Old Dude I began this illustration with a scanned line art image of the old gentleman and his book. I discovered that Xara's Stained Glass transparency retained the black lines while making the bitmap's white background invisible. I built from there adding several fills from the Fill Gallery (available on the earlier CD versions) for the clouds and green marble. I also discovered the power and beauty of Xara's Circular Transparency featured on the planets and especially on the mysterious glow.

The door was a duplicate image masked into the shape of the opening, using Xara's Combine Shapes > Intersect Shapes which and was then resized and skewed.