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Post by Aestelon on Jun 10, 2009 10:34:29 GMT -9
With the possible exception of real life.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 9, 2009 7:42:58 GMT -9
On another note: What's "weak squash"? I you call it cordial (so do some of us); concentrated fruity drink usually bearing the legend "Dilute to taste". Weak squash is simply overdiluted.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 8, 2009 8:04:34 GMT -9
I think the problem I have with CGI-style figs is that they usually seem like they're trying to look realistic, but not quite making it. The figures Jim and the rest of us make are kind of cartoonish, and work really well for it. I think I'd equate the CGI figures to weak squash (cordial). If you haven't got enough concentrate to make a proper drink, the flavour's unpleasantly weak, and you'd rather just have the water. Figure realism is the concentrate in my analogy. If you can't go all the way, I'd rather not do it at all.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 4, 2009 14:52:05 GMT -9
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 4, 2009 11:55:45 GMT -9
There is an Ungroup action, but that presumably applies only to sets of individual objects that have been previously grouped. Break Apart applies specifically to Paths objects.
I'm going to have to have a really good trawl through the manual to see what else it does. But you're right, for a free program, it's brilliant. I daresay I'll still be using OpenOffice.org Draw for a fair while yet, but I think Inkscape's just become a lot more useful to me.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 4, 2009 9:02:41 GMT -9
Really? Oh. I didn't realise that. We need a facepalm smiley, I think. <EDIT> I wasn't convinced, since when I tried to Ungroup one of my traced SVGs, it didn't do anything. Then I realised you need to use Break Apart under the Paths menu, and then quite likely change all your fills to white until you work out what's where. Very handy to know - thanks for pointing out the option's there!
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 4, 2009 9:00:54 GMT -9
"Politely nudge-arse"... I like that. ;D
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 4, 2009 7:52:22 GMT -9
I would also recommend Inkscape. It is to Illustrator, what Gimp is to Photoshop. A very nice vector graphics package. I never played with vector graphics that much, but it has a few features that come in handy even for pure pixel artists. Most notably the Bitmap Trace feature, which allows you to create much cleaner, vectorised lines from your hand-drawn lineart. It doesn't convert them into full vector components like Canvas, but the cleaned-up lineart alone is a lot nicer and more easily scaled.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 4, 2009 5:37:53 GMT -9
The other particularly popular painting program is the GIMP. Well worth having both, in my opinion. While I've largely migrated to GIMP for most work, as it's about as versatile as Artweaver, tends to run a little faster in my experience, and can convert a lot of extra filetypes (including PDF and SVG vector graphics), I do find its lack of a print preview function is a big drawback; I've quite often tried to print something that I think is at one size and I turn out to be wrong. I'll usually just re-open the file in Artweaver and get a preview to make sure it's right.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 3, 2009 14:46:53 GMT -9
If only my glasses weren't downstairs... I'm going to have a to have a better look at those tomorrow, I think. But it'll be fascinating to see how you do them. ;D
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 3, 2009 14:40:30 GMT -9
A few handy rules of thumb re proportions:
The elbow usually falls roughly in line with the waist, or a hair higher. With the arm straight down, the hand usually falls about mid-thigh. The groin is a good halfway marker between the base of the feet and the top of the head.
Obviously if you're going for a more 'heroically-proportioned' style, these may change a little, but they're still a good guide.
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Wizard
Jun 3, 2009 14:33:05 GMT -9
Post by Aestelon on Jun 3, 2009 14:33:05 GMT -9
(As in 'pub crawl'.)
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 2, 2009 15:02:00 GMT -9
The former. I didn't even know you could get scalpels for wood-carving. The one I've got is a Swann-Morton, with a No. 3 stainless steel handle, and I use 10A blades.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 2, 2009 12:52:03 GMT -9
I'll see what I can do soon; I've got far too many unfinished ones to mention, but I've been on a bit of a GoBots kick recently, and I've got a handful of TF-based customs that may actually be completed before I die, including Major Mo, Turbo, Fitor and Slicks. I've got a Cy-Kill and Cop-Tur on the go, too, as well as some more on the drawing board, but they're going to need a lot more work.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 2, 2009 9:48:00 GMT -9
I tried adding the little white speckles, but couldn't get them to look quite right. I'm actually pretty happy with the camo without them, anyway, so I think I'll leave it as is. Maybe I'll have try again another time, but it's not a priority.
Thanks for the link though, Mag... that's bookmarked for future reference!
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 2, 2009 1:54:10 GMT -9
I just use a scalpel. The handle cost me about a fiver, and the blades cost naff all. And unlike the X-Acto blades, I've never had one snap, and I use them on a lot heavier duty stuff than card (like Transformers plastic). That 'safe for kids' one sounds just like a box cutter or something, or a tool I once got free for cutting wrapping paper.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 1, 2009 15:09:42 GMT -9
But, to get back OT, to make your cam more desert-y are you planning on adding small rocks to the design? I've seen this feature in some desert camo patterns where it looks like a small whitish circlish blob shape with a brownish border around it so it looks like pebbles reflecting the sun. I wasn't. But I may give it a shot tomorrow if I get the chance. I might just modify the camo swatch I saved and re-stamp it; that should do the job in a fairly short time.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 1, 2009 13:04:10 GMT -9
He's clearly not better, Mel. Better hit him again. Gorgeous, though.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 1, 2009 13:01:53 GMT -9
Why didn't you use your affiliates link, Mag? I'll also throw in another recommendation for the Slagtown stuff, as well as the Sci-Blocks (check my Genethief and Springer threads for pics).
But yeah, nice bit of wall, Jose. I think a bit more texture would be nice, though, as Floyd suggested.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 1, 2009 11:44:14 GMT -9
Well, maybe not free - we still have to pay for card and ink. But yeah, it definitely looks like there's a rise in popularity, and rightly so. I can't help thinking a good deal of it is backlash resulting from how expensive the hobby has been getting over the last few years.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 1, 2009 11:35:39 GMT -9
If you want your RPG to actually focus on roleplaying, you don't really even need rules, aside from common sense and good storytelling. Choose a setting, create your characters and play them to the hilt! Just use randomisers when you absolutely must have an unarguable result (which frankly is one of the GM's jobs anyway). I'd recommend having a look at No Dice ( which I'm talking about a fair bit at the mo ), which is about exactly this sort of thing.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 1, 2009 6:16:26 GMT -9
Heh, too right. And thanks.
On the other hand GIMP does have quite a few handy filters and features itself, some of which may or may not be available in PS. One good example is the camouflage pattern generator which I used for this. Found through the File > Create > Patterns menu, you can generate a tricolour camo pattern using any colours you pick, at any size and with variable granularity. It opens up in a new window so you can easily copy it, and it's tilable, so you can paste a small 256px square as many times as you like and it'll match up.
There's a couple of nice ones in the same menu called Land and Flatland, which pretty much create a random virtual map! Land's is a topographical-style map that looks kinda like an aerial view, while Flatland generates a more atlas-like look.
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Post by Aestelon on Jun 1, 2009 0:21:47 GMT -9
What bevel filter? I did this by hand! The only Bevel filter in GIMP is for beveling the whole image, as far as I can tell. I have indeed done the full squad, and it prints pretty nicely. I just need to finish test building them and I can get a snapshot. The layout hasn't changed from the original sheet, but it's saved as a 300dpi PNG (as well as the original GIMP XCF format). Is that okay? I could convert it to PDF here if you want.
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Post by Aestelon on May 31, 2009 18:17:44 GMT -9
Inspired by Mel and Floyd, I thought I'd have a go at recolouring a set of TF soldiers myself. Since I seem to be using a fair bit of desert terrain at the moment, I opted for a desert camo colourscheme. I'm just in the process of assembling the squad, but here's a teaser shot. They seem to have printed pretty nicely.
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Post by Aestelon on May 31, 2009 13:54:02 GMT -9
Yay! Terrain for Adam! ;D
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Post by Aestelon on May 31, 2009 13:39:33 GMT -9
Every word of what he just said. ;D
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Post by Aestelon on May 31, 2009 13:33:36 GMT -9
Ah, yeah, forgot to mention that; it took me about 3 minutes to download. It is a 248-page book, though. Also, I mentioned this before, but on the main website (which I linked to through the words "No Dice" in my previous post), they do have several podcasts you can download, in which Leo, Sue and Justin talk variously about the background and philosophy etc. of the system. Worth a listen when you have the time.
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Post by Aestelon on May 31, 2009 13:04:04 GMT -9
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Post by Aestelon on May 29, 2009 14:29:46 GMT -9
More likely the thread got accidentally disappearded in a forum clean-up. Not sure what the current state of the project is, though.
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Post by Aestelon on May 29, 2009 14:27:40 GMT -9
Absolutely chuffin' stunning.
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