts is an on-the-fly test / review / in depth exploration that will last as long as VectorStyler will continue to be developed into a mature state, even when I may encounter additional obstacles.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Export Problem & portrait stage sequence<br /></span></b>Because I was unable to export the vector portrait in png-format properly, I made screendumps so that I can still place the progress sequence of the various stages of development in this blog entry. The most recent one is at the top and the oldest one is at the bottom. Where necessary I will enter a comment below the screendumps in addition to the image captions. One crucial aspect of my drawing technique is that I place the reference image <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">on top of all other objects</span></b> and make it transparent, so that it is easy to retrieve whenever necessary, while its transparency can be changed whenever I temporarily need a more clear image. This is useful especially when a drawing contains hundreds or even thousands of (clipped: objects inside of other objects) objects. From what I have seen in tutorials on Youtube, most artists place the reference image or photo below all others, but for me this does not work for the reason mentioned here.</p><p>When the portrait is completed, I will post the vstyler-file in the VS forum, for fellow users to inspect. <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Note</span></b>: all photos of Maria Orsic on the Internet are a kind of grainy and jagged black & white type of images, that probably do not do her beauty justice, but I do my utmost to make the best of it. The lack of quality in the photos implies that I was forced to interpret aspects of her face in order to be able to create a portrait that includes the attributes of a realistic depiction of a person. In addition I permitted myself the liberty to lean towards a personal elucidation of miss Orsic' stunning appearance, that also is known as 'artistic freedom', which is a style signature that is present in all the portraits I create.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Tools used in VectorStyler<br /></b></span>An other thing is that I did not draw this portrait using the Mesh Gradient tool, which I feel is tedious and time consuming to work with, but I drew separate objects (most of which are clipped several layers deep and blurred, that I named accurately in the Layers panel so that I can find them back at a later point in time for further editing. Also, all objects that are drawn are vectors that will rescale and remain sharp in every size into which the image is rescaled, while the mesh tool is a simulation of pixels in vector format that requires a great amount of calculation when rescaling the image. For instance: many of the shadows consist of a single line with 2 (or in some cases a few more) nodes that probably require less computing power when the image is being rescaled. Editing objects at a later point in time, I find easier also when they are separate objects, each of which can be tuned to what it needs to be, which is especially useful when balancing shapes and colours when an image is in the final stages of the design process.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>Brief tutorial on creating objects with varying blur levels<br /></b></span>I uploaded a <a href="https://www.vectorstyler.com/forum/topic/2584/creating-objects-with-edges-of-varying-blur-levels" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">brief tutorial on the VectorStyler forum</span></b></a> on how to create objects that have areas of varying blur level ratios along their circumference, that is a technique I often use in drawing <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">realistic vector portraits</span></b>. The usual type of vector portraits created in Adobe Illustrator almost always have hard edged areas (shadows, creases, hair, facial parts like eyes, ears, nostrils, eyebrows etc.) that make them <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">unrealistic</span></b>, even though they are presented as realistic vector portraits. Adobe's marketing department has managed to successfully sell Illustrator's shortcomings as a feature and, as commonly is the case, the ignorant majority of the market fell for the carefully concocted scam. An example of such an awful portrait you find <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/aryaink/art/Vector-Portrait-Emma-Watson-172173151" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">here</span></b></a>. No offence, but I don't think these portraits qualify as realistic, nor do they deserve to be the maistream standard in that conjured category. But as long as most people prefer to think with their spinal cord, such basically ridiculous type of 'artwork' will be considered to be 'great' by those that have no clue of what greatness is. I have been creating realistic vector portraits for years now and examples of what I mean by that can be found in <a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/Vector.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">my website</span></b></a>; those portraits hardly have any hard edges, which is exactly what does make them realistic. The process described in this blog entry is the <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">first realistic vector portrait that I drew in VectorStyler</span></b> - the ones on my website were created in Affinity Designer. I am seriously considering switching from the latter program to the former one mentioned in the previous sentence, which is why I am creating the portrait shown below as a test.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZSr-wSBh7z7q0rK83QD-fst2KEbxiWG3i6GBySDtOhyri6j7GQvj30LijkVKMNaT1bFKa2i1EFRRgW2cbzSUDH_6l_FrBRZpDbSYD8wYpbQxwRN7Wm6ng5dIwTgLoktAX8pHYUxuKvaracMhAlzo2nrWDr1npsw22aCjlQAji1hqtqRxl4L-oStbWQ/s832/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2015.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBZSr-wSBh7z7q0rK83QD-fst2KEbxiWG3i6GBySDtOhyri6j7GQvj30LijkVKMNaT1bFKa2i1EFRRgW2cbzSUDH_6l_FrBRZpDbSYD8wYpbQxwRN7Wm6ng5dIwTgLoktAX8pHYUxuKvaracMhAlzo2nrWDr1npsw22aCjlQAji1hqtqRxl4L-oStbWQ/w318-h400/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2015.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Added the darker areas in the hair and began drawing the left ear</td></tr></tbody></table><br />In spite of the calculation / rendering problems my computer presents me, I decided to do a little more drawing. The old machine causes the program to freeze often and say that it is not responding (which lasts up to several minutes at best), but I was dissatisfied with the appearance of the previous stage. In this 12th stint I drew some darker accent areas in the hair, so that at least there is a hint into which direction I am taking this 100% vector portrait. Also corrected the lower eyelid of the right eye. I still need to tweak the colours, intensity, gradients in these areas and add more detail, but I'm afraid that would be challenging this archaic device beyond its limits. After the Minisforum mini PC has arrived and has been set up, I will continue to explore the superb Vectorstyler by way of this project.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYu1MQet8N_rawLTbzeuPZDPVq37HsEXxhEmw27pYcHzJw-2DzQmYLUOC3CzA1LKyf5l2WMFabznAR_Ao7UGLbWXN1Sdd1U-8f_W7f9Zym0EIOmZ0z0-9AA0Xjejm4j2mct9lWazL9auOz5vI7NWSsrVQdmaFHn2yrQUo2SCZhDVnQ63dYx2xcHTyWmQ/s832/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2010.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYu1MQet8N_rawLTbzeuPZDPVq37HsEXxhEmw27pYcHzJw-2DzQmYLUOC3CzA1LKyf5l2WMFabznAR_Ao7UGLbWXN1Sdd1U-8f_W7f9Zym0EIOmZ0z0-9AA0Xjejm4j2mct9lWazL9auOz5vI7NWSsrVQdmaFHn2yrQUo2SCZhDVnQ63dYx2xcHTyWmQ/w318-h400/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2010.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Added some more shadows and drew the hair base</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: left;">At this point the program on this very old computer is behaving very strange, which probably is the result of a <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">dramatic lack of computing power</span></b>, even when all other programs were closed. I ordered a new computer as described above and will continue when that one has arrived. The hair was done according to the technique I described in the seventh stage. It allowed me to draw a gradual transition area between the hair and forehead. The accents in the hair could not be rendered, which confirmed my suspicion that my machine simply was unable to handle the computations.</div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGT7qr0A5fUxbn6lWSgTU-tfzq3uNsZp9z6-fUom2MMXvBafCAuwVd3MSkL40nhOXeagnD72Erp8nqqRJ82ElgCMmNc2-OCdje_7pVhdCJ5A19hFTXtorvGqd3L8fK5Ac7r2RbB6S4zrwTb0ufeGKERSwANQ-5RD9yb9duPUCGY5UYFWRLrd0-i0IOUQ/s832/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2009.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGT7qr0A5fUxbn6lWSgTU-tfzq3uNsZp9z6-fUom2MMXvBafCAuwVd3MSkL40nhOXeagnD72Erp8nqqRJ82ElgCMmNc2-OCdje_7pVhdCJ5A19hFTXtorvGqd3L8fK5Ac7r2RbB6S4zrwTb0ufeGKERSwANQ-5RD9yb9duPUCGY5UYFWRLrd0-i0IOUQ/w318-h400/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2009.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tinkering with shadows on the face</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Applying <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">subtle shadows</span></b> on a face, probably is one of the challenges of creating portraits. If a shadow is off just a minute amount in colour, intensity or blur ratio, there is a risk that entire portrait goes down the drain. So, this took me longer than I expected and I still am far from done. I discovered that in the <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">gradient colour tool</span></b> each node can separately be given a colour but also an opacity level. Nodes can be added by clicking on the gradient indicator line and typing '+', they can be removed from it by simply dragging the node off the line. Very intuitive. The easy way to draw subtle accents probably is to clip one area into an other (several layers of clipping) which also works well and is easier to control. I will try that in the next stage. In the previous stage I wrote that I wished the blur ratio had a bigger range until I discovered that the interactive tool includes nodes on the top and bottom of the reference circle to adjust the range, which is virtually without limit, unfortunately only in one direction. The developer Csaba Ráduly Baka must have advanced artistic skills besides being a brilliant programmer, because these functional details would never have been considered for implementation by a brilliant programmer who has no artistic skills or too little of them.<br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9WpqeblUbehcKbBUNKpnbSehjiIvSyHMA9egYYzpFN1MDS57gf7UJWpc-5BSorOlfKE_Ie1SLvKW28T0Wzy8I4dh_okwRZPtdF1lNDZcwzi_BCnH94XRr19b-WqP2YDtCEBB78Vu2lxCidJysn8aUBfztYJ3YTAFQvaGZJc1fzriTPi704ceL8pHoYA/s832/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2007.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9WpqeblUbehcKbBUNKpnbSehjiIvSyHMA9egYYzpFN1MDS57gf7UJWpc-5BSorOlfKE_Ie1SLvKW28T0Wzy8I4dh_okwRZPtdF1lNDZcwzi_BCnH94XRr19b-WqP2YDtCEBB78Vu2lxCidJysn8aUBfztYJ3YTAFQvaGZJc1fzriTPi704ceL8pHoYA/w318-h400/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2007.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;">Added base shadow on mid and left site of the face</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: left;"></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">This is the seventh stage already. Edited the mouth somewhat. Tweaking the big shadow until I became senseless - with the blur ratio tool (which I wished would have a more extended range), opacity and gradient colours with a proper number of nodes. Probably some clipping of additional objects will be necessary to get things right. I uploaded a <a href="https://www.vectorstyler.com/forum/topic/2584/creating-objects-with-edges-of-varying-blur-levels" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">tutorial on how to create objects with a varying level of blurriness along their edge in the VectoStyler forum</span></b></a>. Had I been more proficient with gradient colour editing (which is present in VectorStyler) I would probably have used it, but to be honest I dislike that tool from my experience with it in other drawing vector programs. I do like the mesh gradient transparency tool, but I still need to practice it more in order to efficiently use it. I have to leave the image alone for a while and return to it at a later point in time. I'm sure artists are familiar to this type of situation in which the proper settings just elude them, while that seems to be no problem further into the future (I hope). Part of this problem is caused by the fact that I drew the shadow in one piece, in order to minimize the number of objects, which does not always work...... Also, my ancient rig is beginning to struggle, so purchasing a new, more powerful one kind of climbed on my bucket list. First I have to check the budget though, since being able to buy food is important.</span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIme95ThFdVKwqhzpay5U61O157tgrIIoNezb3x1B-vT5magc5tX8sPl6XZS2kV_kL4GKaOP4aoLFq6ydOx_fO3T5oEERzFL88rKyuijTkRru4nywtpPoF20I0I7g72pJ8N1VG0REGYMFMwX5TymbQql1cWhKFyU8PE2QDRJ6y72uBFPYMRAFMeSmyhw/s831/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2006.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIme95ThFdVKwqhzpay5U61O157tgrIIoNezb3x1B-vT5magc5tX8sPl6XZS2kV_kL4GKaOP4aoLFq6ydOx_fO3T5oEERzFL88rKyuijTkRru4nywtpPoF20I0I7g72pJ8N1VG0REGYMFMwX5TymbQql1cWhKFyU8PE2QDRJ6y72uBFPYMRAFMeSmyhw/w318-h400/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2006.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Experimenting with dark background</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: left;">Editing <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">colour intensity of the blurred shadow area</span></b> at the right side of face mainly to see how that would appear against a dark background. Most of my vector portraits have a transparent background so that I can place them before any type of background and change my mind whenever it seems appropriate to do. Colour balancing therefore is important.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi283IQPIVRij3JMi_r2BYJc5srSglZ6jwRdPhZ4kuAO6JgTlepW4ZU3DUN8M0YEkRcf6uShDhprhIw_FOwCXpPXpc8jig_YHCfDP2wn_vD-VdUbM69cnbYYmOC5qgDrqGkYQ7mGfoOUHAhu0Cqcc8D8nVv86CbIOXP4yrInfsiQA7pkbUk8xOAnHCIKg/s832/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2005.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi283IQPIVRij3JMi_r2BYJc5srSglZ6jwRdPhZ4kuAO6JgTlepW4ZU3DUN8M0YEkRcf6uShDhprhIw_FOwCXpPXpc8jig_YHCfDP2wn_vD-VdUbM69cnbYYmOC5qgDrqGkYQ7mGfoOUHAhu0Cqcc8D8nVv86CbIOXP4yrInfsiQA7pkbUk8xOAnHCIKg/w318-h400/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2005.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Added mouth and chin line</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: left;">Besides working on the mouth and chin area and correcting mistakes in the eyes area, I have begun experimenting with <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">mesh transparency</span></b>, which is an absolutely brilliant function that is present in none of the programs competing with VectorStyler. I will need this function at a later point in this design, but I don't feel familiar enough with it to apply it already. It is just one of the many functions offered by VectorStyler that devs of its competition have not figured out yet how to code. Still a heap to learn for me!</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivcE9DKR0MVcA7lhnugjVqnK-E5aodzucRvvi7Ly7I6pfe7RP--zI5Cdjf356OG2ruetesabWTk_ZY4m_dN8yRorIWgZhtW7QUI0N3VyK88zGwxGZZruH2KDKEJdGIKYe7u5uoR4oyyme2Ze8y5LfWavoh92dPY14rXDgQzybz6fxywu3RNTCFrAZxEw/s832/Maria%20Orsic%20vector%2005.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivcE9DKR0MVcA7lhnugjVqnK-E5aodzucRvvi7Ly7I6pfe7RP--zI5Cdjf356OG2ruetesabWTk_ZY4m_dN8yRorIWgZhtW7QUI0N3VyK88zGwxGZZruH2KDKEJdGIKYe7u5uoR4oyyme2Ze8y5LfWavoh92dPY14rXDgQzybz6fxywu3RNTCFrAZxEw/w318-h400/Maria%20Orsic%20vector%2005.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Added shadow to the right side of nose</td></tr></tbody></table><br />While tweaking the left eye VectorStyler froze and offered a weird message without saying what was wrong. After closing the program and restarting it, I was offered the option to retrieve a back up, which worked just fine. Immediately the developer responded on the forum and reported a bug. This type of <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">swift support</span></b> I have never experienced anywhere in my long involvement with software. Great!<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEeCtLKIIkDVttXh6hyzE2i5CVuJJ1Jqz2fSyg1SU9SsG62CYPKmq8e9Ey9RUlztfS7rk83-N4pOue8L4AvFn3-yC5FiyGNpt9hqrgwAZTLfmxHlb3KoP5rCV98e_lcWSw5GYPD9QPmMf75f-y_a_HOPnIKjPmGZcf4FeKEv3DqgdKGWzFbHYst_BxiQ/s832/Maria%20Orsic%20vector%2004.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEeCtLKIIkDVttXh6hyzE2i5CVuJJ1Jqz2fSyg1SU9SsG62CYPKmq8e9Ey9RUlztfS7rk83-N4pOue8L4AvFn3-yC5FiyGNpt9hqrgwAZTLfmxHlb3KoP5rCV98e_lcWSw5GYPD9QPmMf75f-y_a_HOPnIKjPmGZcf4FeKEv3DqgdKGWzFbHYst_BxiQ/w318-h400/Maria%20Orsic%20vector%2004.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Added shadow on the right side of face</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Besides adding the shadow on the face' right side did some tweaking of the right eye. Shadowing requires a subtle approach, both in intensity, giving objects a blur ratio and applying colour accents. There still are details that bug me, but I am sure that I will get them sorted out at some point, as I become more familiar with VectorStyler.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRAFngy824OBTOQyf8kdXGgbwpstO3X2n8LVdwNGWOf8u_1EXGAfud3Qgx54fv4vDKTyX7eiftzf7Roh9_JB-19wTcONMJMh1YMpHeRAPgjQLFpY2qDEbZmwt1tZFToAUUpXc2DviQ4tB0oMLbiqYB-vTfkiLct27c3w3Fv9NN37SQ4vmmRAY0GxW41g/s832/Maria%20Orsic%20vector%2003.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRAFngy824OBTOQyf8kdXGgbwpstO3X2n8LVdwNGWOf8u_1EXGAfud3Qgx54fv4vDKTyX7eiftzf7Roh9_JB-19wTcONMJMh1YMpHeRAPgjQLFpY2qDEbZmwt1tZFToAUUpXc2DviQ4tB0oMLbiqYB-vTfkiLct27c3w3Fv9NN37SQ4vmmRAY0GxW41g/w318-h400/Maria%20Orsic%20vector%2003.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Added right eye</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Copied left eye to the right. Reshaped elements with the <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">move- and node tool</span></b>. Adjusted colour accents and lighting, mainly in clipped objects. Renamed copied left eye objects to right eye parts in Layers panel, this because there already are many objects in the drawing that I need to retrieve at a later point in time for further editing, when looking to rebalance colour intensity, because in portraiture moving and reshaping (parts of) objects just a few pixels determines the quality of the likeness, as do do colour accents.</div><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwOrWhCtC-jilxsf0fqqHJ3GsiUkt80Sbez5zQ0v2ptrSJMh2OyVByIIzV-0CU7iug3hr6j6YVJFiAc-oWCVEsRWpspE6cWfE7LPOVqpjkhSxDSMUBxJdSx4i3lQD8buOKD2dBSAIcVQWyYG-ycbbRSqYT1EWatB6fdTfmIYgBFvSRA5FYXsKt3ylLuA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwOrWhCtC-jilxsf0fqqHJ3GsiUkt80Sbez5zQ0v2ptrSJMh2OyVByIIzV-0CU7iug3hr6j6YVJFiAc-oWCVEsRWpspE6cWfE7LPOVqpjkhSxDSMUBxJdSx4i3lQD8buOKD2dBSAIcVQWyYG-ycbbRSqYT1EWatB6fdTfmIYgBFvSRA5FYXsKt3ylLuA=w317-h400" width="317" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Added shadow behind the left eye</td></tr></tbody></table><br />So far, I have mainly been using the <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Gaussian blur function</span></b>, <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">object clipping and interactive transparency</span></b>, all of which work superbly. Many image effect functions - such as blurring - can interactively be fine tuned on the spot, which offers artists the option to exactly and instantly see the result of their tweaking.<div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7a_XVnw8cQa7tu7jPWvYY1MFU7mApLiVYfJbwbuzuFb4Ia5uastlc_NhwAVZppJznb2BywerDJeiFg39aO9HVw1iO8QYYmvZgQZezvEX2YB7kBla21pDnXSEpmePKKTfDbQrCl5m3SwkUaGZFVScp5Ax0N7lylwI8tPPBHrBi7fpgQXuThC5oNiee0A" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7a_XVnw8cQa7tu7jPWvYY1MFU7mApLiVYfJbwbuzuFb4Ia5uastlc_NhwAVZppJznb2BywerDJeiFg39aO9HVw1iO8QYYmvZgQZezvEX2YB7kBla21pDnXSEpmePKKTfDbQrCl5m3SwkUaGZFVScp5Ax0N7lylwI8tPPBHrBi7fpgQXuThC5oNiee0A=w317-h400" width="317" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Started drawing the face contour and left eye</td></tr></tbody></table><br />When drawing <a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/Vector.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">realistic vector portraits</span></b></a>, I always start with the eyes, because they are the dominant factor in facial features. For drawing I use the pen tool and the node tool to fine tune. Most objects are given a Gaussian blur effect. Colour management in VectorStyler is very easy to use with great precision.</div><div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih8qzSMltzNk0crYCNjs6Not6vXlOpxTKcZN0G7s0brlo4zP5TDQCqI5fSfjQXRdFgPfoKOK4-CyWLtyfhgI8lsWEy1ozXYCg3yDouUyhNzsRBu7Xd3_7-d0FV5U-kphTbRPlLn3HooCOhuoXqT99kqptBqHsO9JxGMi3RXo6bfSapMDWwTEHHPpkJlg/s832/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2015%20-%20vector%20outline.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="660" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih8qzSMltzNk0crYCNjs6Not6vXlOpxTKcZN0G7s0brlo4zP5TDQCqI5fSfjQXRdFgPfoKOK4-CyWLtyfhgI8lsWEy1ozXYCg3yDouUyhNzsRBu7Xd3_7-d0FV5U-kphTbRPlLn3HooCOhuoXqT99kqptBqHsO9JxGMi3RXo6bfSapMDWwTEHHPpkJlg/w318-h400/Screendump%20Maria%20Orsic%2015%20-%20vector%20outline.png" width="318" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 15 - vector outline</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p></div></div></div></div></div>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-61320621086475604642022-10-17T13:58:00.002+02:002023-09-30T23:43:56.795+02:00Einstein analog / digital portrait<p> </p><p>This is a proverbial combined freehand airbrush / Affinity Photo portrait of One Stone a.k.a. as Einstein, the relativity bloke. The man that urged Roosevelt to develop nuclear arms, that the US used to bomb Japan (twice) when the outcome of WW-II was already decided. In a long lost past I used to take up the airbrush gun and spray paint on different kinds of surfaces. With one or two exceptions always worked freehand, i.e. without any masking. </p><p>Today, I work in the digital realm mostly, because it is convenient, less of a hassle and - most importantly - corrections are relatively easy to make in less time than is the case with an analog airbrush. I do sometimes however pick up the trusted Iwata or Harder & Steenbeck airbrushes to get my mind off things I need the time to process in a proper way; the old way of airbrushing works better to do such a thing than the digital stuff.</p><p>I used the Iwata HP-BH airbrush to spray the Inspire H2O paint on an old piece of paper that I had laying around. Very low air pressure, thinly diluted paint and Chillhop music to drift away, but not too far to be unable to do anything useful. To be honest, I like the HP-BH more than the Custom Micron, probably because I like different things better than what commonly is considered to be the best of the best. I was forced to buy the HP-BH on an airbrush show, after one of the visitors had stolen my Paasche V1 - which was the best tool ever - when I took a break and left the V1 unattended on the easel.</p><p>I dropped the HP-BH on the floor and because I never use the back cover of airbrushes, the needle was driven into the nozzle quite hard. I had to get it out using a pliers, because it was firmly stuck. However, the HP-BH kept on spraying like it never happened and I used the same needle and nozzle for years after the incident without any problem. I would not recommend hammering the needle into the nozzle before use, but I became convinced of the high quality of Iwata airbrushes.</p><p>Being a senior geezer, when finding an old airbrush painting, I see mistakes I made and correct them in Affinity Photo - a digital photo editing program, that resembles Photoshop, but is much much cheaper and equally as good or better. Check out my pixel paintings and vector portraits in my VectorWhiz website that you find <a href="https://vectorwhiz.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">here</span></b></a>. Most recent stage at the top, older ones in chronological order, below it.<br /><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipD_LZeVlGapAPdlFxYaVyoFgc1VrGS8QzW8f0rrCoA8BjwVioUjWu1jQdsmAPmvjyiPHi_uflJiaCUzX8LoxkXSQ7yixH6nxmW4VY2XiezsmZLJJjIcLBLUfxnIE6NLeptHC0tq11V2h5svwy_epTEYXBanHGACryMQlEvaGTvRiu-25Gpx4SrWahyphenhyphenZin/s952/1%20stone%206%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="952" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipD_LZeVlGapAPdlFxYaVyoFgc1VrGS8QzW8f0rrCoA8BjwVioUjWu1jQdsmAPmvjyiPHi_uflJiaCUzX8LoxkXSQ7yixH6nxmW4VY2XiezsmZLJJjIcLBLUfxnIE6NLeptHC0tq11V2h5svwy_epTEYXBanHGACryMQlEvaGTvRiu-25Gpx4SrWahyphenhyphenZin/s320/1%20stone%206%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digitally edited in Affinity Photo</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj67BnFfgcb68YrzhwXemu5Sd3sZaJXjYx_DPj9KCWmCzpAT2iFB4-J4rmGHlM20X7qAYG9YEZAdHjVl1JxdJUHANFbdJ3XZpD-AnKsN3iCYuwymeYuwPYS3svwN5zYvR3du348OFV_Y9tzERxhLejia4BOn_RV5pJKWoeUFnzSUJbi0e945gNcxQdxcQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="537" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj67BnFfgcb68YrzhwXemu5Sd3sZaJXjYx_DPj9KCWmCzpAT2iFB4-J4rmGHlM20X7qAYG9YEZAdHjVl1JxdJUHANFbdJ3XZpD-AnKsN3iCYuwymeYuwPYS3svwN5zYvR3du348OFV_Y9tzERxhLejia4BOn_RV5pJKWoeUFnzSUJbi0e945gNcxQdxcQ=w402-h537" width="402" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On my DIY vertical light table</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-gztCHSpAcE5e9Tz_tIUFias3JFrJ0KPDRUEDQFSLruOuJ0y7vSEKCfq2zg5gEkPgGxf-XE-MwBgooRPqLXnQhgsEHj1WsUVLHqx2PTZin-yahfx1PSM7ymRzY9_6HWmXUIWwRvs5DOpIx0JOp3x-Vlo9X53tPbQ4hXAN-q9_uC_r50Br4rp49dmEkA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-gztCHSpAcE5e9Tz_tIUFias3JFrJ0KPDRUEDQFSLruOuJ0y7vSEKCfq2zg5gEkPgGxf-XE-MwBgooRPqLXnQhgsEHj1WsUVLHqx2PTZin-yahfx1PSM7ymRzY9_6HWmXUIWwRvs5DOpIx0JOp3x-Vlo9X53tPbQ4hXAN-q9_uC_r50Br4rp49dmEkA=w402-h536" width="402" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Analog airbrushed with Iwata HP-BH</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyWUgb-UPqlQWX_OgNUg6jnGuQmr2WZVyUo2RbscxSOYf0voRRlq2wZyBgWQPRchoOjxNu0QWH9_VcfDRC42e-2LlutuMPiwiiL4KIr1gMGkCqnKwacPI9NicJBTE_RVk0gZBiJ2TXgDsvxhwZ8fFrSG255z-MG6AHAngHZjMEwLalRll9PvUYcMJ_fw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyWUgb-UPqlQWX_OgNUg6jnGuQmr2WZVyUo2RbscxSOYf0voRRlq2wZyBgWQPRchoOjxNu0QWH9_VcfDRC42e-2LlutuMPiwiiL4KIr1gMGkCqnKwacPI9NicJBTE_RVk0gZBiJ2TXgDsvxhwZ8fFrSG255z-MG6AHAngHZjMEwLalRll9PvUYcMJ_fw=w412-h550" width="412" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Analog airbrushed with Iwata HP-BH</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-V9VJivXObHk_tSuq-5hZSIUCQztSJMFfLKlSZ7Rib-5fNeQfk4ENxy88sstSbjx5Qi5zqIHxoobZFTIkKt_zbk0cwBQU-PDZY8fUUJlruXKh25AWG_RZHaqs4tzXM6880xg1XNC7NKJTJTbSsq1AvAn_ntmDBIf2F9dbgzCn0mJXdt1V51x4uCyXlw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="553" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-V9VJivXObHk_tSuq-5hZSIUCQztSJMFfLKlSZ7Rib-5fNeQfk4ENxy88sstSbjx5Qi5zqIHxoobZFTIkKt_zbk0cwBQU-PDZY8fUUJlruXKh25AWG_RZHaqs4tzXM6880xg1XNC7NKJTJTbSsq1AvAn_ntmDBIf2F9dbgzCn0mJXdt1V51x4uCyXlw=w416-h553" width="416" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early stage</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-3805537694209463052022-10-10T16:17:00.050+02:002023-09-18T20:31:16.859+02:00VectorStyler - vector drawing program<p> </p><p>By accident I came across a new vector drawing program called <a href="http://vectorstyler.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">VectorStyler</span></b></a>. Someone mentioned it in a Facebook group and I decided to give this program a try. What I saw was close to mind boggling; the functionality of this program takes the cake out of its competition. It still is a beta, so it contains bugs, but if its developer succeeds in repairing them, <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">there is nothing in the market that has as many functions, not even the well established market leaders and promising runner up programs</span></b>. Not by far, I may add - it is <a href="https://www.vectorstyler.com/detailed/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">chockful of tools and functions</span></b></a>, some of which are unique (but quite useful) to the community of vector drawing artists. Vector-Styler has all the functions its competition combined has and then some.....</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2IKagpPnW_oC5mbObKVGHpdEiDyr6ku_LqDHLCIAUz6ugrmiB9c1z5WyxSRs2pMEYA2y0y6TeiqYsKtmoC0FjteJAVaVrnUx_bJ6EA5jGcEAghUXo5QVjtu2vwDGU9P7e-55G1Zo47x80F919V82XreD0iJ_9gwziME_2PUB-uyYNNgQFRAQTx76ug/s895/VectorStyler%20warped%20text%20hands%20and%20tools.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="895" height="331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl2IKagpPnW_oC5mbObKVGHpdEiDyr6ku_LqDHLCIAUz6ugrmiB9c1z5WyxSRs2pMEYA2y0y6TeiqYsKtmoC0FjteJAVaVrnUx_bJ6EA5jGcEAghUXo5QVjtu2vwDGU9P7e-55G1Zo47x80F919V82XreD0iJ_9gwziME_2PUB-uyYNNgQFRAQTx76ug/w400-h331/VectorStyler%20warped%20text%20hands%20and%20tools.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Created out of enthusiasm</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>It is available for Intel Macs, M1 Macs and Windows. VectorStyler is developed by a <i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><b>one man team</b></span></i> (<b>!!!</b>), someone named <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/csaba-raduly-baka-b241372/?originalSubdomain=fi" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">Csaba Raduly-Baka</span></b></a> who resides in Finland. When peeking into his other (highly level advanced and complex) activities it is difficult to imagine where he finds the time to combine all his activities.... The overwhelming measure of functions that the program offers, obviously results in a necessarily extensive user interface, so figuring out how things work, requires time to get familiar with them for users who come from other programs. But like I wrote: If the developer gets things right, it will most definitely be worth to struggle your way through the learning stages and wait until the bugs are corrected. Currently - March 2021 - he is asking for feedback (not money) from his users to fix bugs in the program code. Visit the VectorStyler Forum to post bugs or make comments. The developer is very responsive, which also shows in the large number of bug fixes in the various beta versions that succeed each other rapidly. This is a project most certainly well worth your attention and support.</p><p>I'm new to this program myself, so I still have to explore what it can or can not do (the latter part of the sentence I added for linguistic completeness rather than hinting at a lack of functionality). To get an idea of what it is capable of, check out their <a href="http://vectorstyler.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">homepage</span></b></a> (scroll down the page somewhat) and the <i><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">detailed feature list</span></i> in the second link above. It still is free while in beta-stage, so go download it and give it a try. I am sure you will be <a href="https://www.techpcvipers.com/vectorstyler-review-is-it-the-best-vector-graphics-software-in-the-market/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">thoroughly amazed</span></b></a> and that the competition may turn pale from anxiety and possibly start crapping their panties resulting from that. The program is said to cost a one time fee of just <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">99 USD</span></b> when it comes out of the beta stage, which is a reasonable price in view of its stunning functionality.</p><p>I currently use Affinity Designer to create vector art, that has an easy to grasp user interface, but by far not as many functions as VectorStyler. Like all other vector drawing programs I have used in the past. I have worked with Illustrator professionally for decades, while working with CorelDRAW privately and with Inkscape occasionally, but I must say that none of these match VectorStyler in the functionality department. That is a huge accomplishment for the single person development of VectorStyler. I will therefore keep a close watch on how the program evolves and keep you updated as I familiarize myself with it. You may even find some artwork resulting from this process in this blog. Stay tuned.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Update October 10 2022</span></b></p><p>I now began testing this program, in a more intense way than before, familiarizing myself with the UI and tool functions. Since VectorStyler is densely packed with functions, unavoidably the UI is complex. Not more complicated than Illustrator's interface, while offering a lot more features, but I had to find my way around in it. So, figuring out how to apply image effects was an adventure, that I figured out after some trial and error. What drives me to survive the steep learning curve, is that I truly believe that once the bugs are written out of the code and perhaps the UI is a bit more streamlined, this program will become the first choice of many artists. Some features that I already encountered in this first serious venture are:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>VS has real vector brushes, not the bitmap ones that are presented to be vector as in Affinity Designer, which keeps images crisp when increasing their scale</li><li>VS has many warp (distortion) functions (including mesh warp), many more than any of its competitors, including a liquify tool that is applicable to vector objects</li><li>VS has a ridiculously easy to use shape builder tool</li><li>VS has a knife tool and a vector erase tool, that works exactly the same as the eraser in photo editing programs</li><li>VS has a configurable object blend tool</li><li>In VS users can create vector tiling patterns</li><li>VS can import, edit and export genuine AI-files, maintaining object layer structure</li><li>VS has a stunningly huge number of image effects that can be fine tuned in the related panel, offers a visual way to edit the effects, can combine multiple effects and can show/hide, reset and remove effects at a later time, which makes the program <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">parametric</span></b> to great extent and non-destructive up to quite an elevated level</li><li>The VS community is responsive and helpful and the developer fixes bug quite swiftly, while adding new functionality</li><li>VS objects can be copied and pasted into Affinity Designer and Adobe Illustrator where they can flawlessly be edited as if they were native objects. Copy& Paste objects from its competitors does not always go without flaws, especially if they contain bitmap elements</li><li>VS has an object collision tool (....)</li></ol><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEcU5JRim90sc5LyotUCy1Zp0VMnOt90-tZAfzGuAnua1wrvsKcc7YD7eDpFEqLH68Kwj2nyTPx6IpO3UY3wqXtIkWtZf76qQpSxpwtxoeqnwRfv3O-k50C3zMsD9u0OHoCzD7GCXsrratftLRs_g8auN7-OmgCIKjGOkeKwE2dePzJaX160YNgNT2fA/s740/Vintage%20poster%20test%2002%20-%20Elvis.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEcU5JRim90sc5LyotUCy1Zp0VMnOt90-tZAfzGuAnua1wrvsKcc7YD7eDpFEqLH68Kwj2nyTPx6IpO3UY3wqXtIkWtZf76qQpSxpwtxoeqnwRfv3O-k50C3zMsD9u0OHoCzD7GCXsrratftLRs_g8auN7-OmgCIKjGOkeKwE2dePzJaX160YNgNT2fA/w400-h400/Vintage%20poster%20test%2002%20-%20Elvis.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Text warping in VectorStyler</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The above text was warped in VectorStyler. One of the brilliant tools in the program is this object warping tool, that can of course also be applied to text. It is possible to do this in Affinity Designer, the program I use most these days, but it takes at least 10 times more time. CorelDRAW has an envelope distortion tool that sometimes produces strange results. Adobe Illustrator can warp objects as well, but it has to be controlled from within separate panels, which is slower and less intuitive. In addition, VectorStyler has a slew of different tools to warp and deform objects, so basically it is possible to create any type of shape one could think of, including intricate deformations in an interactive way. Simply brilliant.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am sure there are many more things worth mentioning, that I have not yet discovered, but as I wrote, this is my first dive into the depths of VectorStyler's functions and tools. There are still bugs, some of which make the program instable, but its potential is so huge, that I will keep trying to become more familiar with how to use it, particularly because of the excellent support department. Note I changed the date of this blog entry to October 10 2022, to allow visitors to become informed about this <a href="https://www.vectorstyler.com/tutorial/introduction/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">mind blowing program</span></b></a>. If curious, go visit their <a href="https://vectorstyler.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">website</span></b></a> to download the trial version, that is <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">free for 42 days</span></b>, which is a generous offer that you won't find anywhere else. The costly monthly subscription Adobe for instance, offers a 7 day trial for its suite programs. Over time you may find more updates of this blog entry, as I progress in learning how to use VectorStyler properly, so stay tuned.</div><div><br /></div><div>A very useful resource on how to use VectorStyler is the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/FredLespine" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Youtube channel of artist Fred Lespine</span></b></a>. On Vimeo there are many <a href="https://vimeo.com/321933089" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">tutorials</span></b></a> on how to use the different tools / functions. On VectorStyler's own website, having a peek at '<a href="https://www.vectorstyler.com/tutorial/introduction/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Discovering VectorStyler</span></b></a>', will offer useful tips for those who are new to the program. On <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgT1a2uijXs" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Ben Designs Youtube channel</span></b></a> he explores VectorStyler. On the <a href="https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/vectorstyler-public-beta.2189536/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">MacRumors website</span></b></a> there is a post about VectorStyler and the comments to it by users who discovered and tried it out.</div><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-30342302106491894642022-10-06T13:24:00.002+02:002022-10-06T13:42:48.048+02:00Mark Twain T-shirt design cartoon<p> </p><p>Mark Twain is one of the best know and most read novel writers who graced this world with his preseance and works. Years ago I painted a <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2017/08/mark-twain-digital-portrait.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f6b26b;">portrait of the man in pixels</span></b></a> from scratch in Affinity Photo, which is the Serif company's equivalent (and I mean this quite literally) of Adobe's Photoshop, but at a low one time fee, so artists aren't bound to a hugely expensive subscription model. Even though Photo still misses some minor functions compared to the industry standard, while on the other hand having some that exceed it, Photo is a most excellent alternative for artists that hate being forced to pay a high amount of money every month to purchase the 'alleged privilege' to use it.</p><p>But Serif has also created a magnifient alternative for Adobe Illustrator, a vector program that - like Photo - misses a number of functions, that it amply compensates with different functions that are not included in Illustrator. Creating various level of hard / soft edges around an object being the most interesting for artists who dislike the unnatural hard edges many vector programs offer. The type of artist I am referring to, prefers to create more realistic art, in which had edges are mostly absent. This program is named Affinity Designer, my favorite program, since quite often I create realistic portraits in it (the progress sequence of which can be seen in this blog).</p><p>While normal people on average use about 3000 different words to communicate, Twain used approximately 8000 words in his books most of the time. Expressing himself with such an extended verbiage allowed him to say and write things that makes people wonder at least and feel mind blown in other cases. Even the most simple and basic things of life he managed to craft into small or impressive literal miracles, simply because no one ever before had the idea to express them in the eloquent way that became his trademark manner of writing.</p><p>One such quotes I used to create a cartoonish image of Twain, around which I placed his words. It is an all vector image, created in Affinity Designer of course. Below you see the different phases of the cartoon portrait, including the misinterpretations that were in them before reaching the end result. Google's Lightbox can be accessed to see the various stages, by clicking on an image. On a PC or Mac it is also possible to scroll through the images, using the mouse wheel, which allows to see the changes in the stages more clearly in Lightbox. Newest image on top, the older ones below that.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbpMMNO3We3A8Te302s-VgKdixhUalNswdWk6s2g8v5SIHWbg5PfqxUni5FfvMSWTMZGrTExerMXnWHANTzC6aLQ0k9-a8vqPHUB0mANLKnfOGIauuw2QOwpGVn1bR_ON1Srtx18QSLvRB0fOT31_S6ejfutrP1vEEcINFAfnTeWhqTYNsm3oFwSKsA/s1110/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%20with%20circular%20text%2003.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1110" data-original-width="1110" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbpMMNO3We3A8Te302s-VgKdixhUalNswdWk6s2g8v5SIHWbg5PfqxUni5FfvMSWTMZGrTExerMXnWHANTzC6aLQ0k9-a8vqPHUB0mANLKnfOGIauuw2QOwpGVn1bR_ON1Srtx18QSLvRB0fOT31_S6ejfutrP1vEEcINFAfnTeWhqTYNsm3oFwSKsA/w400-h400/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%20with%20circular%20text%2003.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGShVDPL7xQ5Q2g0ix62UIrR-ZU70J8rm-CX3Mcz5GvNLVSFh20ZdnWQ-P0ePsp2IiTo2gKkeOP8hV7bLwerJ8dca3jSHmVHPeqqtSVbaogLtvrdDb_QxrT2bIg18iN9NVarjtUtv4aDmJMBxVKsYfT1KDDNiZI7AD6kFN0w0Qma6noSkmijyNUmOTNA/s1110/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%20with%20circular%20text%2002.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1110" data-original-width="1110" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGShVDPL7xQ5Q2g0ix62UIrR-ZU70J8rm-CX3Mcz5GvNLVSFh20ZdnWQ-P0ePsp2IiTo2gKkeOP8hV7bLwerJ8dca3jSHmVHPeqqtSVbaogLtvrdDb_QxrT2bIg18iN9NVarjtUtv4aDmJMBxVKsYfT1KDDNiZI7AD6kFN0w0Qma6noSkmijyNUmOTNA/w400-h400/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%20with%20circular%20text%2002.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRFHd0BxiFFyT-CHg9_k22XvnZ2-46DtRblWbaWzVUsxRWA5z1akio-paN2Rgx1GcXlkeN7VGV8BaICvrMkerj1Vnd8azZJyWddA_pirnCcTMLO8HHX4IGygNFdiXssSCFbm35oG2WyY07VBuK2Cybd_hJgPRb6frg2Ow0wPTUi9IhpWFRqW-C_fw6SQ/s922/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2006.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="922" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRFHd0BxiFFyT-CHg9_k22XvnZ2-46DtRblWbaWzVUsxRWA5z1akio-paN2Rgx1GcXlkeN7VGV8BaICvrMkerj1Vnd8azZJyWddA_pirnCcTMLO8HHX4IGygNFdiXssSCFbm35oG2WyY07VBuK2Cybd_hJgPRb6frg2Ow0wPTUi9IhpWFRqW-C_fw6SQ/w400-h361/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2006.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTmJL63vsuReDFwIwrEPbA972yWe4RczI_OOIS4J2degPtHkMb20rdnohGGBOXd2_cjmAkC277FQLgH2vIPzQZG_ZqJg3i1Z74Jlr8_4-U4l7REY01C11xQsSQLipUvMsIYXBIAbvGr5cPH5Uh2hTNvqhsYehwnlnhK7J2WUgA-GPr50ZVXa--0wfY8w/s922/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2004.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="922" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTmJL63vsuReDFwIwrEPbA972yWe4RczI_OOIS4J2degPtHkMb20rdnohGGBOXd2_cjmAkC277FQLgH2vIPzQZG_ZqJg3i1Z74Jlr8_4-U4l7REY01C11xQsSQLipUvMsIYXBIAbvGr5cPH5Uh2hTNvqhsYehwnlnhK7J2WUgA-GPr50ZVXa--0wfY8w/w400-h361/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2004.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibIAUIz7TT_vxTzs6JuFlDhtsGrNLuUG8kA6ZFNEOpFqWaJI47_aTYMDt9pI2pXoTn-DpBbCf7Xw58koNg-4xNC7VeqpPcvMPH8RViUhrUf1IFgiS93ZoerME6t51oPNATTf9Qz-ByAQsrWFreBzcITV6wREeUGHOR1btB1TlwJtrjBLQcIHlPk3yQRA/s922/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2002.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="922" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibIAUIz7TT_vxTzs6JuFlDhtsGrNLuUG8kA6ZFNEOpFqWaJI47_aTYMDt9pI2pXoTn-DpBbCf7Xw58koNg-4xNC7VeqpPcvMPH8RViUhrUf1IFgiS93ZoerME6t51oPNATTf9Qz-ByAQsrWFreBzcITV6wREeUGHOR1btB1TlwJtrjBLQcIHlPk3yQRA/w400-h361/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2002.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXEQO6XklaZ-GGS-Bx_gQuKuOdthRkLUQrzOAUfFIpezKsslF8Mp78J1sMAC8VxgcR73Nr53TuTKXy5vJRq4VJ9-XOgd6zL08C0OEix2Y08r3bdoFbKcubEVvGlyeClvd5AhZKwuzc8cUplLhlIpp0fkPMwKnKaTKwghHGCm8OX5IwmH6q_bcXD31_dQ/s922/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2001.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="922" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXEQO6XklaZ-GGS-Bx_gQuKuOdthRkLUQrzOAUfFIpezKsslF8Mp78J1sMAC8VxgcR73Nr53TuTKXy5vJRq4VJ9-XOgd6zL08C0OEix2Y08r3bdoFbKcubEVvGlyeClvd5AhZKwuzc8cUplLhlIpp0fkPMwKnKaTKwghHGCm8OX5IwmH6q_bcXD31_dQ/w400-h361/Mark%20Twain%20vector%20cartoon%2001.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-90975300743224961892022-09-19T21:33:00.032+02:002022-09-20T20:21:49.337+02:00Emojis<p> </p><p>Here are a few emojis drawn by me in Affinity Designer, so they are all 100% vector. I did not want to make flat images without gradient colours and tried to mimic human facial expressions, of course exaggerating them somewhat. Exaggeration - imagining the extreme aspect of things - often helps to see the possible consequence of seemingly innocent thoughts, developments and policies. The one at the top is a T-shirt design, the rest below it are just plain emojis. In the captions below each emoji are links to alternative versions of the emojis shown here; you might want to take a peek.... 😄</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjlKSPdQizr_N_o1mXcR8lKBV54eq_TiybF_Ehdpbijs6n_024ffkIVJDtEgY3eqOiebMQh4gu8GHhZ0PqmL5ZzBhGHE9Ui-pAbnVSZ-WC36yPQtpmGl_m_AumpIQFaIhJ1YWOOjx7aAAwIBMoeagzyLjU0i3ZlR4xibdaOKsKdi4FldYbelvEqKocg/s740/Would%20it%20kill%20you%20to%20admit%202.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjlKSPdQizr_N_o1mXcR8lKBV54eq_TiybF_Ehdpbijs6n_024ffkIVJDtEgY3eqOiebMQh4gu8GHhZ0PqmL5ZzBhGHE9Ui-pAbnVSZ-WC36yPQtpmGl_m_AumpIQFaIhJ1YWOOjx7aAAwIBMoeagzyLjU0i3ZlR4xibdaOKsKdi4FldYbelvEqKocg/w400-h400/Would%20it%20kill%20you%20to%20admit%202.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>T-shirt design and a<br /><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/Would%20it%20kill%20you%20to%20admit%203%20-%20Black%20BG.png" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;">version for evil people</span></a></b></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlZL4MjiMxG-MCCzO2JC_W9zQQcRQ4L7bpiBdWMxFInd7aNtL4VGdxPglRgFSHMpXQF2e_YJucvlV4VGYHI-IqYmPagyOBAergUttFrdlBXeJReJFFDD_AzBTbyvbmZ4475olRKlHF0HIVpM07gfFj22RbNTfRB47OnRUPrLS4DTmkcWu9zYIto9xAUQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlZL4MjiMxG-MCCzO2JC_W9zQQcRQ4L7bpiBdWMxFInd7aNtL4VGdxPglRgFSHMpXQF2e_YJucvlV4VGYHI-IqYmPagyOBAergUttFrdlBXeJReJFFDD_AzBTbyvbmZ4475olRKlHF0HIVpM07gfFj22RbNTfRB47OnRUPrLS4DTmkcWu9zYIto9xAUQ=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Deceit<br /><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/Deceit%202%20-%20Black%20BG.png" target="_blank">for 'experts'</a></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiovKWa3wAvAXCRoqby3w_K9iLerySjmhqqMGz9QIc_x9FI_ZDVgqCGccM2GOhJLMfwnoiiHMkPvbR9r1cGVqvJbLacg2uR0QsnsP9_7SQ4YrbzDiYrYcGyu4Ok2qgbSsYTspcscKe-TncDnH0Z7QtUjprefIx3fE4OHhA2gX2azrDfR4gFzlqOYKv97A" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiovKWa3wAvAXCRoqby3w_K9iLerySjmhqqMGz9QIc_x9FI_ZDVgqCGccM2GOhJLMfwnoiiHMkPvbR9r1cGVqvJbLacg2uR0QsnsP9_7SQ4YrbzDiYrYcGyu4Ok2qgbSsYTspcscKe-TncDnH0Z7QtUjprefIx3fE4OHhA2gX2azrDfR4gFzlqOYKv97A=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Wink<br /><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/Wink%203%20-%20Black%20BG.png" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">for other opinions</span><br /></a></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSynKS5nAShXwW8LKH8caYuvCv4G8SdTdLbV2B6U6nyayeuxeDLKKMvsRozzQKH3V0auNO7GFdpQweycxm5Z_ZFhcCF1MSlYfd4BGe5hhXZN3JW_A6mfWPc14Xna3jy5hbURsW3HNdmrAaoqDstD9Mm-AcAUvOHld4EGAmNLgtS4qk9uj2GCLGT9MX0g" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSynKS5nAShXwW8LKH8caYuvCv4G8SdTdLbV2B6U6nyayeuxeDLKKMvsRozzQKH3V0auNO7GFdpQweycxm5Z_ZFhcCF1MSlYfd4BGe5hhXZN3JW_A6mfWPc14Xna3jy5hbURsW3HNdmrAaoqDstD9Mm-AcAUvOHld4EGAmNLgtS4qk9uj2GCLGT9MX0g=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Devious<br /><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/Devious%202%20-%20Black%20BG.png" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">for out-of-the-box-thinkers</span><br /></a></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjulDEZg_winnPUtO_myVGqpFybC43edeBFKId0xvxop5mIFZxPZoW68f2nrEkDXDVMeIKVdRKpz2vlnk_plY_vteepZ7KPj1Koj7TqHWeN8riSWDDlPQVFGNEwxWmt9k0PC8FbFGUNSbjexh0WnGp5-0REhhvuIOpdYY6ti4IPS8caBF-6-FOkCsWcAQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjulDEZg_winnPUtO_myVGqpFybC43edeBFKId0xvxop5mIFZxPZoW68f2nrEkDXDVMeIKVdRKpz2vlnk_plY_vteepZ7KPj1Koj7TqHWeN8riSWDDlPQVFGNEwxWmt9k0PC8FbFGUNSbjexh0WnGp5-0REhhvuIOpdYY6ti4IPS8caBF-6-FOkCsWcAQ=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Grin<br /><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/Grin%202%20-%20Black%20BG.png" target="_blank">have nothing to hide?</a></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy62VdQLUz8kBcs5S3nZsFZUToJMWPA7w3kRgr_B6H6scyqjRTQbgZN_IKtk3Vk5AYgZsAaZZwM3bsM7dAKMkAKcUPYFNgFrWELccH1HFuhb5w3KwwQoAJTRlEShlM_vj-2FmjqASE0dvtFE9u8IM2NhQMaiasSpkxnaB6EQrhMKrV94zat5gd0DbZVw/s996/LOL%20-%20740%20x%20996.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="996" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy62VdQLUz8kBcs5S3nZsFZUToJMWPA7w3kRgr_B6H6scyqjRTQbgZN_IKtk3Vk5AYgZsAaZZwM3bsM7dAKMkAKcUPYFNgFrWELccH1HFuhb5w3KwwQoAJTRlEShlM_vj-2FmjqASE0dvtFE9u8IM2NhQMaiasSpkxnaB6EQrhMKrV94zat5gd0DbZVw/w400-h297/LOL%20-%20740%20x%20996.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>LOL<br /><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/LOL%202%20-%20Black%20BG.png" target="_blank">for mainstreamers</a></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1rEEpq-1puFrDHvkbjCK53wb-axoVHqBBSH5J6MIWgYzOfhzJIg0QBkXKyn1f6xkx4Dr9fwTj2CDf02og9-0KlYCADzTb40tTgi3gEmuvcHWxY22tHS2aJYKN657PpZRRPxJYp8CqtQx4phLBSnH-esXd45_bRLDasGQYIsBP3LhZAnoI0TGHbJp4yQ/s740/Mental%20-%20740%20x%20740.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1rEEpq-1puFrDHvkbjCK53wb-axoVHqBBSH5J6MIWgYzOfhzJIg0QBkXKyn1f6xkx4Dr9fwTj2CDf02og9-0KlYCADzTb40tTgi3gEmuvcHWxY22tHS2aJYKN657PpZRRPxJYp8CqtQx4phLBSnH-esXd45_bRLDasGQYIsBP3LhZAnoI0TGHbJp4yQ/w400-h400/Mental%20-%20740%20x%20740.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Mental<br /><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/Mental%202.png" target="_blank">for the annoyed</a></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHPKtNycq8senFcUuvfnAA8x_pJWNn6pAlmCx2-ed1qQQcgvl4vHpE_V0oxGoaSramcXBnPr_k7ghdeLNqNAyJ3BwPCmViXmpK5kKQ02CKA8PGxE7ZJsnntKtreFGk0tHjmlGSc6GZc0QGckouPTtBHU1wHpZ61hkA6UtV5xDeRolRAmBmylttQL0odA/s740/Ehrm.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHPKtNycq8senFcUuvfnAA8x_pJWNn6pAlmCx2-ed1qQQcgvl4vHpE_V0oxGoaSramcXBnPr_k7ghdeLNqNAyJ3BwPCmViXmpK5kKQ02CKA8PGxE7ZJsnntKtreFGk0tHjmlGSc6GZc0QGckouPTtBHU1wHpZ61hkA6UtV5xDeRolRAmBmylttQL0odA/w400-h400/Ehrm.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Erm....<br /><span style="color: red;"><b><a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/images/Ehrm%202%20-%20Black%20BG.png" target="_blank">for those who see</a></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-17298262033618444702022-08-25T12:14:00.013+02:002022-09-19T01:26:38.238+02:00Nicepage website builder revisited<p> </p><p>I started using the <a href="https://nicepage.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">Nicepage</span></b></a> website builder in around the beginning of October 2021 and after a few weeks wrote a rather enthousiastic <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2021/10/nicepage-web-builder-made-my-jaw-drop.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">blog entry</span></b></a> about it. I tried several other applications that allow users to build websites, none of which matched the capability and diversity of Nicepage. Since that time my enthousiasm only increased and during that period of roughly one year Nicepage has issued over <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">20 updates</span></b> ( ! ! ! ), that added more functionality still to the program, all of which make sense. Also these updates never came with bugs, so their dev-team is not only prolific, but also very skilled. To get an idea about their productivity, you may want to visit their page that contains Nicepage's <a href="https://nicepage.com/doc/254941/mega-menu-customization-grouping-of-elements" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">update history</span></b></a>.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinb4UEzN7SAf4BL6LG0dhqGFNNTgYTSvRZr9mTYooAKTZTiDX0FKjcvjjB9nA4nz25zuKsdlKg0nXqZ0ROWXYjBaJ90wrCdmgUdgbBEMhZIML87p6DjCI321FCc9myS6PFpzL0KAFOjxYcPF9qHrAflebqTL4rEza0htZ4e_X8zdmftsvbLRAkOUWWMQ/s1920/image_2022-08-25_115214299.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinb4UEzN7SAf4BL6LG0dhqGFNNTgYTSvRZr9mTYooAKTZTiDX0FKjcvjjB9nA4nz25zuKsdlKg0nXqZ0ROWXYjBaJ90wrCdmgUdgbBEMhZIML87p6DjCI321FCc9myS6PFpzL0KAFOjxYcPF9qHrAflebqTL4rEza0htZ4e_X8zdmftsvbLRAkOUWWMQ/w400-h225/image_2022-08-25_115214299.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://nicepage.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138; font-size: x-small;">The Nicepage website</span></b></a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>I would recommend this program to both beginners and seasoned pros, because building a website with <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Nicepage requires no coding whatsoever</span></b> and is capable of what Nicepage calls Web 3.0, which means objects can be placed <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">anywhere</span> </b>on the page without restriction, while it offers total freedom of positioning along the Z-axis as well. A few years ago, this may have seemed to be a dream that was out of reach for website builders, but Nicepage has made all this possible, while building a clear and intuitive UI, that is top of the bill in the industry.</p><p>The <a href="https://nicepage.com/features" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">number of features that the program has</span></b></a>, is incredibly large and yet expanding rapidly. The same goes for the continuously growing number of <a href="https://nicepage.com/html-templates" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">templates</span></b></a> they offer their users for free.... Any designer that hasn't at least given this program a try, is depriving him- or herself of fantastic functionality, creative freedom and sheer speed. And by the way, I am not paid to write any of this; it simply is the high level of productivity and creativity that Nicepage makes possible for website builders, that inspired me to compose this blog entry.</p><p>Beside website builders the program is also very well suited for prototyping and UI design and, I dare say, it is so diverse and powerfully efficient that these stages can be skipped. It therefore allows to meet deadlines that other programs are incapable of achieving and make design work a lot more pleasing, because Nicepage removes all restraints that programs of its competition have not yet been able to resolve. Website builders can therefore communicate directly with their clients and apply the changes they request, can be implemented instantaniously. This is a big argument for creative non-coders, that has the potential to increase income drastically in considerably less time.</p><p>I use Nicepage in combination with Affinity Designer - a cheap, no subscription vector drawing program and Affinity Photo (a Photoshop like bitmap editor), that can also be purchased for a low one time fee. Nicepage offers its various versions for <a href="https://nicepage.com/premium" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">very modest subscription fees</span></b></a>, that by far most designer will not consider to be unaffordable. So, if you're fed up with bootstrap grid restrictions for placing objects, coding and unresponsive support departments, you should definitely check out Nicepage, that also offers a free of charge version for individuals. Finally, all upgrades are handled from within the program - users are notified of an update and can do so immediately. It does not get much easier than this.</p><p>Finally, I have to write a few words about <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Nicepage's support, which is unsurpassed</span></b>. I ran into trouble once or twice, encountering a bug (which is a rare thing, even when the devs add functionality at an incredible speed), but the developer team addressed the issue immediately and one or two days later the problem had been fixed. I have never experienced such fast resolutions with any program that I ever used. Nicepage really makes an effort of supporting their user base with great pace. This should be an encouragement for website developers that serve many clients; once they run into a problem, they will not suffer from it for a long time and will remain able to serve their clients properly and continuously. This is a really good argument to try out the program.</p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-18377002568979630662022-08-05T12:24:00.012+02:002022-08-06T00:29:02.024+02:00Vector portrait of Emma Britten<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I originally posted this drawing in 2019, but kept on working on it every now and then (which is what I often do). Many artists are familiar with this method of working, because after 'finishing' a drawing, it is more often than not discovered that the image needs more adjusting and / or additional work. At times this is a repetitively occuring moment, especially with portraits, in which likeness can depend on moving objects 1 or 2 millimeters, changing their size or shape, skewing them or fiddling with their colours. Faces are the most prominent visual characteristic of a person, which is why there is not a photo of your foot in your passport or ID card, but one of your face.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.spiritualpathspiritualistchurch.org/emma-hardinge-britten-the-seven-principles/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Emma Hardinge Britten</span></b></a> was a well known spiritualist who lived from May 2 1823 to October 2 1899. She was a writer, public speaker, musician and opera singer in her younger days to support her family after her father passed away when she was 11 years old. Her spiritual gifts brought her fame and she was frequently consulted by high ranking politicians, corporate leaders and other important people of her day. It is an indication that elevated echelons of society value the spiritual reality that is intentionally kept hidden from common folk.<br />
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This portrait is a work in progress and is drawn in <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Affinity Designer</span></b></a>. This program has all the functionality to create realistic vector portraits that can be edited afterwards relatively fast which is a pain to do with mesh-filled vector portraits. And since tinkering is almost a necessity for portrait artists <b>Affinity Designer</b> is their ideal tool to make 100% vector portraits that can be re-scaled to any size without loss of quality. However, this work also contains vector brushes, which are not really vectors - more about this later.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFm9bMtORuaI1LxIM-zI-v4Dk2MuseKRY02hYkwvsEZ9a_qtXnlR4yFmsvwjT7Cb1kdVqL_MKbqpq6gBd8gZsGAa-B94ZA0SPswzwdI1YUc5K5inGMxGWeTjadjYx0HnHHepdYcU6-TxpV51EQeRGSojOPyG4NH6ZWrHhxQG66aOKP1Y_uK-ynaDykA/s830/EHB%20-%20XII.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="830" data-original-width="645" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFm9bMtORuaI1LxIM-zI-v4Dk2MuseKRY02hYkwvsEZ9a_qtXnlR4yFmsvwjT7Cb1kdVqL_MKbqpq6gBd8gZsGAa-B94ZA0SPswzwdI1YUc5K5inGMxGWeTjadjYx0HnHHepdYcU6-TxpV51EQeRGSojOPyG4NH6ZWrHhxQG66aOKP1Y_uK-ynaDykA/w311-h400/EHB%20-%20XII.png" width="311" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Had to place this here or else the ugly<br />image below will show up in preview</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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What makes vector portraits look realistic is that edges of shapes and lines can be blurred in a controlled way. In addition color fadings can be customized in any desired way (using different colours) as well as the transparency of objects (in a linear, radial, elliptical or conical fashion). The combination of these 3 functions allows artists to create works that are visually indistinguishable from pixel portraits, but - as stated before - can be produced in any desired dimension while retaining the original quality.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBhchfrTJQZqa5Iz0pKsu4h0yeF0S5dnV3Yg2M0aEFSXHmRsVmsrEZXjRBya42PqctRaC8Ib1IcF4pwdfP8Y_mlhHKw1IeLi_fzV-iwNOxsjDfvKFY3y1NJ4jNa94vgANd0UopuRc8wp3/s1600/AI+vector+portrait.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="907" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBhchfrTJQZqa5Iz0pKsu4h0yeF0S5dnV3Yg2M0aEFSXHmRsVmsrEZXjRBya42PqctRaC8Ib1IcF4pwdfP8Y_mlhHKw1IeLi_fzV-iwNOxsjDfvKFY3y1NJ4jNa94vgANd0UopuRc8wp3/s320/AI+vector+portrait.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Ugly </span></b>Adobe Illustrator attempt (no offence) to<br />
create a realistic vector portrait, b.t.w., this<br />is caused by Adobe Illustrator's limited<br />functionality to create realistic art.</td></tr>
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Outside of Affinity Designer only the magnificent free open source program <a href="https://inkscape.org/" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #f1c232;">Inkscape</span></b></a> (which a difficult to learn UI) has similar features, be it that some of them are difficult to find in Inkscape's UI; CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator do not have object blur functions, except when converting objects to bitmaps first, and can not be converted back into vectors. These programs are therefore not suited to create realistic vector portraits, other than with the hideously tedious mesh-fill tool. The portraits not made with the mesh fill tool are very unrealitsic looking portraits with hard edges, as is shown in the image above. Adobe's marketing department has tried to turn this into the standard for vector portraits (in which it obviously succeeded) by suggesting that the programs shortcomings are some sort of artistic oddity that they turned into an alleged type of feature. But no matter how one looks at the result, these are not realistic portraits of high quality; they are at best a visual metaphor of realism.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZEfn45Yic9dJssIqq7OXrQ9YbZcbyLOq5oRmsGRtpNmHfFUWvJmnWpmZFtjbBtAzy2z97gA4dXYs1d08o74FUMeCr5fWHAZ9eXxmioBm8ZPMFQgV5-QkCObbIRCc621gS4k2CCnIuAev/s1600/Strand+02.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="135" data-original-width="1600" height="33" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZEfn45Yic9dJssIqq7OXrQ9YbZcbyLOq5oRmsGRtpNmHfFUWvJmnWpmZFtjbBtAzy2z97gA4dXYs1d08o74FUMeCr5fWHAZ9eXxmioBm8ZPMFQgV5-QkCObbIRCc621gS4k2CCnIuAev/s400/Strand+02.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the custom vector brush<br />
created to draw realistic strands<br />
of hair. This can be imported in<br />
your collection of brushes and<br />
used for this specific purpose.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlFnqWAEE8srrMMgQ5cwMNxcqWgRprukbROYc2AMH8gTpf5QAGg_TLoKcDBzlJxVpFo6y6SJDvON0uLjXAnGL9y4D1iC6MTCGy6QQr9bg59JQ2UyEmO_I0OjxUOnR4Jyuv0aG5jY3mgQp0/s1600/Vector+pores+02.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlFnqWAEE8srrMMgQ5cwMNxcqWgRprukbROYc2AMH8gTpf5QAGg_TLoKcDBzlJxVpFo6y6SJDvON0uLjXAnGL9y4D1iC6MTCGy6QQr9bg59JQ2UyEmO_I0OjxUOnR4Jyuv0aG5jY3mgQp0/s400/Vector+pores+02.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the custom made brush used<br />
to paint skin pores. Mix dark strokes<br />
and bright strokes combined, the latter<br />
always on top in the layer panel.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8ultUmchTobcGy37UiXnPdp8Y-MCxGPkvxw0FfpmIaJ8y5yj0wEWJUuohTHn9gXnhJt-hkeqI7ImqYfJveoEUVCl_dD9teQ0YPir0py_E78gB6S1BsK6MYmlz2r2cBSPaPD-6ChYZqMb/s1600/Skin+pores+examples.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8ultUmchTobcGy37UiXnPdp8Y-MCxGPkvxw0FfpmIaJ8y5yj0wEWJUuohTHn9gXnhJt-hkeqI7ImqYfJveoEUVCl_dD9teQ0YPir0py_E78gB6S1BsK6MYmlz2r2cBSPaPD-6ChYZqMb/s320/Skin+pores+examples.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Apply 3D and or Bevel / Emboss fx<br />
to the textured brush strokes to<br />
create a realistic skin pore texture<br />
and fiddle with the brush properties<br />
use custom colour and transparency<br />
overlays and underlays, whatever it<br />
takes to approach realism as much<br />
as reasonably possible.</td></tr>
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So below you see a realistic vector portrait created in <b>Affinity Designer</b>. Bear in mind that at this point (September 2019) you are looking at the early stages; it will become more realistic as more work is done to the image. Skin pores and detailed strands of hair in particular will be applied. For the hair texture I created a custom brush that allows to create realistic strands, both dark and bright. The oldest stage is at the bottom - more recent stages are placed above that. Click on one of the images and they will be shown in Google's Lightbox, which (on a PC anyway) allows to scroll through the various stages to quickly see and compare the changes. The original size of the portrait in which it was drawn, is 80 x 62 cm, approximately ten times larger than the images submitted to this site.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><br /></i></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i>Mind you - as I found out later - vector brushes in Affinity Designer do NOT create vectors, but are pixels created inside of a vector drawing program, that will remain bitmaps. So when creating realistic art with Affinity Designer, be sure to make large images in order to avoid blurring and jagged edges when using 'vector' brushes, if the intention is to make large prints of the image.</i></div></blockquote><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">September 20 2019 00:09 virtually in 3D frame</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">September 20 2019 00:09</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">September 16 2019 stage 12<br />
vector curves & Brush strokes<br />
outline view (hugely helpful<br />
in the process of drawing)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">September 12 2019 11:50</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">September 11 2019 11:01</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">September 10 2019 17:20</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">September 9 2019 20:13</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">September 9 2019 16:43</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">September 9 2019 12:20</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">September 8 2019</td></tr>
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Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-27504498826393485292022-05-02T13:32:00.082+02:002022-05-12T00:01:12.603+02:00Vector cartoon Mr. Bean<p> </p><p>This time a vector cartoon of Mr. Bean, something different from the realistic vector portraits I usually draw. I didn't have to deviate very far from the reality, since his face in real life is already somewhat cartoonish (no offence). Created in the magnificent Affinity Designer - 100% vector, zero pixels. I first drew this image about 2 years ago and recently revisited the image to make some changes. It is what artists often do: walk away from a project to make some changes later, in this case two years, which allowed me to see details that I missed when drawing the initial image.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9Kbv-NPvb5PlJR8cbuxU5E6EILMaHiwz7SYH5KfHTO6Tj0R3qquKtjnBg3K4RqvfZCyfyD-b2rcyzbwxUhoB1wdJC6MsPW8iFJzbaxBx7AR5CsO1x8iAwbg-ouFdiKXKc4URDblOlgyxm0CN-rMYToPI6LdrgDalCrD_LD6wEZ_ipnoLO6UPdWP9TQ/s740/Mr%20Bean%20-%20Transparent%20BG%203.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9Kbv-NPvb5PlJR8cbuxU5E6EILMaHiwz7SYH5KfHTO6Tj0R3qquKtjnBg3K4RqvfZCyfyD-b2rcyzbwxUhoB1wdJC6MsPW8iFJzbaxBx7AR5CsO1x8iAwbg-ouFdiKXKc4URDblOlgyxm0CN-rMYToPI6LdrgDalCrD_LD6wEZ_ipnoLO6UPdWP9TQ/w400-h400/Mr%20Bean%20-%20Transparent%20BG%203.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rendered view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I refined, tweaked and recoloured a number of areas in the face, in order to add a certain degree of realism to the portrait, while trying not to throw the cartoonish feel out the window. Affinity Designer allows to blur the edges of a curve (object), while gradient colours and transparency are added to it. The programs clipping function allows to draw objects that have various levels of blurriness around their edges, which adds to the realistic atmosphere of a drawing, i.e. not having areas with unrealistic hard edges. I wrote a <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2022/01/varying-blurred-object-edges-in.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">tutorial on this trick</span></b></a> in an other blog post.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0-KyeIeMGbBprgnVbxgO6Q7UUQIIGN-an2eeAn4kAuiYdBoJyJG7lk1KQDnDx-khIVgzxo-dIyoLCT-GorT6FX2wvO6CGfHrsaGCZgVTYCeBpluXmrN9IIFqQi05YMWR4bO9KNaYiH0r75d0jTnYkJDOtUw0rmyYYpQLlTY5DP8EjWhB55xHITP3GIQ/s740/Mr%20Bean%20-%20vector%20outline%20view.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0-KyeIeMGbBprgnVbxgO6Q7UUQIIGN-an2eeAn4kAuiYdBoJyJG7lk1KQDnDx-khIVgzxo-dIyoLCT-GorT6FX2wvO6CGfHrsaGCZgVTYCeBpluXmrN9IIFqQi05YMWR4bO9KNaYiH0r75d0jTnYkJDOtUw0rmyYYpQLlTY5DP8EjWhB55xHITP3GIQ/w400-h400/Mr%20Bean%20-%20vector%20outline%20view.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vector outline view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">Such a cartoon of a well known person would be perfect to use in a T-shirt design, which of course brings the risk of copyright infringement. I have to see how to deal with this. The circular text around the Bean's is borrowed from one of the quotes of his creator, Rowan Atkinson, who is a fastidious bachelor, that said a thing or two about living alone, that touched up on the heart of this type of life.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7bOL38gVjqhtsQPNwYuoPs1hIkryCs0dYC7Z76ghUmZDKe2tiOzKhXIl0IvkLMqwm9_je5DLuhCbU34jTGZHD0C9zwRix5He3k3o81wbfRHIXoSLK1aeZZTv_eAcK9LsjnsyXULJo0E-WK4UuB9Iyzgohze9KtEeoi5h8rMDWfJMsADuCXO8YlEs30Q/s740/Mr%20Bean%20%20-%20T-shirt%20design%20-%20small.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7bOL38gVjqhtsQPNwYuoPs1hIkryCs0dYC7Z76ghUmZDKe2tiOzKhXIl0IvkLMqwm9_je5DLuhCbU34jTGZHD0C9zwRix5He3k3o81wbfRHIXoSLK1aeZZTv_eAcK9LsjnsyXULJo0E-WK4UuB9Iyzgohze9KtEeoi5h8rMDWfJMsADuCXO8YlEs30Q/w400-h400/Mr%20Bean%20%20-%20T-shirt%20design%20-%20small.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Concept T-shirt design, based on one of his quotes</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I made a small collage of various cartoons I drew over time and placed it on <a href="https://vectorwhiz.com" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">my website</span></b></a>, that contains many variations in style of my artwork. The cartoons below each are drawn in a different style using different techniques.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp5c6LJ4mXN__AGot_22XuxejNt30cCNYy9_wYWJIXf-0gGWBcYtIpjBHPsa9CV_1tiOJC5BkAIeBgVwnrdHohPC6iEAjNwgFufYIP-q48vZ4PAPMjbEhlc_CEfalx93kBQOo3U25exkFkOBFDOifnWS8Ug-mmw69p6U3vjL-YlB7knbSIPKtQfwnQbw/s1429/Elvis%20Kill%20Bill%20Bean.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="1429" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp5c6LJ4mXN__AGot_22XuxejNt30cCNYy9_wYWJIXf-0gGWBcYtIpjBHPsa9CV_1tiOJC5BkAIeBgVwnrdHohPC6iEAjNwgFufYIP-q48vZ4PAPMjbEhlc_CEfalx93kBQOo3U25exkFkOBFDOifnWS8Ug-mmw69p6U3vjL-YlB7knbSIPKtQfwnQbw/w400-h208/Elvis%20Kill%20Bill%20Bean.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of a cartoon compilation on <a href="https://vectorwhiz.com/Vector.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">my website</span></b></a>,<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I am trying to become familiar with Blender, which is quite a challenge, since its UI is like no other 3D program I have used before. But I guess I have to endure the headaches and frustrations, while attempting to adjust my way of thinking to that of Blender's developer department employees. The program is free, which better relates to the non-existing contents of my bank account.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijCsQ1S8vYCQednLrVw43Ppe-PNoRQGAFkaDnZ86y2K_eA0yTu9xm59NruxBhwc9shd9Cs8ubIv5poInpD0QcoQZGTYM2p6OINQZ7EEHrorRM32g5a7MAPtxPusqegET_deTVyWFfIS_6JqhKX4tWJx_Xfgs1Oazy_Je59jzwDbsUdeA23yVr9pCZ3g/s1090/Bean%20in%203D%20frame%20-%20Transparent%20BG%203.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="1090" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijCsQ1S8vYCQednLrVw43Ppe-PNoRQGAFkaDnZ86y2K_eA0yTu9xm59NruxBhwc9shd9Cs8ubIv5poInpD0QcoQZGTYM2p6OINQZ7EEHrorRM32g5a7MAPtxPusqegET_deTVyWFfIS_6JqhKX4tWJx_Xfgs1Oazy_Je59jzwDbsUdeA23yVr9pCZ3g/w400-h360/Bean%20in%203D%20frame%20-%20Transparent%20BG%203.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Psychedelic Bean rendered in virtual 3D frame</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Fiddling about wildly with the curve function - placing a heap of nodes on the curve and dragging them to unusual levels, which does surprising things with the colours of an image and sometimes leads to results that are actually worth looking at. The portrait was clipped inside crossing and expanded strokes that I made into wavy lines with the Node tool and then transformed them into curves that can be used to clip other vector objects or pixel images. I wrote a blog entry before on <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-to-create-vector-woodcut-portrait.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">how to do this</span></b></a>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-24022704407316439992022-04-16T15:27:00.030+02:002022-04-28T00:15:29.574+02:00Vector butterfly<p> </p><p>This was an exercise to draw organic shapes in Affinity Designer. To the curves and strokes gradient colours, opacity and <i><b>fx</b></i> were applied. Vector drawing programs are commonly known to produce hard edges, but Affinity Designer is quite well capable of the opposite, which allows to draw realistic vector shapes, that resemble imagery that is created in pixel editing programs, while being re-scalable to any size without loss of quality. Vector images are also easily edited afterwards, easier than pixel art in any event, because each curve and stroke is a separate, editable object.</p><p>Affinity Designer allows object edges to be anywhere between hard and soft and even is capable of creating objects that have a <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2022/01/varying-blurred-object-edges-in.html" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">varied level of softness in their edges</span></b></a>, that I haven't been able to achieve so effectively and fast in the programs of the competition, while still being able to swiftly edit the blurred edge properties afterwards. The varied level blurring is done by multi-level clipping, gradient opacity and Gaussian blurring effect. Below on top you see the rendered image and below that the vector outline view. Click the images to see them in Google's Lightbox.</p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0yNHaK8MKJDZs6-byobRZKgXHwhCsT8b9CWvWEkuI_NRRypIwz-mFnmnz6bQ-fdU4H9Ml5SvbvgADMmpf1fjmCzta10kwUCbvYwu8FwlveqUAGZ83Qzx1S0WZSekFi_OvZjRPrSbL4kTJ5pQg09ZQiZEQ11tHQEznYFFvqF9Su6l23ejpJs5POjCHcQ/s999/Butterfly%2005%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="999" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0yNHaK8MKJDZs6-byobRZKgXHwhCsT8b9CWvWEkuI_NRRypIwz-mFnmnz6bQ-fdU4H9Ml5SvbvgADMmpf1fjmCzta10kwUCbvYwu8FwlveqUAGZ83Qzx1S0WZSekFi_OvZjRPrSbL4kTJ5pQg09ZQiZEQ11tHQEznYFFvqF9Su6l23ejpJs5POjCHcQ/w400-h296/Butterfly%2005%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rendered view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkgvzb9uJmeljjDQjmyhFIUIIZG0XKDvCl7-eVR3ULMtLl_w0ASACJcJTJole2jEQAc7HQdIOkyBOOReHN43eNtZMNfyP4dHjLYMx3GC2YFp8Kyq6MTiNpybF64Y9f3tT1gfbOgW71TOxsP4hu6UjdSoqWAszRyrJZROaaRbUc2oAxqUZZ05CjjFBCg/s818/Butterfly%20vector%20outline%20view.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="818" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQkgvzb9uJmeljjDQjmyhFIUIIZG0XKDvCl7-eVR3ULMtLl_w0ASACJcJTJole2jEQAc7HQdIOkyBOOReHN43eNtZMNfyP4dHjLYMx3GC2YFp8Kyq6MTiNpybF64Y9f3tT1gfbOgW71TOxsP4hu6UjdSoqWAszRyrJZROaaRbUc2oAxqUZZ05CjjFBCg/w400-h296/Butterfly%20vector%20outline%20view.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The vector outline view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW offer the Mesh Fill function with which similar looking effects can be achieved. But that technique is nothing but replacing a cluster of pixels of the same colour with a small vector area of one particular colour, that can be manipulated somewhat. Depending on the complexity of the object that is drawn, using this method can require a shedload of work, because all colours involved (in the reference image) have to be <i>mis en place</i> (selected and made available in a colour ribbon before drawing even starts), and each change in color has to be determined to be replaced by a vector area. Affinity Designer allows to use curves and / or strokes that can be clipped in more levels, which makes it easy to edit areas at a later point in time, which is <a href="http://vectorboom.com/load/freebies/freeplugins/mesh_tormentor_plugin_complete_guide/24-1-0-18" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">a hell of a chore in Mesh Fill</span></b></a> images, even when parts of objects are drawn separately.</p><p style="text-align: left;">In addition Affinity Designer allows to define transparent areas that are adjacent or inside to the colour filled ones or inside them, with either sharp or blurred edges (which are also editable afterwards). So, illustrators and designers that must or want to make images that include organic shapes, are absolutely better served by Affinity Designer. Especially artists that don't have to worry about legacy data from programs of the competition, will find that Designer suits their requirements excellently. </p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-1334832612912353492022-04-13T12:26:00.011+02:002022-04-16T03:18:58.279+02:00Rasta monkey cartoon<p> </p><p>A short blog entry this time. I drew a vector rasta monkey cartoon in Affinity Designer, that I intend to use as a T-shirt design. Below the rendered image you see the vector wireframe view of it, which is quite simple and hints at the fact that giving strokes and curves different properties and effects, is what really defines the appearance of an image. It also implies that these properties and effects can quickly be changed at a later stage. Click on the images to see larger versions of them in Google's Lightbox.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGkg00tYr2hSV-R4Ew0jEXY_Bx0uE3Xh8MoVjx50strsw3KYRqqMYnC4XQ2oNWNXuP0xVmvbA_GXHAH_Q3ZRKugHMZBggCbDz4dNqaQaQsNKSJCwUGHnnKrR-ImAnj7aZSbFjMjCTgIkB2qtVL3PgFGNS84VmOzksbFBwVNxRX6fvZGOoQhHAC5DtqiQ/s740/Rasta%20monkey%20-Transparent%20BG%20-%20740%20x%20740.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="740" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGkg00tYr2hSV-R4Ew0jEXY_Bx0uE3Xh8MoVjx50strsw3KYRqqMYnC4XQ2oNWNXuP0xVmvbA_GXHAH_Q3ZRKugHMZBggCbDz4dNqaQaQsNKSJCwUGHnnKrR-ImAnj7aZSbFjMjCTgIkB2qtVL3PgFGNS84VmOzksbFBwVNxRX6fvZGOoQhHAC5DtqiQ/w400-h400/Rasta%20monkey%20-Transparent%20BG%20-%20740%20x%20740.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfqeC0XuMsHmk78T76fnbeZEARQAxU-H4c94XjTAr8EeERBNlYym2-wC_KGkNwaVdOiu2oC35H0zqPICZ3yJSoNjTRpLKrQ03nDxLXJeapO-er3-eXAhIaQqMsxAQnF9LGc1bIz8nbpFjHjdEHrG2kRkZEOANrxCy1DYCD2HDjowON6GosvsBjCq-nQ/s801/Rasta%20monkey%20vector%20wire%20frame%20view.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="801" data-original-width="801" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfqeC0XuMsHmk78T76fnbeZEARQAxU-H4c94XjTAr8EeERBNlYym2-wC_KGkNwaVdOiu2oC35H0zqPICZ3yJSoNjTRpLKrQ03nDxLXJeapO-er3-eXAhIaQqMsxAQnF9LGc1bIz8nbpFjHjdEHrG2kRkZEOANrxCy1DYCD2HDjowON6GosvsBjCq-nQ/w400-h400/Rasta%20monkey%20vector%20wire%20frame%20view.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vector wire frame view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-69518056848563238462022-04-12T12:42:00.012+02:002022-04-12T14:05:18.094+02:00Jugendstil mandala<p> </p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">Mandalas</span></b></a> have always fascinated me, as well as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">Jugendstil</span></b></a> designs, particularly ornaments. Without planning to draw either one of them, out of some sort of boredom, I kind of mindlessly started dabbling in Affinity Designer, the result of which you see below. When composing the main drawing, I applied several effects to eh image - the most dominant of which is Gradient Colour overlay that allows black and white images to be enhanced instantly. All values assigned in the settings of effects, colouring and gradients are <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/esoteric" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">esoteric</span></b></a> / <a href="http://www.rexresearch.com/rodin/2-vbm.pdf" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #e69138;">vector math</span></b></a> values.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinNJFeiGRqydqI041YVpx77C-l6iprHBzUNIkjhJUEGFPznlea_XuSq1LNGYdrAfWJpe-id7Gex5Ef-o85HfMj6Z4TK8b1n1SQw04kiYc6wndlH0r703hBJH26awKSid4YSuiHB_COr4FhdhXtYztDMixM907A1bW87NCQ6gE-ZW0DuGJnk_h_hGNy0g/s999/Circular%20motion%20test%204%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="999" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinNJFeiGRqydqI041YVpx77C-l6iprHBzUNIkjhJUEGFPznlea_XuSq1LNGYdrAfWJpe-id7Gex5Ef-o85HfMj6Z4TK8b1n1SQw04kiYc6wndlH0r703hBJH26awKSid4YSuiHB_COr4FhdhXtYztDMixM907A1bW87NCQ6gE-ZW0DuGJnk_h_hGNy0g/w400-h400/Circular%20motion%20test%204%20-%20Transparent%20BG.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mandala</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">The image basically contains two parts, that I have arranged in a 7 element circular pattern, the larger object of which I placed below this paragraph. The objects are embedded in the main drawing.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh34FlPfBmmjy9YtsU-VymuR0xTmhievSvP27plsyHh8bveUXYTZ79RxqGYGj6bjtMkYHCk33NxJOoFFX0KBE27_iTiFBEsYWAItsGjXCTXuFzXNHIp9qQNuAh9k4mrPInnNN8T3CBBaEIgp8B5EexLdmDxH-_o6yahV6WJbJ3ULiIkJZDn-kiz4KxuFA/s794/Ornament%203%20-%20sec.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="742" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh34FlPfBmmjy9YtsU-VymuR0xTmhievSvP27plsyHh8bveUXYTZ79RxqGYGj6bjtMkYHCk33NxJOoFFX0KBE27_iTiFBEsYWAItsGjXCTXuFzXNHIp9qQNuAh9k4mrPInnNN8T3CBBaEIgp8B5EexLdmDxH-_o6yahV6WJbJ3ULiIkJZDn-kiz4KxuFA/w374-h400/Ornament%203%20-%20sec.png" width="374" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The larger object</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">The smaller object, I placed below this paragraph. Click the images to see larger versions of them in Google's Lightbox, that allows to scroll through them by turning the scroll wheel of the mouse.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49czZvtHoVPK65Uf9PrhwSCyAKAUlLUjuHCeNAJXoGiika_UNo_3QY6KF3RH7Y1pliYyqeFQM66BtdGCKS6moqh8_3v0Gmh6S348WuHUNmRhzsSfO0AN5hh47_RZi8U3ZLOP8vwME0uEI9xgOTtYxnLNm3M74VkcgW3e0B0FpZVnuHeAnM47DtJ8Olw/s851/Ornament%202%20-%20sec.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="627" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49czZvtHoVPK65Uf9PrhwSCyAKAUlLUjuHCeNAJXoGiika_UNo_3QY6KF3RH7Y1pliYyqeFQM66BtdGCKS6moqh8_3v0Gmh6S348WuHUNmRhzsSfO0AN5hh47_RZi8U3ZLOP8vwME0uEI9xgOTtYxnLNm3M74VkcgW3e0B0FpZVnuHeAnM47DtJ8Olw/w295-h400/Ornament%202%20-%20sec.png" width="295" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The smaller object</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-12796522219523850182022-04-02T12:35:00.021+02:002022-04-05T15:11:39.617+02:00Book cover pages, flyers and educational technical art<p> </p><p>In this blog entry I present some recent cover pages that I have drawn in Affinity Designer, Rhinoceros and Cinema 4D. These were all created in A4 format for educational books in the advanced composite business for a company in which the entrepreneurs each have over 3 decades experience in high-tech companies in the severely regulated aviation and aerospace market. Also I placed some of examples of technical art created in 2D and 3D. The books were created in InDesign up to some 5 years ago, after which I switched to Affinity Publisher. In all of them I drew all images from scratch. These are books, contain a 100 to 300 pages, deal with the complex matter and processes in the advanced composites world.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5Hzbac2egSaxkXyWisd-d0Pk0iC7K9hIsZ-p06pbhpaD_cIEkiprVV2bgy-u_1ZAuYUczNtFGe6DKg6024akvCnbNt8fG4lI6o_L7p2dvINaaLEuFV9pnJ6dmucG0Pt5wzCpUATiHe1dxQA3pL0WN5Qeub8434uV_12-Q7SGlDIlOZqOTZ99dV834w/s900/TECH-101-PART%201%20General%20Composite%20Structural%20Bonded%20Repair%20Cover%20page.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="642" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5Hzbac2egSaxkXyWisd-d0Pk0iC7K9hIsZ-p06pbhpaD_cIEkiprVV2bgy-u_1ZAuYUczNtFGe6DKg6024akvCnbNt8fG4lI6o_L7p2dvINaaLEuFV9pnJ6dmucG0Pt5wzCpUATiHe1dxQA3pL0WN5Qeub8434uV_12-Q7SGlDIlOZqOTZ99dV834w/w285-h400/TECH-101-PART%201%20General%20Composite%20Structural%20Bonded%20Repair%20Cover%20page.png" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Composite repair book cover 1 - Affinity Designer</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0hOEB8ZIVaickuM4fdPAK9yVnJ9BBPVxU9q24oSc-H7EWmoF-CSM01cUChoOlv3cdlG8h-AiLrseZ69r07RRt-NK15hrr2KgpZ33mUe-ryUsMq8y-my4DTsKd7SC77xFfRxup3jPYfd3TdHbZN8Zg42-kvdJ3-v0EusOSh-sPHpGqGKUywXOvp9IIg/s900/TECH-101-PART%202%20Commercial%20Aircraft%20Composite%20Structure%20Bonded%20Repair.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="642" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0hOEB8ZIVaickuM4fdPAK9yVnJ9BBPVxU9q24oSc-H7EWmoF-CSM01cUChoOlv3cdlG8h-AiLrseZ69r07RRt-NK15hrr2KgpZ33mUe-ryUsMq8y-my4DTsKd7SC77xFfRxup3jPYfd3TdHbZN8Zg42-kvdJ3-v0EusOSh-sPHpGqGKUywXOvp9IIg/w285-h400/TECH-101-PART%202%20Commercial%20Aircraft%20Composite%20Structure%20Bonded%20Repair.png" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Composite repair book cover 2 - Affinity Designer<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDtFNFTgOdfVhs53y9sOUf2Bg52GvT97Yi5DI9ROs0y5BB6pDFOQ9LeDfWBBwLNPD42CMLfSOz5A394dSaqsYgpq59Ta8S5BtTz18wAMMpGTOfv4UV-qEfMPQiP126qIKo49l2_y5-sPP8c_vqM1MZ36hsmDfLYoai59Udj5fGzctAs8vnluGlPcyPmg/s900/Cover%20concept%201%20-%20TECH%20101%20Part%201.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="642" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDtFNFTgOdfVhs53y9sOUf2Bg52GvT97Yi5DI9ROs0y5BB6pDFOQ9LeDfWBBwLNPD42CMLfSOz5A394dSaqsYgpq59Ta8S5BtTz18wAMMpGTOfv4UV-qEfMPQiP126qIKo49l2_y5-sPP8c_vqM1MZ36hsmDfLYoai59Udj5fGzctAs8vnluGlPcyPmg/w285-h400/Cover%20concept%201%20-%20TECH%20101%20Part%201.png" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Composite fabrication book cover 3 - Affinity Designer </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAm_sR5lzD2EM627u6LrR1bYXHedZ6ABg_ayiFdleldcZUmPtzbhG-Jatk92HyiC88ncZnBxnIWTywSHaZCE80dhNOJUm4tioYFBGmllCCbFxQGh3pmVMSxBO7IEEbP5JGNfBUIjAOmbV6qV7XYWXMZt7Um-mLBqex5gQFDrz_bcelfPRlfxpeTONOPg/s671/EFC%20books%202.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="671" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAm_sR5lzD2EM627u6LrR1bYXHedZ6ABg_ayiFdleldcZUmPtzbhG-Jatk92HyiC88ncZnBxnIWTywSHaZCE80dhNOJUm4tioYFBGmllCCbFxQGh3pmVMSxBO7IEEbP5JGNfBUIjAOmbV6qV7XYWXMZt7Um-mLBqex5gQFDrz_bcelfPRlfxpeTONOPg/w400-h233/EFC%20books%202.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some older books that I created from cover to back</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYiZjIwIL1cr0iyIc_gkDkwn4eeqkgko5qNCAggdFT08Mx6K_rIM86u8nftpSOdJ2D8krYKWJ5IqvOTVGFUDypIT27CT1M8_KEKEBzFcGzntPlhMus6aWLGmZ8WVtL2-B16t4-ezkoL40H1bslo8iLUuARPrgxyq9Nd9Qpr7rYuYrI4ab4eG1zw6tWGg/s900/Cover%2002.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="637" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYiZjIwIL1cr0iyIc_gkDkwn4eeqkgko5qNCAggdFT08Mx6K_rIM86u8nftpSOdJ2D8krYKWJ5IqvOTVGFUDypIT27CT1M8_KEKEBzFcGzntPlhMus6aWLGmZ8WVtL2-B16t4-ezkoL40H1bslo8iLUuARPrgxyq9Nd9Qpr7rYuYrI4ab4eG1zw6tWGg/w283-h400/Cover%2002.png" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />One off design concept for Lufthansa - Affinity Designer<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5VjyGHTRAkCGP1IlDhon9g9U2vMtie2vpklmPmFH487DkBBq_xiCAl60Yv5LTFB0bR1rjiY8E2N5LIY63Fd30QcY0L9co155YWhjZtX2-qRbKhVrGm0h8HUBebmizMfU62e_DzwjZCtnPEAJjM-lYVROEoAn7IPaKMtAewWA2aZr6e38bVlzstV5uGA/s1600/SAE%20Information%20Report%20Cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1132" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5VjyGHTRAkCGP1IlDhon9g9U2vMtie2vpklmPmFH487DkBBq_xiCAl60Yv5LTFB0bR1rjiY8E2N5LIY63Fd30QcY0L9co155YWhjZtX2-qRbKhVrGm0h8HUBebmizMfU62e_DzwjZCtnPEAJjM-lYVROEoAn7IPaKMtAewWA2aZr6e38bVlzstV5uGA/w283-h400/SAE%20Information%20Report%20Cover.png" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />SAE report - Affinity Designer</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgypu9MZkGgOPIOJwJ9PC3541rQzUhbq-rZ-j_uf2u-vS8OHwtu1bjSUkeN0exl_Sin7FNOe8bb7CYLznDyLE78lmIaQQq1fHcNhyRjS5OshFMm4BF0Vn6ioY8fE_gQGn3YGZ8dn4sXyFF_qQUkvVEFyAifYvdl4TWeMm3sV0Yh_Kd9At7-bE3XRElhug" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="1200" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgypu9MZkGgOPIOJwJ9PC3541rQzUhbq-rZ-j_uf2u-vS8OHwtu1bjSUkeN0exl_Sin7FNOe8bb7CYLznDyLE78lmIaQQq1fHcNhyRjS5OshFMm4BF0Vn6ioY8fE_gQGn3YGZ8dn4sXyFF_qQUkvVEFyAifYvdl4TWeMm3sV0Yh_Kd9At7-bE3XRElhug=w400-h243" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vacuum bagging method - Rhinoceros 3D</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxqU7b3AgHldqJYBNCMvbJaGAyEGqOYxrTDidK0FgTdNLS1870bmKaHblM3zbFLBGFvB7DYnwJvQLvpUbyPrEO9xMe1sjJsnBvUgGur-ZeKUDqWkrd3o0IvPjZuO5Ut91wpdn5TaD72zzw9vNCrRkUnYz-LrOauofs5Zhx546grOKeS0qdcipl4zi3xg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="1343" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxqU7b3AgHldqJYBNCMvbJaGAyEGqOYxrTDidK0FgTdNLS1870bmKaHblM3zbFLBGFvB7DYnwJvQLvpUbyPrEO9xMe1sjJsnBvUgGur-ZeKUDqWkrd3o0IvPjZuO5Ut91wpdn5TaD72zzw9vNCrRkUnYz-LrOauofs5Zhx546grOKeS0qdcipl4zi3xg=w400-h249" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Composite repair student exercise tools - Rhinoceros 3D</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV0r9loV2n_bZsK31URHxFgaGi3doZz9BwF8jNbgH5QK0DVpfMzrKTVe-QoQRRFVvIvXCwHi1r1EzFd24iN-nzGgp3Vyzi_c3PUAljtV7hnmO5bgifjqzod1wY1biVwuJKbIhHUD63qvNGdCWZUhEe1f5YObN_NLpjtwH6ADa4ZP_P7MTezBnF5aftIw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1793" data-original-width="2559" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV0r9loV2n_bZsK31URHxFgaGi3doZz9BwF8jNbgH5QK0DVpfMzrKTVe-QoQRRFVvIvXCwHi1r1EzFd24iN-nzGgp3Vyzi_c3PUAljtV7hnmO5bgifjqzod1wY1biVwuJKbIhHUD63qvNGdCWZUhEe1f5YObN_NLpjtwH6ADa4ZP_P7MTezBnF5aftIw=w400-h280" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />Vacuum bag schedule - Rhinoceros 3D</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; 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You may want to peek at this composition for comparison from time to time. In this blog entry I will place the various stages in which I manually draw the entire image in vectors exclusively. My working method is to initially draw parts with a moderate amount of details and later add detail to create a more realistic scene. I will post each stage with the date included. This vector drawing was created in <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designer</span></b>, but other vector drawing programs may have similar functions. The first image on this page will always be the most recent stage. <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Note:</span></b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"> If you want to see larger versions of the images below, click on them to see those in Google's Lightbox. Press the Escape button on the keyboard to return to the tutorial.</span></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTjT3izALO0cbsQboI1lHoUEXqovEuptEoQcuSl_jnM5vd1flyRO71txXW8WG2Snk1uF-J3L5VNzbW-VWBt8kaoSOs2XiF555iUpii4Q3BsDUFMqiAHOLuxP-uAsVnSM0VqMf_jKO5txU21_vJADx5vVzix5zL5AHSlE6EAHgQrBa4iTHtdFfZgrgtrg=s830" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="830" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTjT3izALO0cbsQboI1lHoUEXqovEuptEoQcuSl_jnM5vd1flyRO71txXW8WG2Snk1uF-J3L5VNzbW-VWBt8kaoSOs2XiF555iUpii4Q3BsDUFMqiAHOLuxP-uAsVnSM0VqMf_jKO5txU21_vJADx5vVzix5zL5AHSlE6EAHgQrBa4iTHtdFfZgrgtrg=w400-h381" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Most recent stage</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Since drawing this vector painting is going to be a rather lengthy and complex process (i.e. containing hundreds of objects, perhaps thousands when finished), I will make separate drawings of the various details and embed them in the main file, as I mentioned in the previous blog entry. This approach also keeps the number of objects per sub-object smaller, which allows the artist to maintain oversight and save time.<div><br /><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Stage 01 - The falconer's head (Feb 21 2022)</span></b></p><p>Below the rendered view of the falconer's head and the vector outline view at this stage. Note how few strokes and curves are used to achieve a relatively realistic appearance. This type of approach in <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designer</span></b> allows to edit parts quite easily in a brief period of time. The low number of curves and strokes are easy to find in the layers panel and editing each of them requires far less tinkering than the overrated mesh-fill techniques, in which each node represents a cluster of pixels that each have to be edited separately. This feature is in high demand on the Serif forums, but personally I don't miss it at all, because I can do exactly what is necessary to create a realistic image with less effort in less time.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiEEJE0WF9q9EiQpE43vX3oU4Fsnt8su6j1PjdyJXAIoR7BSCWf4K67MVfTRlRId21udAIUFvagKxQl55yQZLqZa2iQYrJEnGVV8Zv0M5rvx0Qm2Idca1Endg-zZ2YOTbp31K2-KN78mlY5hFwSCcfumGXk_xACi1AvRKxxkO_mAV1BV1NRbtAgDzy6Ug=s900" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="900" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiEEJE0WF9q9EiQpE43vX3oU4Fsnt8su6j1PjdyJXAIoR7BSCWf4K67MVfTRlRId21udAIUFvagKxQl55yQZLqZa2iQYrJEnGVV8Zv0M5rvx0Qm2Idca1Endg-zZ2YOTbp31K2-KN78mlY5hFwSCcfumGXk_xACi1AvRKxxkO_mAV1BV1NRbtAgDzy6Ug=w400-h370" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 01 - Rendered view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFR5-zRxERvPu6oG9M25IeklazAJ2JinwBn7Pw8C2hmBM2Rr0IX_CPW9kcB_P12z3r3ZcRMvQjyFiXT_9eBVlASc1WMgxYaWWM80dGNvO3sJfEILMTQW77_wBaCnuV5XwTy4FXKHsudtibCa3Z26Szo0AvWLwm-NBGNoK2FFRoGzC26xwCXiOjsxv4BQ=s900" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="900" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFR5-zRxERvPu6oG9M25IeklazAJ2JinwBn7Pw8C2hmBM2Rr0IX_CPW9kcB_P12z3r3ZcRMvQjyFiXT_9eBVlASc1WMgxYaWWM80dGNvO3sJfEILMTQW77_wBaCnuV5XwTy4FXKHsudtibCa3Z26Szo0AvWLwm-NBGNoK2FFRoGzC26xwCXiOjsxv4BQ=w400-h370" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 01 - Vector outline view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHEmSWwGKXtQlaZlaqz7vCUTA_fppEyu6adLFLCRWifxp7RWjUZLVB-V6fgrZHHvoVXj0RAY9shP3paaNw8Sk7gvDfb7eD-Z6ymgqH6emAlfULYkSI0s3g0BI5Ew7ZOxbOlxBabzBAtzaJLqKsXW8P9eEJucPItW113HPtu3_UDd7mqlcQwbW_tc8FEw=s900" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="838" data-original-width="900" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHEmSWwGKXtQlaZlaqz7vCUTA_fppEyu6adLFLCRWifxp7RWjUZLVB-V6fgrZHHvoVXj0RAY9shP3paaNw8Sk7gvDfb7eD-Z6ymgqH6emAlfULYkSI0s3g0BI5Ew7ZOxbOlxBabzBAtzaJLqKsXW8P9eEJucPItW113HPtu3_UDd7mqlcQwbW_tc8FEw=w400-h373" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 01 - Overview - where this head is in the overall composition</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><br />This KISS-type method of drawing does not only make images easily editable at a later point in time, but also keeps the file-size small, which allows artists to work faster, especially those with a not so powerful computer. The trick with the strokes is, that I manipulated the stroke width (in the Stroke panel) and gradient colour and transparency, while applying the Gaussian blur function to them most of the time, which results in a limited number of objects that make a realistic image nevertheless. Besides strokes a few curves were drawn in places where strokes won't do the job, using the same effects. Curves make it possible to clip other objects into them, which makes it possible to draw more complex shapes that have complex fills. Compared to the number of nodes that mesh-fill operations require, Affinity Designer offers a much more efficient editing method.<div><br /><div>When drawing the stages I often deflect from the reference image to enhance the visual impact of images. In this case I made the falconer look straight at the observer and I changed some of his facial features to further enhance the appearance of the drawing.<br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Stage 02 - The hat (Feb 21 2022)</span></b></p><p>In this second stage I added the falconer's hat. Again, this is the base; detailing if necessary will be done in a later stage, which probably will involve using the Huion drawing table for the fur texture in the hat. The time I have available to work on this project varies considerably and is quite unpredictable. So check out this page regularly. Below you see the rendered view and the vector outline view.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOLcF1iMmkyXld7QWauU_ZpnOmhN-hP_CUN3CGZz8zyGZT4Yqm8N_15XESXnFLi7t43GbrFJ1lhVxNHfbRA1h7_aSCuo3Hm5lVpy3Uq8ze7l6xVZ-3p_H8aT4Ma4mD2PnkByn1h-46FI9wB1o5XihBWB1zN1DCPE2QH7P-_pH1FVCFaXtszA7i50JsnQ=s666" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="666" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOLcF1iMmkyXld7QWauU_ZpnOmhN-hP_CUN3CGZz8zyGZT4Yqm8N_15XESXnFLi7t43GbrFJ1lhVxNHfbRA1h7_aSCuo3Hm5lVpy3Uq8ze7l6xVZ-3p_H8aT4Ma4mD2PnkByn1h-46FI9wB1o5XihBWB1zN1DCPE2QH7P-_pH1FVCFaXtszA7i50JsnQ=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 02 - Rendered view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgd4Z2BP1nfRXpOoU9RFZmci7lubvz-hnO36DLGmOgJxhvxsZNIauSssfHpVVEhLsx-pwrI4kvBInw9A9eTfbHt8q-DjxHPYV0ItI60HSgnma3DNuDDfeGLaNeuSY3m21dHIt1cbIXQ-8_LsAu23FXT8RjGnNicS_NcRKNVG95Bvrr3Ug9Xj1ZkMyMcUA=s870" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="870" data-original-width="810" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgd4Z2BP1nfRXpOoU9RFZmci7lubvz-hnO36DLGmOgJxhvxsZNIauSssfHpVVEhLsx-pwrI4kvBInw9A9eTfbHt8q-DjxHPYV0ItI60HSgnma3DNuDDfeGLaNeuSY3m21dHIt1cbIXQ-8_LsAu23FXT8RjGnNicS_NcRKNVG95Bvrr3Ug9Xj1ZkMyMcUA=w373-h400" width="373" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 02 - Vector outline view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>Although the textures in this drawing are complex, I try to avoid using vector brushes, because they are not really vectors, but actually strokes based on bitmaps, which will affect the quality of the image when re-scaling it to a size larger than the original drawing. This means a part of the texturing has to be hand drawn, but when objects are clipped and grouped in smartly, their properties can be changed instantly in many different ways.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Stage 03 - Base of the coat (Feb 28 2022)</span></b></p><p>In this stage I began drawing the basic elements of the coat. These basics are important and must be close to the final rendering or at least require minimal tweaking to achieve it. If they are not many changes are required to be applied at a later point in time. While drawing new elements of a drawing some measure of tweaking to already drawn elements are also done in order to maintain the balance in the overall appearance. Below you see a rendering of stage 03.</p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhulDHWSTaahJoIjMpv8nX9uujFX02H4eNTdseJ7iXOtGm6POd8ZAgkHDB4b1N8RD2ASDk6FEY1-fop6jf7AMZaL6QLMUhM2VgGeavmdJoxqqe4W62pbDvQbeLtvw4dzrMdLgOgLbE_aVrflYLhbvx0Ly4CP7wyYncKrOEC7PVR8ZscYgsl86LOtoLDiw=s1536" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1512" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhulDHWSTaahJoIjMpv8nX9uujFX02H4eNTdseJ7iXOtGm6POd8ZAgkHDB4b1N8RD2ASDk6FEY1-fop6jf7AMZaL6QLMUhM2VgGeavmdJoxqqe4W62pbDvQbeLtvw4dzrMdLgOgLbE_aVrflYLhbvx0Ly4CP7wyYncKrOEC7PVR8ZscYgsl86LOtoLDiw=w394-h400" width="394" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 03 - Rendered view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">The gold coloured ornaments on the collars were had drawn and reshaped using both the Move Tool (used for re-sizing and skewing) and the Node Tool to move nodes to the proper place and adjust their fluency. It would have been handy if Affinity Designer had a Distort Tool, which is one of the view functions I miss in the program, but manipulating these things manually is not too time consuming. Below you see the Vector outline view of this stage.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiboKuvd_Qe9mGDn_i58Ss87MoMelzXy37KSP4Sx3bDjcTASGsCjEQ9dwramvDDE7hpFZ1DDX1coHLNicUSHStcBiNt2tI2LD89ytN1liBTyDMy0Qaihy0LOC0cvZ3QEJZcJ7sHzE3pBUbl_4O8r7UJGye9_-IjtIkIzgJzJuEuVaqdk0NhzfTczuzs-Q=s880" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="880" height="399" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiboKuvd_Qe9mGDn_i58Ss87MoMelzXy37KSP4Sx3bDjcTASGsCjEQ9dwramvDDE7hpFZ1DDX1coHLNicUSHStcBiNt2tI2LD89ytN1liBTyDMy0Qaihy0LOC0cvZ3QEJZcJ7sHzE3pBUbl_4O8r7UJGye9_-IjtIkIzgJzJuEuVaqdk0NhzfTczuzs-Q=w400-h399" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stage 03 - Vector outline view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p>The repetitive smaller ornaments are a multitude of two slashes and an equal sign placed as text along a stroke, to which I applied Gaussian blur, 3D effect and a gradient transparency. I may edit this text at a later point in time to something that makes it difficult to edit when not in possession of the original vector file. So far I estimate I spent about 4 hours on this drawing.</p><p><br /></p><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Stage 04 - The falcon / Hawk</span></b><p>In this stage the various sub stages of the drawing of the falcon / hawk are shown. This required some tweaking since the parts were taken from several different photos and combined into one composition. Below you see the first sub stage, which is the drawing of the contour of the bird. Into this numerous objects will be clipped and edited.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-WSV7K-eNtor8vX__UTnujp3ClLfWIA0fk7gzWm3p6JbmBvABgQtCrS-vQiUCqk1H1gT_xdE1RDiqHaW06G1kkvKqnkD9XHCTfOa__5qXyMq1c8Pdk7BO_ReVBDvwIU7OrAVCL3zhY64thN94_2GSivO4xMmg57h0mKZUegTQn9u2-WPQGz2BCDB_Fw=s867" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="830" data-original-width="867" height="383" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-WSV7K-eNtor8vX__UTnujp3ClLfWIA0fk7gzWm3p6JbmBvABgQtCrS-vQiUCqk1H1gT_xdE1RDiqHaW06G1kkvKqnkD9XHCTfOa__5qXyMq1c8Pdk7BO_ReVBDvwIU7OrAVCL3zhY64thN94_2GSivO4xMmg57h0mKZUegTQn9u2-WPQGz2BCDB_Fw=w400-h383" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1st level of Stage 04 - drawing of the bird's contour</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Clipping hierarchy, used to add detail</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">The foundation of adding complex detail, always is to first draw the contours of an object, whether it is the complete bird, a shadow area or a single feather. Inside this contour - that can have a Gaussian blur, a fill, a gradient fill or a gradient transparency, other objects are clipped that represent the detail, highlighted or shadowed areas. Clipping can be done on multiple levels, for example: a shadowed area may have dark or light accents inside of it; these are clipped inside the already clipped curve inside the contour. Always bear in mind when clipping objects, that the Gaussian blur level of the curves higher in the hierarchy will automatically be applied to the clipped curves or strokes as well. This means that clipped objects will always have the blur level of the curve it is clipped inside or higher - never a lower blur level. If sharper edges are needed, they have to be placed on top of the clipping curve.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgg5ofs748kR38WnlOZU9IzbPj6P96NT427yrpCUBzD8Hxt7_v9-L7BZ0VlOOBt3j_-7wyCHIWgQ-IJ-ruxb4ulo7UBezowyUsJg65KwPnVy-MaHvPTt3vZETKHiZ8OY4-tXLBeH7AvstTJP6_ZrYJ_K3uzQORQt_Id30ufOAJ5AgGlALHzWBZ_BVtdog=s830" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="830" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgg5ofs748kR38WnlOZU9IzbPj6P96NT427yrpCUBzD8Hxt7_v9-L7BZ0VlOOBt3j_-7wyCHIWgQ-IJ-ruxb4ulo7UBezowyUsJg65KwPnVy-MaHvPTt3vZETKHiZ8OY4-tXLBeH7AvstTJP6_ZrYJ_K3uzQORQt_Id30ufOAJ5AgGlALHzWBZ_BVtdog=w400-h381" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2nd level of Stage 04 - first details of bird</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p></div><br /></div></div>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-65748801035343205382022-01-23T16:59:00.024+01:002022-01-25T11:37:40.206+01:00Varying blurred object edges in Affinity Designer<p> </p><p>Following the previous blog entry, I want to share some more detailed tricks to create vector objects, that have a variety of blur levels along their edges. This technique is useful when drawing realistic images in Affinity Designer, because hard edged objects rarely look realistic. This technique involves clipping of objects - placing one object inside an other - and gaussian blurring, which is applying a controlled blur ratio to objects. In addition gradient colour fills and gradient opacity can be applied to the objects to attain an appearance that makes objects look realistic. Apart from being useful in drawing realistic vector portraits, this technique has many other applications for artists who need to give their artwork a convincing realistic appearance.</p><p>First some basics. In the image below this paragraph I placed an image in which the basic principle is shown. After that I will go into more complex techniques that are nonetheless based on the same principle. To give an object a blurred edge, click the <b><i>fx</i></b> button at the bottom of the Layers panel. In the dialog that pops up after clicking it, at the top of the dialog, the blur ratio can be set in rounded numbers and can even be set as precisely in decimal values. That is rather basic, but in reality most objects have edges that have a level of blur in their circumference that varies in a non-linear way. This can not be achieved by just using the <b><i>fx</i></b> Gaussian blur function.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEio8byzD8lB-KuKGNJ2P-cH38r5iLFUEM6BFoht-flO2Ui0ocr2pRjqUNIfJ8GnlXPs6_prm0T8_0RYwtxER_j1VXsfG896UmEkpMGeIVsv0AXz8iCIiotjNLSBq6J1V7J5LaMIujzoc0DB-lqDLeUA5XKvDKzYsb8Htf5yJHETlKEyx8znmLTYP-WbSA=s830" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="830" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEio8byzD8lB-KuKGNJ2P-cH38r5iLFUEM6BFoht-flO2Ui0ocr2pRjqUNIfJ8GnlXPs6_prm0T8_0RYwtxER_j1VXsfG896UmEkpMGeIVsv0AXz8iCIiotjNLSBq6J1V7J5LaMIujzoc0DB-lqDLeUA5XKvDKzYsb8Htf5yJHETlKEyx8znmLTYP-WbSA=w400-h346" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Basic clipping and blurring principle</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>Circle 1 has a blur ratio of 10 (roughly medium blurry) and is clipped inside a grey curve that has a blur ratio of 5 (less blurry). Where the objects intersect, at the top of circle 1, the intersecting area inherits the blur ratio of the grey curve - blur ratio 5, while the rest of the circumference of circle 1 maintains its blur ratio of 10. So at the top of circle 1, the edge is less blurry than in the rest of the circle.</p><p>Circle 2 that has a blur ratio of 24, which is more blurry than that of circle 1. Where circle 2 and the grey curve intersect, circle 2 will inherit the blur ratio of the grey curve, so the blurriness at the bottom of circle 2 is far less than in the rest of the circumference of circle 2; there is a greater contrast of blurriness along the edge of circle 2 than there is in circle 1.</p><p>By moving the right edge of the grey curve, by selecting the nodes at the top and bottom of its edge with the Node tool, closer to or further away from circle 2, the level of blurredness at the right side of circle 2 can be set quite precisely. Basically, the further away the edge of the parent curve is from that of the clipped child curve, the less its blurriness affects the edge of the child curve. When the edge of the parent curve overlaps the edge of the clipped child curve, the latter inherits the level of blur of the parent curve in the area where the overlapping is defined.</p><p>Below this paragraph I placed an image with a transparent curve with a blue outline (for clarity) that has no blurred edge, in which a transparent curve with a green outline is clipped that has a blur ratio of 6, in which a red circle is clipped that has a blur ratio of 50.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgv5UDzDrJ8pICwsFRiElYpKyEKnauUU53BKqFgI3TpdIvkmfjiGL8HU7oPUI3uogeLaQruyHCrZN0EJouKdY1UnNLqEo6mSPXgfATqgTz4nYir7kQVoKy0cDMmbQWZFP8VTmmt7r5FqxAtmrsOv2IfQgsN-JDGW-aYp_pv7a8bERShdrYI94rb_pVxFA=s830" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="830" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgv5UDzDrJ8pICwsFRiElYpKyEKnauUU53BKqFgI3TpdIvkmfjiGL8HU7oPUI3uogeLaQruyHCrZN0EJouKdY1UnNLqEo6mSPXgfATqgTz4nYir7kQVoKy0cDMmbQWZFP8VTmmt7r5FqxAtmrsOv2IfQgsN-JDGW-aYp_pv7a8bERShdrYI94rb_pVxFA=w400-h271" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Objects clipped inside other objects, with outlines drawn for clarity</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">The crux is that the parent object in a clip always determines the blurriness of edges. Parent objects can both be given a higher or lower blur ratio than the objects clipped inside of them. If the clipping parent objects have no outline - which is the practical way to work with such a technique - the image shown above would look like the image below this paragraph, indicated by the yellow arrow. The resulting appearance of the clipped red circle becomes clear and this is how clipping and blurring would be used by graphic artists and designers that aim to create realistic objects or parts of objects.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEip3kUguPNPsJJm6Jujn1AWnyHdDpmxLw-qmxgDA4oxcKuPXwmmNcGiCBXNkLA8Mkq6m1jwoLBPn0JJV66r9vcbnMVnOSSOa3ArWL7v3bHNMc3RwvEMom0mFkMvPybWt7hkXs2LT97ftddSbW9AhDXMumlJaZEbgpagUA1kpxPifBADTeavw1_jA_GKyw=s830" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="830" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEip3kUguPNPsJJm6Jujn1AWnyHdDpmxLw-qmxgDA4oxcKuPXwmmNcGiCBXNkLA8Mkq6m1jwoLBPn0JJV66r9vcbnMVnOSSOa3ArWL7v3bHNMc3RwvEMom0mFkMvPybWt7hkXs2LT97ftddSbW9AhDXMumlJaZEbgpagUA1kpxPifBADTeavw1_jA_GKyw=w400-h271" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Objects clipped in other objects, <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">without the outlines</span></b>, which is<br />how the clipping and blurring would normally be used</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;">In the reality that most people experience, areas that have different ratios of blurriness along their edges, are the majority of what occurs / appears in this dimension. Also objects rarely have one equal colour throughout their shape, which is what in addition to the above, can be applied to the mix by giving objects a gradient colour fill or even clip differently coloured child objects clipped into parent objects to mimic reality even closer. Although what I described in this blog entry is not always an obvious intuitive mode of operation, Affinity Designer is very capable of coming a long way in 2D design. Programs of Designer's competition may have Mesh Fill options, but creating those requires much more time and editing them afterwards even more.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6023229979748415348.post-86207543900325101422022-01-06T00:19:00.043+01:002022-05-12T21:12:48.775+02:00How to avoid hard edges in vector portraits<br />In the images below cartoonish vector portraits of Rock & Roll legend Elvis Presley can be seen. This image was created in <b><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/" style="outline-width: 0px; user-select: auto;" target="_blank">Affinity Designer</a></span></b>. After having worked with Adobe Illustrator professionally, CorelDRAW privately and Inkscape occasionally for decades, I have come to the conclusion that the much cheaper one time fee, no subscription <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designer</span></b> is better suited to create<i> <span style="color: #f3f3f3;">vector portraits that do not have hard edges in the face</span></i>, even if it does not include the Mesh Fill function, that is very time consuming and tedious to work with. The drawing and editing process - particularly when editing the drawing at a later point in time - in this program takes far less time and effort. Progress sequence of the portrait on the right can be seen in an other blog entry: <a href="https://communicats.blogspot.com/2020/07/this-is-other-vector-portrait-of-elvis.html?fbclid=IwAR1Yp4CNvlXspX1W_S5LV5Q0UzM1sWsn_TibSegexxHwWyH6C7ayKQ3LJG4">https://communicats.blogspot.com/.../this-is-other-vector...</a> <div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3UTfx8TkP-X5y0UeEmVS9kJ_4lXyNFvdr3PcLZn5rCjjQ3LIlFVXbsjUj3EeZlYdCRn5P7Ihbcip23SOjjoylI6Zl7ncaMJUjL6Rdx-FZVZSaSIqIr-xiE4JyHsorRarPNi8dpR6VeQR7dptpNrWEKI_yPmqhTBGUe08eP990fA_qbL0ZY5gVCNByww/s900/Elvis%202%20times%20vector%20-%20Transparent%20BG%204.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="900" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3UTfx8TkP-X5y0UeEmVS9kJ_4lXyNFvdr3PcLZn5rCjjQ3LIlFVXbsjUj3EeZlYdCRn5P7Ihbcip23SOjjoylI6Zl7ncaMJUjL6Rdx-FZVZSaSIqIr-xiE4JyHsorRarPNi8dpR6VeQR7dptpNrWEKI_yPmqhTBGUe08eP990fA_qbL0ZY5gVCNByww/w400-h283/Elvis%202%20times%20vector%20-%20Transparent%20BG%204.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cartoonish vector portraits of Elvis Presley</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>The image below this paragraph is a screendump of the vector outline of the double portrait. Extensive use was made of <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designers</span></b> Gaussian blur function, which allows to avoid hard edges in the facial features, as are often seen in vector portraits created in Adobe Illustrator. Many of the curves with which areas on the face were drawn are made by applying multiple node gradient fills and gradient transparency. This method allows to quickly edit (also afterwards) of the drawing which is much faster than while using mesh gradient fill tool that isn't present in <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designer</span></b>. Personally, I don't miss it. A brilliant Russian artist who works with mesh fills in CorelDRAW once revealed that it took him months to draw a vector portrait, while it is possible in <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designer</span></b> to make the same effect in much less time. I used CorelDRAW for many years, but only after accidentally running across <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designer</span></b> I was able to create realistic vector portraits a lot quicker, while making editing afterwards easier and faster. More examples of realistic vector portraits and illustrations can be found in my website at: <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fvectorwhiz.com%2FVector.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3VmI0ERuftIlK79Nsn1uJ-F8LMJAPo_uTSDyY6AfqR9VvOw8c-nclrxFs&h=AT2n6_OnJBORNBgk0Jtf3Xqxa1OAiL_W8NCNVYNowH2rCSMiEduiyNWxNFJ0xuJwPsIpvuUv-IUXBzo7OnYQluY8jxAU-agJmB6_8dKeT-gdI5NG6V471aRpPtuaH823Pk7n&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT3R6phgbmKk29xYXvvF4KBO4sRdK6SQkpbbYc1XPV8lHHBAHAa7qaw99zqu73Fwg0yiuJ9DfrNgMZOcOTjcTPKsoe8YxZmkLnudnNioi51auzL63dvT2vKKbj9_LdrseGXawJBlDj9pazcZbNkyH5SaEDvUHk5s5Dc"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">https://vectorwhiz.com/Vector.html</span></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhL3TMqlgo0910KbjO1MflMbFjwr7xCvStajkOLous85nJV8OdbWSfFo93ttTHwKg4l5RCF6zSBF6UyUixuniAEGPtEHngA0dtW-k1UU7PHQxATeD2S_rcKKg049aAZisuVeKNDLAi-h67-ZKRuZV3w2DxWXF3hTSMlfMRT3M3k7RubGUXCx0rjWx2ErQ=s999" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="999" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhL3TMqlgo0910KbjO1MflMbFjwr7xCvStajkOLous85nJV8OdbWSfFo93ttTHwKg4l5RCF6zSBF6UyUixuniAEGPtEHngA0dtW-k1UU7PHQxATeD2S_rcKKg049aAZisuVeKNDLAi-h67-ZKRuZV3w2DxWXF3hTSMlfMRT3M3k7RubGUXCx0rjWx2ErQ=w400-h283" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vector outline view of the Elvis portraits</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>To create (gradient) tints and blurs in the facial area of a vector portrait, it often is necessary to draw curves that have a variable level of blur along their edges, meaning that some edge parts are just slightly unsharp, while other parts are blurred and yet other parts are very blurry. To achieve this effect, I apply the following technique that is below this paragraph:<br /></div></div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: left;">In these vector portraits a Gaussian blur trick was applied in Affinity Designer, as can be seen in the third image. Ellipse 3 is clipped inside Circle 2 and circle 2 is clipped inside circle 1. In the image below you see, Circle 1 is transparent, the other two objects are opaque. Circle 1 has a minimal blur rate, Circle 2 has a higher blur rate and Ellipse 3 has the highest blur rate. The result of these settings are that circle one has an unsharp edge, circle 2 has a blurred edge to the left and an unsharp one to the right, while Ellipse 3 has a very blurry edge on the left and a less blurred towards the right. The blur values are indicated in the third image. The circle with the dotted line only serves to indicate the position and size of Circle 1 that is completely transparent, slightly blurred and used to clip the other objects.</div></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifascnE-2xsSkB5aeHwwtB7KUO94BRMbUE0xPDsfXGDnsrl7gR23YP6TFjQh0C_hFjiyl_p1ca0-eD8qOGRpV193vEsOiS5GTHSfgrB0l83KbR8yn4ZXrT3k9nMKQJqZqZWlSflbbn5Yvpq3_DJEyUZu3MwO6OhyyN_Cs2KZjzhUajGD5IDykRskT6Dw=s830" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="830" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifascnE-2xsSkB5aeHwwtB7KUO94BRMbUE0xPDsfXGDnsrl7gR23YP6TFjQh0C_hFjiyl_p1ca0-eD8qOGRpV193vEsOiS5GTHSfgrB0l83KbR8yn4ZXrT3k9nMKQJqZqZWlSflbbn5Yvpq3_DJEyUZu3MwO6OhyyN_Cs2KZjzhUajGD5IDykRskT6Dw=w400-h243" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example drawing of Gaussian blur effects and object clipping</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In the image below the Layer panel is shown containing the hierarchy of the objects in the image above this paragraph. Objects that are indented to the right are clipped inside the ones above them. The object names correspond with those in the Example drawing. The circles and ellipse are at the bottom of the panel. The objects marked with an 'A' thumbnail refer to the text in the Example drawing.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQkWT95iB95aLSmXf9IWGzch_em6NXRKy0jN0QUO2HtxsgQfTfO9sDZZNqYlfOUGj9G_6aS18144Q8srOwI_xUzJ02A5qlgWAxRSE3ydUdo-wXTZ2fVdBJJg6Hn2wUsEbrsdXvOWnkeSgg8RgJV06q1ibQgHVAThOtgfPM1vnrkBEwy8UExL1znOyFLw=s614" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="302" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQkWT95iB95aLSmXf9IWGzch_em6NXRKy0jN0QUO2HtxsgQfTfO9sDZZNqYlfOUGj9G_6aS18144Q8srOwI_xUzJ02A5qlgWAxRSE3ydUdo-wXTZ2fVdBJJg6Hn2wUsEbrsdXvOWnkeSgg8RgJV06q1ibQgHVAThOtgfPM1vnrkBEwy8UExL1znOyFLw=w196-h400" width="196" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Object position in the Layer Panel<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br />In addition all parts can be given a colour gradient and gradient transparency, all settings that are independently editable of the ones described above this paragraph. <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">In doing so the annoying hard edges of shadows in the face of a vector portrait can be avoided</span></b> that are almost always seen in vector portraits created in Adobe Illustrator. Adobe's marketing machine has managed to present this lack of functionality as some sort of gimmick, but I dislike such vector portraits. <b><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Affinity Designer</span></b> allows to create far more realistic vector portraits in a much easier way that vector portraits created with the mesh fill function. The added benefit of working in this way is that at a later point in time all the parameters can be edited and tweaked to the preference of the vector portrait artist. Working in vectors with this method allows to resize the portrait without any loss of quality. Of course this technique can be applied to any shape you can draw, not just to circles and ellipses, that I used in the example above, as can be seen in the completed vector double portrait at the top of this blog entry and the vector outline view screen dump below it. </div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Isoculthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06236103619721006695noreply@blogger.com