The Fall Harvest Free•For•All!

[Raven Song]

More season edibles...  ...I'll take a leaf cookie with sprinkles.

[Gare]

Love it, and I have to ask:

what application did you use?

Gare

[Welles]

I'll bet Illustrator.... ? ? ?

[Gare]

Nah, she's a Windows user, Welles.

It's a known fact that Adobe doesn't make Illustrator for Windows.

[nikkie]

Nah, she's a Windows user, Welles.

It's a known fact that Adobe doesn't make Illustrator for Windows.

Woulb be pretty stupid if Adobe did, such a mess with all those Windows...

[Raven Song]

  Hi Gare, Welles and Nikki,
Thanks!  The leaf design was my first little experimental doodle with Expression 3.3, and then used a bit of PS. 
I haven't gone through the Expression manual yet, this is just what came about through tinkering around with it's toolbox the first time.  It's very cool! It's vectors, so yes, it's like Illustrator and Xara in some ways.  I love working with layers and this also lets you save your files with their layers in other formats, and then also take those converted from vectors if you wish into PS where you can do more things with it.  The small maple leaves are an Expression brush stroke that Gare created -- thanks, Gare!!!    I used another brush stroke to draw the oak leaf cookie, and all other items in Expression 3.3, and textured it, then used shadow and beveling for more shape in PS.

[Welles]

Well your piece is a good reason to look at Expressions especially as there was just a new update I believe. Thanks for the info, Maya.

[Gare]

Welles and everyone—

I need to point out that the current incarnation of Creature House Expression—Microsoft Expression Design v2—is not the same original child, definitely not the Public Preview version 3.3.

Somewhere in midstream TPTB decided they needed part of a web suite called "Expression", and MS Design is the Adobe Fireworks counterpart now, not sold as a standalone, and not worth the price of the suite in my evaluation.

I'm personally twirked off because I wrote a book on what Expression/Graphic Design/whatever the name is this month, and the publisher had to mothball the book, because what was released (covertly reworked and mangled at the 11th hour) and what I'd lovingly covered were two entirely different programs.

The good news is that if you sign up for an MSN account, you can download version 3.3, this is what Maya used for her artwork, it's Windows only, about 60MB...and it rocks! It's more or less "hidden" as you'll see by the URL; I have mixed feeling about that, but it's available and it would be unfair to deny the generosity of Microsoft just because they're been a corporate jerk in a related area...

Creature House Expression, fully working, no timeout, v.3.3  

Expression deserved its name, the insider pun not withstanding. You can express graphical ideas in a plethora of ways.

My Best,

Gare

[Gare]

Yearly it's my duty to gift my wife Barbara with a "Bouton Original" on our anniversary.

As a break from goofy little 3D creatures and chrome spheres hovering over a wasteland, I did this in Expression 3.3, with some valuable assist from Xara (the two are quite compatible if you use the Illustrator file format as a gateway), and a little Path Styler Pro and Texture Anarchy BackDrop Designer tossed in using PS.

-g-

[Welles]

Loverly! 

[Gare]

If you have MS Design, these will work, but talented artist David Nagel, who contintues to delight Photoshop users with his texture brushes, also made some nice faux finish strokes for Expression.

David Nagel's strokes for Creature House Expression

You'll need to copy them to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Creature House\Expression 3\Strokes; sorry, on the Mac I have no idea where to copy them to, but I suspect a similar system folder.

My Best,

Gare

[Gare]

So it's autumn.

Still a little green, with lots of oranges and browns.

-g-

[Gare]

This is what happens when you try to make a visual pun, and the piece takes on a life of its own!

Gare

[nikkie]

Thanks for the link Gary, now i am off, start playing with the new toy...

[Gare]

Go for it, Nikkie!

If there's enough interest in Expression—if enough members download the free v 3.33— I'll start an area on it.

-g-