I've being re-laying the front page round a bit today, as you've probably noticed. 

I really wanted to make a feature of Workshop Notes as I think it is the most important part of the web site. To give it a hands-on look I've taken a photo of my open notebook and used it as a background. Over the top of that I've pasted the latest two entries from Workshop Notes. It is all automated, I just need to add a blog post and the web site takes care placing the picture and extract of the text in place on top of the notebook. It still needs a bit of tweaking but it is getting late so I think I'll call it an evening. Night all. 

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I use Adobe illustrator for designing my models, it if fast, powerful and flexible. Illustrator is a vector illustration program meaning that it draws using lines and blocks of colour. The plus side of this is that the files produced are small, great for sending over the internet, and the lines remain crisp and sharp even at high magnifications. the downside is that it is hard to add texture to pictures. And textures are what give pictures depth and life. I could work using a bit map program such as PhotoShop but this means that shapes are harder to draw and edit, and the files are larger. So, time to compromise.

With the BeltBot model I have mixed Illustrator for the lines and shapes with PhotoShop for the texture.

I've not tried this before so I may well develop a different process over time but for now here is what I did.

I created an Illustrator file in two layers, On the right is the top layer, the solid outline and the dotted lines for creases. To the left is the bottom layer showing the outline of the the design and the basic flat colours.

I copied the colours from Illustrator and pasted them into Photoshop.

I've then used the magic wand tool to select areas of the picture and copy them into new layers. In the above picture I've created a new layer called rivets containing the top and bottom row of rivets.

I work my way through the main image dividing it into layers. I finish up with layers for rivets, pins, brass, leather, wood and the background

I can then go through the layers adding effects. To make the rivets look 3D I added a bevel effect as well as a drop shadow and outer glow.

To create a wood grain effect I added noise to the wood layer.

The noise is a little fine grained so I coarsened it with the pixelate tool...

...then stretched it out into a grain effect with the motion blur tool. 

The end result has a lot more depth than the starting image.

I then saved out the image as a jpeg and dropped it back into Illustrator on a layer behind the cut lines and crease lines. The result is a file, not as large as a full page jpeg with sharp easily editable lines but with all the texture I was aiming for.

I hope you like it!

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Been adding detail to the Grrrobot model today. I needed a rivet effect across the bottom of the body. Previously I've added a dotted line with fairly large spacing and wide line.

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Some days are all about background, putting things in place for the next stage of a model. Today has been one of those days. Lots of work with nothing much to show for it. Ah well.

I've had a couple of ideas for projects and a nice chat with my parents.

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In the back of my mind I have ideas for various models that I just can't work out. I know what I want to do but haven't worked out how. To me, these models are the really interesting ones. They're especially satisfying when I can finally work out a solution.

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I've posted part four of the document describing the construction of the tortoise model. This parts covers the final stage of creating the model from adding colour to photographing the parts and writing the instructions.

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New section on the website - the design process. In this short tutorial I show the steps used to create the texture in the background of the Snow Man cover sheet. (Gift Cover Sheet coming soon!)

I've had loads of downloads of the TMC cover sheet. Thanks for your interest everyone!

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