Category Archives: Useful things

Planet and solar system tutorial


My guest tutorial on how to create a planet and a solar system in Xara Xtreme 5 is published (Nov 15th) at XaraXone.
Especially the steps on how to make the starry background is rather brilliant if I may say so myself.

An additional explanation about the background on page 4 and 5 could be in place: If I did not make the snowy bitmap a black and white contone, I would not be able to use the color fill profile to adjust the strong contrast that creates the starry effect.

If you have read my previous posts you probable know by now that my favorite work horse for digitally created images is Xara Xtreme and the images made are in theory vector images, but in real life it is more of a hybrid between vector and bitmaps. And this tutorial is in theory a vector image where I have used a couple of bitmaps as color fills. If you do not have Xara Xtreme you can download a trial version here. Could be interesting for all you Illustrator users to compare and test.

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Free Typography

FreeTypography.com is an online magazine about great typography works, fonts, inspirations, portfolios and of course freebies.

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Free Font Sites


A font site worth taking a look at is The League Of Moveable Type which is a collection of open source fonts.
Another useful collection of free fonts sites can be found at TheLanceLife.Technorati Tags: , ,

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The 30 Day Challenge 2008

The fun is about to start again, the annual Thirty Day Challenge! So what is the thirty day challenge (30DC), you may ask? Well, in nutshell it is about making $10 online. For a full 30 days Ed Dale and Dan Raine are going to show exactly how to start your own internet business and generate your first income online without spending any money.
I see myself as an illustrator and cartoonist, and marketing is sometimes a very difficult part for me. I joined the challenge last year and didn’t really make it ($10) within the 30 day time frame, but I learned tons about marketing techniques – how to optimize your web pages, to study the competition, using free but effective tools and a lot more! So the 30DC is not merely for experienced internet marketers but for every newbie out there who sees the internet as another channel and possibility to sell his or hers stuff (or others for that matter).
The last years material is probably out there still, but I suspect it will be replaced with new material when the pre-season starts June 1st, so you better hurry over to the 30DC site and sign up to get the old stuff for free, and get ready for this years challenge.

PS. Yes, I eventually made $10! Actually I made even more (no, not any “six figure sales” as you often read about in spam and sales letters, but barely a three figure total – but enough to show that the techniques work) during six months.

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Inspirational Vintage Science Art

Illustration from Rockets Through Space : The Story of Man’s Preparations to Explore the Universe, The John C. Winston Company 1957.
Illustrated by James Heugh.

The Vintage Science pool is a great inspiration and reference source for anyone making retro sci-fi art and similar things.

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