Creating an Ornament with Live Copy
Ornaments are usually based on some kind of symmetry, and my
example is a frame with ornaments in each corner. One way to do this
is to make one corner and then copy and flip it around until you have
the complete frame.
But taking a closer look (no need to take a close look - it is quite
obvious) you see that the corner ornament is a symmetrical pattern as
well, with a diagonal axis.
So to make things easy I will only make 1/8 of the the frame (one half
of the corner ornament). I start by placing the scanned ornament (OK, I
snatched it from the web) and add some guidelines. And make a Live
Copy. Before we begin, let’s talk a little bit about Live Copy.
Live Copies give you a way of having multiple copies of an object that
are linked together so that if one copy is changed they all change. Live
Copies are similar to Repeating Objects, but more powerful because
you can have multiple Live Copies on the same page and they do not
share a common position in the way that Repeating Objects do.
Live Copies are groups and this brings up another new feature, Editing
Inside Groups. If you double click on a group (or a Live Copy) in
Designer Pro 7, a new Edit Inside tabbed window opens in which all
objects in the group act as ungrouped objects. When you are finished
editing, and you press the Save disc icon on the Infobar, press Ctrl s, or
Edit > Save, the Edit Inside window closes, your objects are once more
grouped, and you are back in your orignal document. This is important
to know and understand because we will be going back and forth
between the Edit Inside window and the document. As the two
windows look the same (except the tab reads Edit Inside, we need to
know when we are in the Edit Inside window and when we are back in
the main document. OK let’s get started.
Preparation:
Download this free ornament image from: www.craftmanspace.com
(Corner Floral Ornament, bottom of the page).
Import the bitmap, set transparency to 50%
Enable Snap to Objects (the orange manget is in the down position).
Draw a square with the Rectangle Tool (m). Change fill color to no
color and the ouline to Cyan.
Convert the rectangle to Editable Shapes (Arrange menu or press Ctrl
Shift s) and delete bottom right anchor point to transform it into a
triangle. This will function as the boundary box for our live copy.
Adjust the bitmap to fit the triangle. The diagonal side is our mirror
axis. Imagine there's a similar axis in the ornament. Adjust the height
or width to make it fit the triangle axis (in this case 45 degree axis).
In this example, the bitmap is not quite quadratic so resize the image
vertically.
Select the bitmap and triangle, and make a live copy (Arrange > Create
Live Copy or press Shift Ctrl Alt c).
(Live Copy)
(Original)
Clone (Ctrl k) the live copy and flip it horizontally. Position it side to
side with the "parent" live copy.
If you feel like you can now select the two live copies, copy them and
rotate, and move them around so they form a frame with ornamants in
each corner. If you don't want to clutter your work area you can do it
later as well.
Now double-click on the right Live Copy to open it up in its own Edit
Inside workspace for editing.
In the Page & Layer Gallery, lock the bitmap to avoid selecting it by
mistake when we start tracing. Oh, did I mention we are going to hand
trace the portion of the design that is in the triangle? Silly me! We are.
When I trace I want to see the ornament to make small adjustment.
Therefor I prefer to draw/trace with a red outline and no fill:
Press the Esc key to make sure nothing is selected. Set default colors to
outline = red, fill = no fill (Right click on the red swatch on the screen
palette and select Set Line Color. Right click on the cross hatched
square next to the screen palette and select Clear Fill Color).
Tracing the ornament:
Start by doing a quick analysis: What parts can be done by using
rectangles and ellipses and what needs to be done with the Shape
Editor Tool.
Try to split up the ornament in sections instead of tracing the complete
design in one go.
Save your work in progress frequently. Each time you save, it will close
the tab and you will return to your "main document" and see your
progress. Remember to save the main document as well.
What you are seeing is the Live Copy in action. Any addition you make
to one live copy is applied to all other related Live Copies when you
return to thr main document. It’s quite similar to a keleidoscope.
Double-click on the ornament to continue working on the Live Copy.
To really see how your design evolves, in the Edit Inside tab/window,
hide both the bitmap and the triangle guide. Select the objects and
change the fill color to black and outline to none before you save and
close the live copy.
This is my drawing using the Rectangle and Ellipse Tools.
My drawing after Adding and Subtracting Shapes
(Arrange > Combine Shapes > Add Shapes or Subtract Shapes).