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<?xml-stylesheet href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/atom10full.xsl" type="text/xsl" media="screen"?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~d/styles/itemcontent.css" type="text/css" media="screen"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:openSearch="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/" xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0"><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835</id><updated>2008-07-17T16:59:31.916+08:00</updated><title type="text">dx-xel</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://dx-xel.net/" /><link rel="next" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25&amp;redirect=false" /><link rel="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/posts/default" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><generator version="7.00" uri="http://www.blogger.com">Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>179</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><link rel="license" type="text/html" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" /><link rel="self" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/dx-xel" type="application/atom+xml" /><feedburner:emailServiceId>918192</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://www.feedburner.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-7535755958263680724</id><published>2008-05-24T14:48:00.006+08:00</published><updated>2008-05-24T15:09:42.151+08:00</updated><title type="text">Customize your own Swatches palette in Illustrator</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Ok, just a simple Illustrator tip for today. Maybe some of you have been wondering on how to create your own color or swatches palette in Illustrator. This tip is useful whenever you’d like to use other custom colors for your shape over and over again. Besides, it will come in handy when you want to use it as your &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/01/illustrator-tutorial-how-to-apply.html"&gt;gradient colors&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is how it’s done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="fullpost"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Open your Illustrator program and go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette (Window &gt; Swatches). By default, Illustrator will open up your Default_RGB / Default_CMYK palette in your Swatch Library.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Start deleting some colors that you never use. Select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;one&lt;/span&gt; color and then press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ctrl/Cmd&lt;/span&gt; key to select other colors. Press the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Bin&lt;/span&gt; icon on bottom right to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;delete&lt;/span&gt; it. Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Yes&lt;/span&gt; if you see a message box.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SDe66sBZOwI/AAAAAAAABN4/2bfIaoNZGio/s400/dx-select-colors.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You’ll get something like this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SDe7QMBZOxI/AAAAAAAABOA/qM76tvnoZnA/s400/dx-delete-colors.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;Note:&lt;/span&gt; There is no need to worry when you’ve deleted those colors because you can load them again by pressing the arrow button on the top right &gt; Open Swatch Library &gt; Default_RGB / Default_CMYK.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now visit any website on the net that offer free color palettes to get your desired color. For example, &lt;a href="http://www.colourlovers.com/"&gt;COLOURLovers&lt;/a&gt; website. Drag the color palette image directly from your browser into your artboard.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 4&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now by using the Eyedropper tool, our job has come in handy. Select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Eyedropper Tool&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;I&lt;/span&gt; and then click to the color palette image.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SDe73MBZOyI/AAAAAAAABOI/qkTldR_T8rA/s400/dx-eyedropper.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 5&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After that, just drag the color from your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Fill&lt;/span&gt; tool and drop it directly to your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette. That’s all, the trick!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SDe8JMBZOzI/AAAAAAAABOQ/X6XpQqtGTrE/s400/dx-drag-drop.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 6&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 5&lt;/span&gt; to add other colors. Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;arrow&lt;/span&gt; icon on the top right &gt; &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Save Swatch Library&lt;/span&gt;... Just save it as myswatches.ai and done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SDe8fcBZO0I/AAAAAAAABOY/GBqmFsQLJa4/s400/dx-save-swatch-palette.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To use it soon or later, you have to load it on Open Swatch Library &gt; myswatches.ai. Now, it’s really easy to add another color when you want to use the &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/01/illustrator-tutorial-how-to-apply.html"&gt;gradient tool&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That’s all for today and hope you enjoy this tip. Yeahh!!!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/297071887" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/297071887/customize-your-own-swatches-palette-in.html" title="Customize your own Swatches palette in Illustrator" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=7535755958263680724" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/7535755958263680724/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/7535755958263680724" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/7535755958263680724" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/05/customize-your-own-swatches-palette-in.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-3729249032837966470</id><published>2008-05-17T14:50:00.018+08:00</published><updated>2008-05-23T08:45:55.154+08:00</updated><title type="text">Illustrator tutorial - Abstract colorful waves</title><content type="html">&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2361/2498034915_e90daf0700_o.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6A5Otzf1I/AAAAAAAABKY/bIONH_w9r-w/s400/dx-abstract-wave-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click image to view a full size.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Abstract design was really great. Its created a unique experience in the eyes of designers and a different impressions among the people who saw the design. And today, we will learn on how to create the abstract colorful waves in Illustrator using the Blend technique. This is a good practice for a newbie out there as we’re using a pen tool in this tutorial.:)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="fullpost"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Software: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Adobe Illustrator CS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Create &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;New Document&lt;/span&gt; with any Artboard setup and select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;RGB Color&lt;/span&gt; for Color Mode. As for this tutorial, I used 1024px x 768px setting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let’s get started by creating a simple radial gradient background. Select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rectangle Tool&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;M&lt;/span&gt; and click once anywhere on the artboard. You’ll see a popup window and enter Width: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;1024px&lt;/span&gt; and Height: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;768px&lt;/span&gt; (depends on your artboard setting) and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Apply a gradient color on it by clicking this tool &lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/Ro8WCBAg-tI/AAAAAAAAAJc/tLQ_GM0gqV4/s320/dxait1gradient.gif" /&gt; and remove the stroke color. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Gradient&lt;/span&gt; palette (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;F9&lt;/span&gt;), set to Type: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Radial&lt;/span&gt; and blue (#9FBFDF or 159, 191, 223) to white gradient.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Align&lt;/span&gt; palette (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Shift+F7&lt;/span&gt;) , click on &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Horizontal Align Center&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Vertical Align Center&lt;/span&gt;. Make sure you select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Align to artboard&lt;/span&gt; by pressing the arrow button beside it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may have something like below.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SDYTT8BZOvI/AAAAAAAABNw/Fm5WN3VmPDw/s400/dx-create-radial-bg-align.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;Note:&lt;/span&gt; My artboard size was scaled to 40% as Blogger will automatically resize my image to 400px x 400px :(&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Layers&lt;/span&gt; palette (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;F7&lt;/span&gt;) and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;lock&lt;/span&gt; Layer 1. Create &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;New Layer&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6B_Otzf3I/AAAAAAAABKo/moNtAOpwFOY/s400/dx-new-layer.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 4&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Grab your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Pen Tool&lt;/span&gt; or press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;P&lt;/span&gt; and then set the stroke color to black and no fill color. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Stroke&lt;/span&gt; palette (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;F10&lt;/span&gt;) and set Weight: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;30pt&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Draw two lines like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6CTOtzf4I/AAAAAAAABKw/yked_Y5lYJk/s400/dx-draw-two-lines.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;Pen tool tip:&lt;/span&gt; After drawing the first line, press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ctrl/Cmd&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;click&lt;/span&gt; outside the line area to release the anchor point connection and then draw the next line.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;Note:&lt;/span&gt; It was ok if you don’t draw something as above. Remember, it’s just an abstract design and for newbie, just click and drag the pen tool on the artboard (I also did it before..hehe) to make a curve. Keep practice until you master the tool.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 5&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select our two lines, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Expand&lt;/span&gt;. Just click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt; if you see a message box.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click on &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Direct Selection Tool&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;A&lt;/span&gt;. Go to the starting point of one of our line and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;select one anchor point&lt;/span&gt; right there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6Crutzf5I/AAAAAAAABK4/FCsLE7fFmbg/s400/dx-select-anchor-point.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click and drag the selected anchor point over the top of next anchor point beside it and release your click.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6C6Otzf6I/AAAAAAAABLA/b9SgIK4Xqyw/s400/dx-click-and-drag.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 6&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 5&lt;/span&gt; to the other three starting and ending points of our line to create a sharp ending point. You should have something similar as below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6DOutzf7I/AAAAAAAABLI/3Mcrrp4GH9w/s400/dx-click-and-drag-all.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 7&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;V&lt;/span&gt; and select both of our lines. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Blend &gt; Blend Options…&lt;/span&gt;Enter Spacing: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Specified Steps&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;15&lt;/span&gt;. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6Dfetzf8I/AAAAAAAABLQ/ia52dWNmlQs/s400/dx-blend-options.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Blend &gt; Make&lt;/span&gt;. You’ll get something similar as below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6Du-tzf9I/AAAAAAAABLY/5v1xON82_Lg/s400/dx-blend-make.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After that, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Expand&lt;/span&gt; and just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Ungroup&lt;/span&gt;. Repeat this step (ungroup) until you cannot ungroup it anymore.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 8&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now for the important part. Apply a &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;linear gradient color&lt;/span&gt; onto this shape by clicking the color on &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Window &gt; Swatches&lt;/span&gt;) and dropping it to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Gradient&lt;/span&gt; palette (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;F9&lt;/span&gt;) - See my &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/01/illustrator-tutorial-how-to-apply.html"&gt;gradient tutorial&lt;/a&gt; in case you don’t know how to do it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may use any four colors (or more) to apply on it. Anyhow, I used these color settings Yellow (#FEDE58 or 254, 222, 88), purple (#CD6DBB or 205, 109, 187), blue (#A9CFF1 or 169, 207, 241) and green (#A3C380 or 163, 195, 128).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6ENetzf-I/AAAAAAAABLg/sOIRObPw6WE/s400/dx-wave-gradient.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To see a magic, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Transparency&lt;/span&gt; palette (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Shift+F10&lt;/span&gt;) and set to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Multiply&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6Efutzf_I/AAAAAAAABLo/0An634SioiA/s400/dx-wave-multiply.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Woww! It looks great.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Step 9&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select all our shape and go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Group&lt;/span&gt;. Make 2 or 3 duplicates and set Transparency &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Opacity&lt;/span&gt; 20%. Rotate or resize them using your creativity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6E1OtzgAI/AAAAAAAABLw/TolQFxcZIM4/s400/dx-wave-duplicate.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Step 10&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, we’d like to create some supporting element into our shape. You might see how to create this shape on other website before.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Lock&lt;/span&gt; Layer 2. Create &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;New Layer&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Grab our &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Pen Too&lt;/span&gt;l (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;P&lt;/span&gt;) one more time and draw two lines like below. Apply a red color for the first line, white color for the second one and no fill color for both of them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6FHOtzgBI/AAAAAAAABL4/6BjZThpEHGc/s400/dx-wave-wire.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Blend &gt; Make&lt;/span&gt;. Set the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Transparency&lt;/span&gt; Opacity: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;30&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6FTOtzgCI/AAAAAAAABMA/WS2IVUy8Wrg/s400/dx-wave-wire-opacity.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Step 11&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, final step. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 10&lt;/span&gt; to create another one or two of our “wire wave” using different colors. Add some text, logo or anything into our design. Be creative and use your imagination.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our final result:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2361/2498034915_e90daf0700_o.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SC6A5Otzf1I/AAAAAAAABKY/bIONH_w9r-w/s400/dx-abstract-wave-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click image to view a full size.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To be honest, I also never know how the "wave" would be looks like until it comes to Step no 8. I designed the image and wrote about it at the same time. Hehe..You may explore and experiment more on this technique, combine it with other effects and come out with more stunning results than me. Coz I’m pretty sure that you guys are a creative and most experience designer!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That’s all for today..Yeahh!!!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=aBDTZH"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=aBDTZH" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=DRFA8h"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=DRFA8h" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=8ukaOh"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=8ukaOh" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=hL3X1h"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=hL3X1h" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/292157168" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/292157168/illustrator-tutorial-abstract-colorful.html" title="Illustrator tutorial - Abstract colorful waves" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=3729249032837966470" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/3729249032837966470/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/3729249032837966470" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/3729249032837966470" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/05/illustrator-tutorial-abstract-colorful.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-6920071421374197042</id><published>2008-05-10T14:01:00.005+08:00</published><updated>2008-05-10T14:28:32.077+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="news" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="General" /><title type="text">dx-xel.net’s new design</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Fuhh…after struggling for over 1 month, so here it is, my new blog design. I called it Xel-white because it has a lot of white spaces. :) It’s maybe not my best design but I think that this layout is much better than the previous one (flat banner/logo, unattractive layout etc). Just my sense.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By the way, this time I’ve designed my new blog’s logo and added some illustration on the footer using the &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/illustrator-tutorial-trendy-circles.html"&gt;trendy circles&lt;/a&gt; element. I also have created my own web icons. Previously, I’ve used the &lt;a href="http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/"&gt;FamFamFam Silk Icons&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;span class="fullpost"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thus, there are really not many changes in the layout interface. I still prefer to use the 3 columns layout and the menu structure is remaining the same.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At first, I’d like to make a full illustration image for my blog banner. But, after thinking for a while that this blog is not fully a design blog, so I decided to make just a simple and plain banner as well. Maybe I need to create another blog and focus on design only. Hehe..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Other than that, I’ve also updated my &lt;a href="http://about.dx-xel.net/archives/"&gt;archives&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://about.dx-xel.net/resources/"&gt;resources&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://about.dx-xel.net/"&gt;about&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://about.dx-xel.net/contact/"&gt;contact&lt;/a&gt; page. I’ve to admit that I’m not really good when it comes to CSS. But so far, this layout is compatible with Firefox 2.0+, IE6 and Safari browser.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Until then, I hope you guys enjoy this new layout and some feedbacks are much appreciated.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That’s all. Yeahhh!!!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=a1IdnH"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=a1IdnH" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=YEvkoh"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=YEvkoh" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=I733ph"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=I733ph" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=uBlozh"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=uBlozh" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/287327184" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/287327184/dx-xelnets-new-design.html" title="dx-xel.net’s new design" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=6920071421374197042" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/6920071421374197042/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/6920071421374197042" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/6920071421374197042" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/05/dx-xelnets-new-design.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-581083155770502896</id><published>2008-04-26T14:00:00.002+08:00</published><updated>2008-04-26T14:07:32.204+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Cool Stuffs" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="cool-videos" /><title type="text">3D Designs</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Check out this cool videos that I just found on Youtube. Hehe..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;3d Design&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-02162707877738077 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/iwFT09cVrbA&amp;amp;hl=en"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;object height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iwFT09cVrbA&amp;amp;hl=en"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iwFT09cVrbA&amp;amp;hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Yume Ninja - Ayame Project 2006&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a style="left: 0px ! important; top: 15px ! important;" title="Click here to block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-02162707877738077 visible ontop" href="http://www.youtube.com/v/lj77wEB5Rlg&amp;amp;hl=en"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;object height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lj77wEB5Rlg&amp;amp;hl=en"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lj77wEB5Rlg&amp;amp;hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Besides, you might interested to view my previous post on &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/cool-new-technology-using-3d-display.html"&gt;cool new technology using 3D display&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That's all for today!! Yeahh!!!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=opxAlI"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=opxAlI" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=O5BAHi"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=O5BAHi" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=lwFbyi"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=lwFbyi" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=TW3APi"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=TW3APi" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/278101710" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/278101710/3d-designs.html" title="3D Designs" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=581083155770502896" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/581083155770502896/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/581083155770502896" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/581083155770502896" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/04/3d-designs.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-8613822946263765337</id><published>2008-04-19T12:44:00.002+08:00</published><updated>2008-04-19T13:05:11.879+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="vector logo" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Designs" /><title type="text">Vector logo - Green leaf</title><content type="html">&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAl5M6y6HMI/AAAAAAAABFM/QdlUmqggmR8/s400/dxxel-green-leaf.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Hmm..I don't know what to do today so I open up the Illustrator program and designed this logo. It's just a simple vector logo anyway. Well, I also never know why do I post  a lots about Illustrator lately (it's a tech blog for sure..hehe). By the way, if you have any suggestion or a request on my &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2007/04/illustrator-tutorials.html"&gt;ai tutorials&lt;/a&gt; section, feel free to &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2007/04/about-me.html"&gt;drop me a line&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Vector logo details:-&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Name:&lt;/span&gt; Green Leaf&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Type:&lt;/span&gt; Vector Logo Design&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Theme:&lt;/span&gt; Nature&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Date created:&lt;/span&gt; April 19, 08&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Software:&lt;/span&gt; Adobe Illustrator CS&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Color:&lt;/span&gt; Green, #66BA44 or 102, 186, 68&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That all..yeah!!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=HLc4BRG"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=HLc4BRG" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=Y2DFJNg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=Y2DFJNg" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=2YDtzDg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=2YDtzDg" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=b3qVfIg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=b3qVfIg" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/273346633" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/273346633/vector-logo-green-leaf.html" title="Vector logo - Green leaf" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=8613822946263765337" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/8613822946263765337/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/8613822946263765337" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/8613822946263765337" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/04/vector-logo-green-leaf.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-7975458043246022276</id><published>2008-04-12T12:34:00.015+08:00</published><updated>2008-04-12T13:29:08.673+08:00</updated><title type="text">Illustrator tutorial - Grunge sunburst effect</title><content type="html">&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA9CzzdS9I/AAAAAAAABCc/Heod5_dhx24/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-grunge-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/vector-illustration-glory-days.html"&gt;As promised before&lt;/a&gt;, today I’ll show you how to draw the sunburst shape and apply the grunge effect on it as well. Then, we will learn on how to save our sunburst shape to symbol so that you’ll never need to create them over and over again. And finally, I will show you a little tricks how to apply the grunge effect on text. Anyhow, here we go.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Software: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Adobe Illustrator CS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Create a &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;New Document&lt;/span&gt; with 500px x 500px setting. Select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;RGB Color&lt;/span&gt; for Color Mode.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;View &gt; Snap to Grid&lt;/span&gt; (Shift + Command/Ctrl + ").&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rectangle Tool&lt;/span&gt; or press M and click once anywhere on the artboard. You’ll see a popup window. Enter Width: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;400px&lt;/span&gt;, Height: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;400px&lt;/span&gt;. Fill it with a white color and a black stroke color.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Align our rectangle to the center of our artboard using the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Align&lt;/span&gt; palette (Shift + F7). Make sure you select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Align to Artboard&lt;/span&gt; in order to make it work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA9wjzdS-I/AAAAAAAABCk/OKgtj5UjQLM/s400/dx-align-center.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Layers&lt;/span&gt; palette (F7) and lock Layer 1. Create new layer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA-HDzdS_I/AAAAAAAABCs/yZPWBb88JFo/s400/dx-new-layer.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 2&lt;/span&gt; to draw another rectangle. Enter Width: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;40px&lt;/span&gt; and Height: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;400px&lt;/span&gt;. Also, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;align&lt;/span&gt; it to the center. And this time &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;just&lt;/span&gt; apply a &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;black stroke color&lt;/span&gt; on it without a fill color.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA-VTzdTAI/AAAAAAAABC0/wBC_GZQS46Q/s400/dx-draw-2nd-rectangle.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 4&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort &amp;amp; Transform &gt; Free Distort…&lt;/span&gt;What we're trying to do right here is to switch the position of our bottom-left point and the bottom-right point. To do this, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;click&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drag&lt;/span&gt; the bottom-right point to the bottom-left point. After that &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;click&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drag&lt;/span&gt; the bottom-left point to the bottom-right point. You’ll have something like this:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA-jDzdTBI/AAAAAAAABC8/3_XjXtTJkrg/s400/dx-free-distort.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;. Then go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Expand Appearance&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 5&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Double click&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rotate Tool&lt;/span&gt;. Enter Angle: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;-20&lt;/span&gt; and click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Copy&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA-xTzdTCI/AAAAAAAABDE/F4XoOUXgWKM/s400/dx-rotate-tool.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Command/Ctrl + D&lt;/span&gt; seven times. You should have a similar shape like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA_DDzdTDI/AAAAAAAABDM/m8b0goB9oV0/s400/dx-sunburst-shape1.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 6&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, now we would like make it really look like a sunburst. Grab your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Direct Selection Tool&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;A&lt;/span&gt;. Select a &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;single point&lt;/span&gt; of our shape. Then, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;click&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drag&lt;/span&gt; the point until it "snapped" on our big rectangle line.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA_QDzdTEI/AAAAAAAABDU/olIZyCnyH_I/s400/dx-sunburst-selected-point.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA_gzzdTFI/AAAAAAAABDc/3f40a0-Gw4A/s400/dx-sunburst-drag-point.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do the same to the other points until you get something similar like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA_yzzdTGI/AAAAAAAABDk/x1ePpy-u9Qw/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-complete.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 7&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, now, select all of our shape and fill it with Orange color, #FF9900 with no stroke color.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABABTzdTHI/AAAAAAAABDs/mhP58iHyKC4/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-orange.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Drag&lt;/span&gt; this sunburst shape to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Symbol&lt;/span&gt; palette (Shift+F11). Click the circle-triangle button and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Save Symbol Library&lt;/span&gt;. Just save it as orangesunburst.ai.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABATjzdTII/AAAAAAAABD0/P3vj9lJNXnQ/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-symbol.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow! Right now you already have a vector sunburst shape and guess what, you’ll never need to recreate them. To use it, just &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Open Symbol Library&lt;/span&gt;, locate the orangesunburst symbol file. Drag the symbol to your artboard. And of course, you can change the color, resize them to make it bigger or even smaller.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Continue to next step to give this sunburst a grunge effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;Note:&lt;/span&gt; Just delete the other symbols that you don’t use. Don’t worry about it.;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 8&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Using the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Line Segment Tool&lt;/span&gt; (/), draw 3 lines across our sunburst and set Weight: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;3px&lt;/span&gt; on &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Stroke&lt;/span&gt; palette (F10). Apply black color on it and without fill color. See image below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABAozzdTJI/AAAAAAAABD8/Lo4cSzkVDRY/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-3lines.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select all our 3 lines by using &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Shift&lt;/span&gt; key. Open the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Brushes&lt;/span&gt; palette (F5). Then click the small &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;triangle button&lt;/span&gt; on the right side &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;&gt; Open Brush Library &gt; Artistic_ChalkCharcoalPencil&lt;/span&gt;. Click on the brush that called &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Chalk&lt;/span&gt; (the first one, on top) to apply the brush effect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABBDjzdTKI/AAAAAAAABEE/uEClL5To9nk/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-brush.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 9&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While all the lines was still on selected, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Expand Appearance&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABBSzzdTLI/AAAAAAAABEM/yACHEYo-fnU/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-brush-expand.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;select all shapes&lt;/span&gt; including our &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;sunburst&lt;/span&gt;. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Pathfinder&lt;/span&gt; palette (Shift + F9) and click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Merge&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABBfTzdTMI/AAAAAAAABEU/93KxKAte9Q4/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-brush-merge.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After that, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Expand&lt;/span&gt; and just click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;. Ungroup them. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Ungroup&lt;/span&gt; (Command/Ctrl + Shift + G). You might repeat this step (ungroup) 2 or 3 times until it cannot be ungroup anymore.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 10&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click anywhere on the artboard to deselect all shapes. Then, select some part of the black shape.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABB3zzdTNI/AAAAAAAABEc/eTIPhbwHeYQ/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-black.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Select &gt; Same &gt; Fill Color&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Delete&lt;/span&gt; key.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABCLzzdTOI/AAAAAAAABEk/x1sDqhuDIkc/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-grunge.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Congratulation! Now you’ve created the grunge sunburst. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 7&lt;/span&gt; to save this shape as your symbol.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 11&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now we gonna apply this grunge effect on text. Lock Layer 2. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Create new layer&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Type Tool&lt;/span&gt; (T) and type anything on the artboard. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Command/Ctrl + T&lt;/span&gt; to bring out the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Character&lt;/span&gt; palette. I used &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Verdana&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Bold&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;60pt&lt;/span&gt;. Fill it with green color, #1E7D27 with no stroke.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Right click the text &gt; Create Outlines&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 8&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;9&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;10&lt;/span&gt;. In step 8, just draw one line instead of three. And make sure the line and the text has a different color.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is what I get:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SABCdTzdTPI/AAAAAAAABEs/oy5NRBXocME/s400/dx-sunburst-text-grunge.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Step 12&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Last, but not least. Using the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rectangle Tool&lt;/span&gt; (M), draw another rectangle for our text background. Apply a black color for both fill and stroke color. Go to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Brushes&lt;/span&gt; palette (F5) once again and apply the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Chalk Scribble&lt;/span&gt; brush on the default Brushes palette. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Right click the rectangle &gt; Arrange &gt; Send to Back&lt;/span&gt; or just press Command/Ctrl + Shift + [.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be creative. Rotate our text or play around using the other colors, gradient and so on. Besides, you also can add another text, shapes or anything that suits your design.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And..umm..one more thing. Remember our Layer 1? Unlock that layer and fill it with red color, #970F00 (or any color) with no stroke color. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Done&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our final result:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/SAA9CzzdS9I/AAAAAAAABCc/Heod5_dhx24/s400/dx-sunburst-shape-grunge-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;That’s all for today and hope you guys enjoy this tutorial. Yeahhh!!! :)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/268796266" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/268796266/illustrator-tutorial-grunge-sunburst.html" title="Illustrator tutorial - Grunge sunburst effect" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=7975458043246022276" title="8 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/7975458043246022276/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/7975458043246022276" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/7975458043246022276" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/04/illustrator-tutorial-grunge-sunburst.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-5238686686172469273</id><published>2008-04-05T14:10:00.002+08:00</published><updated>2008-04-05T14:16:05.649+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Popular Posts" /><title type="text">Popular posts for March 2008</title><content type="html">List of most popular posts for March 2008:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/illustrator-tutorial-trendy-circles.html"&gt;Draw a trendy circles in Illustrator&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/illustrator-tutorial-draw-flower.html"&gt;Illustrator - How to draw a vector flower?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/music-using-only-sounds-from-windows-xp.html"&gt;Music using only sounds from Windows XP and 98&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=880vHKG"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=880vHKG" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=Bx5eZSg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=Bx5eZSg" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=TCUT62g"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=TCUT62g" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=nbjqNNg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=nbjqNNg" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/264424229" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/264424229/popular-posts-for-march-2008.html" title="Popular posts for March 2008" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=5238686686172469273" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/5238686686172469273/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5238686686172469273" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5238686686172469273" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/04/popular-posts-for-march-2008.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-5642407038108876474</id><published>2008-03-29T13:22:00.004+08:00</published><updated>2008-03-29T13:57:09.526+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="vector illustration" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Designs" /><title type="text">Vector Illustration - Glory days</title><content type="html">&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-3S5P5_bGI/AAAAAAAABCU/gBo6g78t7YQ/s400/glory-days.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;[ Download | &lt;a href="http://dxblogger.googlepages.com/dxviglorydays.zip"&gt;1024x768&lt;/a&gt; ]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Hmm..this is the very first time I designing something like this. I know its not looking very good though. I visited a lot of design blog/website everyday and see their artworks including these funky design. I told to myself -&gt; Ohh..that was really easy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But when I'm trying to design it by myself, my head start spinning in the air. Yes, it quite hard if you're a newbie like me. You've to consider a lot of things - elements to use, colors, shapes, placement, typography, theme and so on..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So in this illustration, I've use the sunburst shape as the background and the purplish colors as well. Maybe in the next tutorial section I will tell you how do I created the sunburst effect. So don't forget to get a free updates via my blog &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/dx-xel"&gt;feed&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a href="http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=343368"&gt;email&lt;/a&gt;. Hehe..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Vector illustration details:-&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Name:&lt;/span&gt; Glory Days&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Type:&lt;/span&gt; Vector Illustration&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;File Format:&lt;/span&gt; JPEG&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Dimensions:&lt;/span&gt; 1024 x 768&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Theme:&lt;/span&gt; Funky&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;File size:&lt;/span&gt; 707 KB&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Date created:&lt;/span&gt; March 29, 08&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Software:&lt;/span&gt; Adobe Illustrator CS&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Color:&lt;/span&gt; Purple, Red, Orange, Yellow, White&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Background Color:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;HEX:&lt;/span&gt; #330033&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;RGB:&lt;/span&gt; 51, 0, 51&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Extract the file using &lt;a href="http://www.winzip.com/index.htm"&gt;WinZip&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=MQu807F"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=MQu807F" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=aA4oIIf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=aA4oIIf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=6sa5kCf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=6sa5kCf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=Yn2toBf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=Yn2toBf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/260073399" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/260073399/vector-illustration-glory-days.html" title="Vector Illustration - Glory days" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=5642407038108876474" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/5642407038108876474/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5642407038108876474" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5642407038108876474" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/vector-illustration-glory-days.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-2504077737279915920</id><published>2008-03-22T12:32:00.023+08:00</published><updated>2008-05-24T14:39:52.016+08:00</updated><title type="text">Illustrator tutorial - Trendy circles</title><content type="html">&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"&gt;Update:&lt;/span&gt; I've uploaded a new &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dxxel/2479985896/sizes/o/"&gt;trendy circles final image&lt;/a&gt; on Flickr along with the &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/04/illustrator-tutorial-grunge-sunburst.html"&gt;sunburst&lt;/a&gt;  shape and the &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/05/illustrator-tutorial-abstract-colorful.html"&gt;abstract wave&lt;/a&gt; shape. :)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SNa_5_azI/AAAAAAAAA_E/qrbJ7mKV39s/s400/dx-trendy-circles-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Well, I see lots of cool design elements have been applied by the graphics designer lately. And one of them is the “trendy circles”. So, today we’ll learn how to draw and simply apply a color to it. It was a simple tutorial anyway and maybe it will be useful for your design element in the future.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Software: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Adobe Illustrator CS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Create &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;New Document&lt;/span&gt; with &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;any&lt;/span&gt; Artboard setup and select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;RGB color&lt;/span&gt; for Color Mode. I used 500px x 500px setting in this tutorial.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ellipse Tool&lt;/span&gt; (or just press L). Click once anywhere on the artboard and enter Width:&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;100px&lt;/span&gt;, Height: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;100px&lt;/span&gt;. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SN8P5_a0I/AAAAAAAAA_M/6FyugkMgN18/s400/dx-ellipse-tool.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SOJP5_a1I/AAAAAAAAA_U/CHiz1icbCdw/s400/dx-draw-circle.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While the circle is on selected, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;double click&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Scale Tool&lt;/span&gt;. Enter Uniform Scale: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;80&lt;/span&gt;, click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Copy&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SOb_5_a2I/AAAAAAAAA_c/MTGKqxdDstA/s400/dx-scale-tool.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SOqv5_a3I/AAAAAAAAA_k/lC4BEo_eHQI/s400/dx-scale-tool-settings.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And you’ll get something like this:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-dgYP5_bFI/AAAAAAAABCM/TvpoqyNdLAM/s400/dx-draw-circle2.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 4&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 3 twice.&lt;/span&gt; For the Uniform Scale, enter &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;85&lt;/span&gt; and another one &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;50&lt;/span&gt;. You should have a circles shape like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SPHf5_a5I/AAAAAAAAA_0/Y0tNzffFmyc/s400/dx-draw-circle-full.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 5&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now we gonna give some colors for this circles. Simply visit &lt;a href="http://www.colourlovers.com/"&gt;COLOURLovers&lt;/a&gt; to find the desired color palette. As for this tutorial I’ve chose the color palette that called Daytona.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Drag&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;color palette&lt;/span&gt; image directly from your browser and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drop&lt;/span&gt; it on your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;artboard&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 6&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Start coloring. By using the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Eyedropper Tool&lt;/span&gt; (I), this job has come in handy. Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Selection Tool&lt;/span&gt; (black arrow) or just press V to select the circle, click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Eyedropper Tool&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;I&lt;/span&gt; and then click at the color palette. The black stroke color will automatically disappear once you apply this tool.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SQsP5_a6I/AAAAAAAAA_8/13u6zdUQe0Q/s400/dx-eyedropper-tool.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SQ8f5_a7I/AAAAAAAABAE/k_ZvaEOuK_0/s400/dx-color-circle1.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 7&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;two duplicates&lt;/span&gt; of our complete colored circle. To duplicate, simply select all circles, press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Alt/Opt&lt;/span&gt; key and drag it to the bottom or anywhere on the artboard.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, now you have 3 trendy circles. By the way, its not look really sweet with the same color applied on it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So next, start coloring the other two circles. But this time, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;change the order&lt;/span&gt; of the color you applied on it by using the same color palette. E.g. If you’ve used the dark blue on the first circle, try to change it to light blue color.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you done, select each of our completed colored circle and group it (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Group&lt;/span&gt; or Ctrl/Cmd + G)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is what I did to my circles:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SWif5_bCI/AAAAAAAABBY/0ABw7aMOrgw/s400/dx-color-circle2.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now you have three trendy circles and ready to be applying on any of your artworks (blog header, poster, etc.). At this point, you either can resize them to make it bigger or smaller, manipulate them using the effect tool, make them a symbol (to use it later) or anything that suits your design.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Continue to next step if you’d like to know how I use them to make the image (on top of this post) for this tutorial.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Step 8&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rounded Rectangle Tool&lt;/span&gt; and click once anywhere on your artboard. Enter Width: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;350px&lt;/span&gt;, Height: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;250px&lt;/span&gt; and Corner Radius: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;100&lt;/span&gt;. Fill it with dark blue color (#405E8A or 61, 94, 138 for RGB) with no stroke.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SSLv5_a9I/AAAAAAAABAU/OxMp6Ix6QtM/s400/dx-rounded-rectangle.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Right click&lt;/span&gt; the rounded rectangle &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;&gt; Arrange &gt; Send to Back&lt;/span&gt; or just press Ctrl/cmd + Shift + [.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 9&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Make 10 to 15 duplicates&lt;/span&gt; of our trendy circles. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Resize&lt;/span&gt; them to make it medium size and smaller. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Shift&lt;/span&gt; key while resizing them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then, using your creativity, place them together around of our rounded rectangle.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select two or three of them, set the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Transparency&lt;/span&gt; (Shift + F10): &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Multiply&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SSlv5_a-I/AAAAAAAABAc/xJHnAH7-BEk/s400/dx-trendy-circles-multiply.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 10&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Select all&lt;/span&gt; of our graphics. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Group&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Alt/Opt&lt;/span&gt; key and drag it to the bottom to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;make a duplicate&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Right click&lt;/span&gt; on our &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;duplicate graphics &gt; Ungroup&lt;/span&gt; or just press Shift + Ctrl/Cmd + G.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While the ungroup duplicate graphics is on selected click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Add to shape area&lt;/span&gt; at &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Pathfinder&lt;/span&gt; palette (Shift + F9).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SS4v5_a_I/AAAAAAAABAk/fHpfRjfhyR4/s400/dx-trendy-circles-add-to-shape-area.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And just right after that, click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Expand&lt;/span&gt; button on the right side of it. You should have one big shape right now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Step 11&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fill it with dark blue color (#405E8A or 61, 94, 138 for RGB) with no stroke.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;V&lt;/span&gt; to select the shape. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Path &gt; Offset Path…&lt;/span&gt;Enter Offset: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;10px&lt;/span&gt;, Joins: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Miter&lt;/span&gt;, Miter Limit: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;4&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fill the offset path with light blue color (#E8ECF3 or 232, 246, 243 for RGB)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Stylize &gt; Drop Shadow…&lt;/span&gt;Enter X Offset: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;1px&lt;/span&gt;, Y Offset: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;1px&lt;/span&gt;, leave everything as default and click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-STMP5_bAI/AAAAAAAABAs/SYWrNlzIWOk/s400/dx-trendy-circles-drop-shadow.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Select both&lt;/span&gt; of the offset path and the original shape. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Group&lt;/span&gt;. And then &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;right click &gt; Arrange &gt; Send to Back&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 12&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok. Last but not least. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Select both&lt;/span&gt; of our graphics, the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;trendy circles&lt;/span&gt; and the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;duplicate shape with shadow&lt;/span&gt;. Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Horizontal Align Center&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Vertical Align Center&lt;/span&gt; on &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Align&lt;/span&gt; palette (Window &gt; Align or Shift + F7). Done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-STif5_bBI/AAAAAAAABA0/rsDIjaAMvq4/s400/dx-trendy-circles-align-center.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Add some text, logo or anything.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our final result:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R-SNa_5_azI/AAAAAAAAA_E/qrbJ7mKV39s/s400/dx-trendy-circles-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Yeahh…that’s all for today. Be creative and impress your friends. Hope you guys enjoy this tutorial!!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=RWYRAGF"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=RWYRAGF" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=IaYbDsf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=IaYbDsf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=qPmhiwf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=qPmhiwf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=zYWNvjf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=zYWNvjf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/255912045" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/255912045/illustrator-tutorial-trendy-circles.html" title="Illustrator tutorial - Trendy circles" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=2504077737279915920" title="6 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/2504077737279915920/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/2504077737279915920" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/2504077737279915920" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/illustrator-tutorial-trendy-circles.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-9206606008146235130</id><published>2008-03-15T11:38:00.003+08:00</published><updated>2008-03-15T11:58:05.577+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Cool Stuffs" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="cool-videos" /><title type="text">Nokia Morph</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Guys, I really want this stuff. It's a cool device by &lt;a href="http://www.nokia.com/"&gt;Nokia&lt;/a&gt; that called &lt;a href="http://www.nokia.com/A4852062"&gt;The Morph&lt;/a&gt;. By using the nanotechnology concept, this device can enables its materials and components to be flexible, stretchable, transparent and remarkably strong. By the way, check out this video to see the concept of this device:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IX-gTobCJHs&amp;amp;hl=en"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IX-gTobCJHs&amp;amp;hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Visit &lt;a href="http://www.dexigner.com/design_news/nokia-morph.html"&gt;Dexigner website&lt;/a&gt; for further reading.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That all for today!!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=GJrrrfF"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=GJrrrfF" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=5KtxCOf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=5KtxCOf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=WFXp4rf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=WFXp4rf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=Qh2MIxf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=Qh2MIxf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/251782019" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/251782019/nokia-morph.html" title="Nokia Morph" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=9206606008146235130" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/9206606008146235130/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/9206606008146235130" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/9206606008146235130" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/nokia-morph.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-5687189768455693549</id><published>2008-03-08T12:21:00.019+08:00</published><updated>2008-03-08T13:04:35.939+08:00</updated><title type="text">Illustrator tutorial - Draw a flower</title><content type="html">&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IROoOH1oI/AAAAAAAAA8k/CcNc9ZMFRes/s400/dx-flower-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to draw a flower easily using the Distort and Transform effect in Illustrator. And guess what, there is totally no pen tool involved along this tutorial! This is the trick that I used to draw the &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2007/04/tutorials.html"&gt;Illustrator CS icon&lt;/a&gt; (not really looks like it). Somehow it also looks like a Sunflower for me. Hmm..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Software : &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Adobe Illustrator CS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Create a &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;New Document&lt;/span&gt; with 500px x 500px Artboard Setup. Select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;RGB&lt;/span&gt; color for Color Mode.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Polygon Tool&lt;/span&gt;. Click once at the artboard and enter Radius: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;70&lt;/span&gt;, Sides: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;10&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;Just fill it with black color first with no stroke.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IVCYOH1pI/AAAAAAAAA8s/5Wm3WjT8hTA/s400/dx-polygon-tool.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IVWIOH1qI/AAAAAAAAA80/FRUKoaXBOQY/s400/dx-draw-polygon.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort and Transform &gt; Pucker and Bloat&lt;/span&gt;…Enter &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;50&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IVo4OH1rI/AAAAAAAAA88/QogPv3Olcdw/s400/dx-pucker-bloat.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 4&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort and Transform &gt;Roughen…&lt;/span&gt;Enter Size: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;10&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Relative&lt;/span&gt;, Detail: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;0&lt;/span&gt; and Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Smooth&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;. You’ll get something like this:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IV-oOH1sI/AAAAAAAAA9E/ClhazT4FM8E/s400/dx-roughen.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 5 &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Apply a green &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Radial Gradient&lt;/span&gt; (F9) on it as below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IWPYOH1tI/AAAAAAAAA9M/TDfJv2fjc0I/s400/dx-flower-green-gradient.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click the left slider and set Location: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;50&lt;/span&gt;. It’s done for the first layer of our petals.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 6&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click on &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Polygon Tool&lt;/span&gt; once again. Enter Radius: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;50&lt;/span&gt;, Sides: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;15&lt;/span&gt;. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort and Transform &gt; Pucker and Bloat…&lt;/span&gt;Enter &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;100&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You’ll get something like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IWk4OH1uI/AAAAAAAAA9U/7h0xakZXOSI/s400/dx-draw-polygon2.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Gradient effect will be automatically applied on it. Change the left slider Location: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;30&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort and Transform &gt; Tweak…&lt;/span&gt;Enter Horizontal: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;10&lt;/span&gt;, Vertical: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;10&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Relative&lt;/span&gt;, Anchor Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Unchecked&lt;/span&gt;, “In” Control Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Checked&lt;/span&gt; and “Out” Control Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Checked&lt;/span&gt;. Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Preview&lt;/span&gt; to know how its look and click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IW3oOH1vI/AAAAAAAAA9c/cdw-L1DwISc/s400/dx-tweak.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IXQoOH1wI/AAAAAAAAA9k/AG3mA0qwp_s/s400/dx-flower-green-gradient2.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Place our second petals in front of the first one:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IXd4OH1xI/AAAAAAAAA9s/wInJ4PqBSMo/s400/dx-flower-2-layers.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 7&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Repeat Step 6&lt;/span&gt; to create the next petals. Enter these values.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Polygon Tool&lt;/span&gt;, Radius: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;30&lt;/span&gt;, Sides: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;15&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Pucker and Bloat&lt;/span&gt;: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;100&lt;/span&gt; and&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Tweak&lt;/span&gt;, Horizontal: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;20&lt;/span&gt;, Vertical: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;20&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Relative&lt;/span&gt;, Anchor Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Unchecked&lt;/span&gt;, “In” Control Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Checked&lt;/span&gt; and “Out” Control Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Checked&lt;/span&gt;. Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Set the Gradient left slider Location: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;15&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IX-oOH1yI/AAAAAAAAA90/p_zFaIeVbrU/s400/dx-flower-green-gradient3.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And place it in front of our second petals.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IYQIOH1zI/AAAAAAAAA98/QlbvdZ72at0/s400/dx-flower-3-layers.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 8&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, the last one. Select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ellipse Tool&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;L&lt;/span&gt;. Click once on the artboard and enter Width: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;40px&lt;/span&gt;, Height: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;40px&lt;/span&gt; and click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IYeIOH10I/AAAAAAAAA-E/pKIH1a1r6Xk/s400/dx-draw-ellipes.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort and Transform &gt; Zig Zag…&lt;/span&gt;Enter Size: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;15&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Absolute&lt;/span&gt;, Ridges per segment: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;20&lt;/span&gt; and Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Smooth&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IYrIOH11I/AAAAAAAAA-M/7S-NgR1vDy0/s400/dx-zig-zag.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After that, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort and Transform &gt; Roughen…&lt;/span&gt; Enter Size: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;5&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Relative&lt;/span&gt;, Detail: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;5&lt;/span&gt; and Points: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Corner&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Set its Gradient left slider Location: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;20&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IY6YOH12I/AAAAAAAAA-U/c-0Qyn9e0A8/s400/dx-flower-green-gradient4.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And place it in front of our third petals. Select all petals, go &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Group&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IZLIOH13I/AAAAAAAAA-c/ZpuHyG-5mLM/s400/dx-flower-4-layers.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Done for the flower.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 9&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rounded Rectangle Tool&lt;/span&gt;. Click once on the artboard and enter Width: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;300px&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Height: 250px&lt;/span&gt; and Radius: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;20&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fill it with &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;white&lt;/span&gt; color with &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;no stroke&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Stylize &gt; Drop Shadow…&lt;/span&gt;Enter X Offset: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;1px&lt;/span&gt;, Y Offset: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;1px&lt;/span&gt;, leave everything as default as click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IZaoOH14I/AAAAAAAAA-k/x6tFtihs2p8/s400/dx-rounded-shadow.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 10&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Right click&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rounded Rectangle &gt; Arrange &gt; Send to Back&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ctrl+Shift+[&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Place our flower to the bottom-left of the rectangle. Make the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;duplicate&lt;/span&gt; of our flower. Resize to make it bigger. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Shift&lt;/span&gt; key while resizing it. Then, set &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Transparency&lt;/span&gt; (Shift+F10): &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Multiply&lt;/span&gt; and Opacity: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;30&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make another three or five duplicates and resize it to make it smaller. Place it on the top-right and bottom-right or anywhere that suits you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our final result:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IROoOH1oI/AAAAAAAAA8k/CcNc9ZMFRes/s400/dx-flower-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The flower with some other color settings:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R9IZ9IOH15I/AAAAAAAAA-s/tpE2BpxQ3ZY/s400/dx-flower-final-other-colors.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;I hope you guys enjoy this tutorial and that’s all for today. Yeahh!!!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=LgUi0MF"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=LgUi0MF" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=SmxGDtf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=SmxGDtf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=CkRq5Af"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=CkRq5Af" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=9TCxo1f"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=9TCxo1f" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/247758503" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/247758503/illustrator-tutorial-draw-flower.html" title="Illustrator tutorial - Draw a flower" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=5687189768455693549" title="2 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/5687189768455693549/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5687189768455693549" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5687189768455693549" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/illustrator-tutorial-draw-flower.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-2843621013864512246</id><published>2008-03-04T14:21:00.002+08:00</published><updated>2008-03-04T14:29:19.830+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Cool Stuffs" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Windows" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="cool-videos" /><title type="text">Music using only sounds from Windows XP and 98</title><content type="html">Got this from &lt;a href="http://digg.com/microsoft/Music_using_ONLY_sounds_from_Windows_XP_and_98" target="_blank"&gt;digg&lt;/a&gt;. Check it out!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dsU3B0W3TMs"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dsU3B0W3TMs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;another one...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jF5Kv4THo_4"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jF5Kv4THo_4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=gnnB8fF"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=gnnB8fF" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=up14tcf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=up14tcf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=HWGGRWf"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=HWGGRWf" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=lB4xi5f"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=lB4xi5f" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/245312826" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/245312826/music-using-only-sounds-from-windows-xp.html" title="Music using only sounds from Windows XP and 98" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=2843621013864512246" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/2843621013864512246/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/2843621013864512246" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/2843621013864512246" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/music-using-only-sounds-from-windows-xp.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-7735526029684022609</id><published>2008-03-01T12:58:00.003+08:00</published><updated>2008-03-01T13:06:52.308+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Popular Posts" /><title type="text">Popular posts for February 2008</title><content type="html">List of most popular posts for February 2008:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/illustrator-tutorial-wave-text-effect.html"&gt;Illustrator tutorial - Wave text effect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/blogger-how-to-list-archive-pages-by.html"&gt;How to list archive pages by title in Blogger?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/skateboarding-robot-video.html"&gt;The skateboarding robot&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/cool-new-technology-using-3d-display.html"&gt;Cool new technology using 3D display&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=G7pdWXE"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=G7pdWXE" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=fjqCNSe"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=fjqCNSe" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=VprQI4e"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=VprQI4e" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=0hacGNe"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=0hacGNe" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/243714490" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/243714490/popular-posts-for-february-2008.html" title="Popular posts for February 2008" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=7735526029684022609" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/7735526029684022609/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/7735526029684022609" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/7735526029684022609" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/03/popular-posts-for-february-2008.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-5781670369027942364</id><published>2008-02-28T10:31:00.003+08:00</published><updated>2008-02-28T10:39:21.836+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Windows" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="winxp-tips" /><title type="text">Windows XP - How to delete run command URLs?</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R8YdmItBEGI/AAAAAAAAA78/9Lj1NpkO2V0/s1600-h/dx-delete-run-command-urls.gif"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R8YdmItBEGI/AAAAAAAAA78/9Lj1NpkO2V0/s400/dx-delete-run-command-urls.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171853763090124898" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Ok, this tip is useful whenever you’d like to delete the existing URLs in the run command instead of the &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2007/11/windows-xp-remove-cached-run-command.html"&gt;cached lists&lt;/a&gt; inside it. The URLs was listed automatically once you surf the Internet.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To know whether your run command has existing URLs, simply open your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Run&lt;/span&gt; window (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Windows+R&lt;/span&gt;) and type something like &lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"&gt;http://&lt;/span&gt; inside the text area. You’ll see a drop down list that shows the website URLs you’ve visited recently.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyhow, follow these instructions to get rid of them:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Clear IE History&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To do this, open your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;IE&lt;/span&gt; browser, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Tools&lt;/span&gt; &gt; &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Internet Options&lt;/span&gt; &gt; &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;General&lt;/span&gt; tab. Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Delete&lt;/span&gt; button in the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Browsing history&lt;/span&gt; (IE7). For &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;IE 6&lt;/span&gt; and below, click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Clear History&lt;/span&gt; button in &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;History&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Clear all records, recently accessed documents&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Right click&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Start&lt;/span&gt; button &gt; &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Properties&lt;/span&gt; &gt; Select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Classic Start menu&lt;/span&gt; &gt; &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Customize…&lt;/span&gt; &gt; Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Clear&lt;/span&gt; button &gt; Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt; &gt; Select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Start menu&lt;/span&gt; &gt; Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Apply&lt;/span&gt; &gt; Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Done&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;Note:&lt;/span&gt; For Classic start menu, right click the Start button &gt; Customize… &gt; Click the Clear button.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, go back to your run command window and type &lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"&gt;http://&lt;/span&gt;. Your run command URLs should be gone right now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh ya! You might be interested to check out the &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2007/06/windows-xp-run-commands.html"&gt;XP run command lists&lt;/a&gt;. That’s all, yeahh!!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Credits: &lt;a href="http://www.tech-archive.net/"&gt;Tech Archive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=Ay6bXI"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=Ay6bXI" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=1yZeQi"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=1yZeQi" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=L8cOEi"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=L8cOEi" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=XMkXXi"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=XMkXXi" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/242457015" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/242457015/windows-xp-how-to-delete-run-command.html" title="Windows XP - How to delete run command URLs?" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=5781670369027942364" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/5781670369027942364/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5781670369027942364" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5781670369027942364" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/windows-xp-how-to-delete-run-command.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-5619110898462233741</id><published>2008-02-15T10:13:00.023+08:00</published><updated>2008-02-26T11:47:59.533+08:00</updated><title type="text">Illustrator tutorial - Wave text effect</title><content type="html">&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T4iYtBDnI/AAAAAAAAA4E/Yi5JyDivBcQ/s400/dx-text-wave-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a wave text effect using a warp effect in Illustrator. It’s just a simple tutorial anyway and maybe it’ll be useful for some of you guys out there. Ok, here we go!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Software: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Adobe Illustrator CS&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Create New Document with &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;500px x 500px&lt;/span&gt; Artboard Setup. Select &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;RGB color&lt;/span&gt; for Color Mode. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Type Tool&lt;/span&gt; or press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;T&lt;/span&gt; and type anything on the artboard. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ctrl+T&lt;/span&gt; to open the Character palette. Select all text and set to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Verdana&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Bold&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;72pt&lt;/span&gt; for size.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T5VYtBDoI/AAAAAAAAA4M/YUAv_8IeWyU/s400/dx-type-dxxel.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may close the Character palette.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Selection Tool&lt;/span&gt; (black cursor) and select the text. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Object &gt; Expand…&lt;/span&gt;Just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt; if you see an Expand window. You’ll get something like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T5votBDpI/AAAAAAAAA4U/gvj7bcejN_A/s400/dx-dxxel-expand.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 4&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Line Segment Tool&lt;/span&gt; (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;\&lt;/span&gt;), press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Shift&lt;/span&gt; key and draw a horizontal line (color doesn’t matter) like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T6o4tBDqI/AAAAAAAAA4c/QjyHE6DwCvU/s400/dx-draw-hline.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;V&lt;/span&gt;, and then select both text and the line. Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Pathfinder&lt;/span&gt; palette (Shift+F9) and click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Divide&lt;/span&gt; tool.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T6-4tBDrI/AAAAAAAAA4k/ZjoSlGYWLck/s400/dx-dxxel-hline-divide.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We have successfully divided the text into two parts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 5&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Direct Selection Tool&lt;/span&gt; (&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;A&lt;/span&gt;) and select the top part of the text. Give a red color on it using &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette (Window &gt; Swatches).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T7QYtBDsI/AAAAAAAAA4s/JF4Y9ssUTdI/s400/dx-dxxel-red.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then, select the bottom part and apply an orange color on it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T7eYtBDtI/AAAAAAAAA40/kofZ2qoXpkY/s400/dx-dxxel-orange.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Look closely at our ‘d’ and ‘e’. Using the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Direct Selection Tool&lt;/span&gt;, select a filled color inside it and press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Delete&lt;/span&gt;. You’ll get something like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T7sotBDuI/AAAAAAAAA48/SN5tdzQf-CU/s400/dx-dxxel-del-part.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 6&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;V&lt;/span&gt; to select the text. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ctrl+C&lt;/span&gt; to copy and then &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ctrl+F&lt;/span&gt; to paste it in front. Just right after that, go to your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette and apply the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;white, black gradient&lt;/span&gt; on it. See below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T8BItBDvI/AAAAAAAAA5E/9yEnwnt2BqA/s400/dx-dxxel-w-b-gradient.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then, go to your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Transparency&lt;/span&gt; palette (Shift+F10), set to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Screen&lt;/span&gt; and Opacity: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;70&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Enter&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T8R4tBDwI/AAAAAAAAA5M/xJEx7JJ18w8/s400/dx-dxxel-t-screen.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 7&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Using your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;arrow keys&lt;/span&gt; on keyboard, move the transparent text to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;right 2 times&lt;/span&gt; and to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;bottom 2 times&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;V&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;select both texts&lt;/span&gt;, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Stylize &gt; Drop Shadow…&lt;/span&gt;Leave everything as default and press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You should have something similar like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T8r4tBDxI/AAAAAAAAA5U/92q_myAMpWI/s400/dx-dxxel-drop-shadow.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 8&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While the both texts on selected, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Warp &gt; Wave...&lt;/span&gt; Set to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Horizontal&lt;/span&gt;, Bend: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;50&lt;/span&gt;, Distortion Horizontal:&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;0&lt;/span&gt; and Vertical:&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;0&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T88ItBDyI/AAAAAAAAA5c/tnU9fFGsUF8/s400/dx-dxxel-wave.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T9JotBDzI/AAAAAAAAA5k/l7VN0ACDM8Q/s400/dx-dxxel-wave2.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 9&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After that, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Warp &gt; Flag…&lt;/span&gt; (Just click Apply new effect if you see some popup message). Set to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Horizontal&lt;/span&gt;, Bend: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;25&lt;/span&gt;, Distortion Horizontal:&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;0&lt;/span&gt; and Vertical:&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;0&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T9YotBD0I/AAAAAAAAA5s/nRGR_xUwE-k/s400/dx-dxxel-flag.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You’ll get something like this:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T9lotBD1I/AAAAAAAAA50/pyFp63Eo5-I/s400/dx-dxxel-flag2.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow, it looks great. Well, it’s done for the wave text. Next, we gonna add some wave background image behind the text.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 10&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just go to any blank space on your artboard. Use the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Hand Tool&lt;/span&gt; or press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;H&lt;/span&gt; to move the artboard to the left-right and top-bottom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select a &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Rectangle Tool&lt;/span&gt; or press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;M&lt;/span&gt; and click once on the artboard. Enter Width: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;220px&lt;/span&gt; Height: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;80px&lt;/span&gt;. Click &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just right after that, go to your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette once again and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;apply white, black gradient&lt;/span&gt; on it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T-P4tBD2I/AAAAAAAAA58/dLboJOM3uD8/s400/dx-rect-gradient.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 11&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette is still on the artboard and the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;rectangle is on selected&lt;/span&gt;, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Gradient&lt;/span&gt; palette (F9).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Drag&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;light blue&lt;/span&gt; color from &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Swatches&lt;/span&gt; palette and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drop&lt;/span&gt; it to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;left slider&lt;/span&gt; of the Gradient palette. And &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drag&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;dark blue&lt;/span&gt; color from Swatches palette and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drop&lt;/span&gt; it to the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;right slider&lt;/span&gt; of the Gradient palette.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Set Gradient Type: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Radial&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T-hYtBD3I/AAAAAAAAA6E/iEmMUE1E79M/s400/dx-rect-gradient2.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 12&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just right after that go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Stylize &gt; Drop Shadow…&lt;/span&gt;Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, now, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Distort &amp;amp; Transform &gt; Zig Zag…&lt;/span&gt;Enter these value. Size: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;10&lt;/span&gt;, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Relative&lt;/span&gt;, Ridges per segment: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;4&lt;/span&gt;, Point: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Smooth&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You should have something similar like this:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T-6ItBD4I/AAAAAAAAA6M/9gw6LdIfv9w/s400/dx-rect-zig-zag.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Transparency&lt;/span&gt; palette (Shift+F10) and set Opacity: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;50&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T_GItBD5I/AAAAAAAAA6U/A4mXrBE0vbY/s400/dx-rect-zig-zag-o-50.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 13&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Selection Tool&lt;/span&gt; (V) and after that &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;press Alt&lt;/span&gt; on your keyboard. &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Click&lt;/span&gt; on our new shape and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;drag&lt;/span&gt; it to the bottom to make a copy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T_V4tBD6I/AAAAAAAAA6c/jCNtUq9f6Ns/s400/dx-rect-zig-zag-copy.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then, go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Effect &gt; Warp &gt; Arc...&lt;/span&gt; Set to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Horizontal&lt;/span&gt;, Bend: &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;25&lt;/span&gt;, Distortion Horizontal:&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;0&lt;/span&gt; and Vertical:&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;0&lt;/span&gt;. Press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;OK&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You should have something similar like this:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T_tYtBD7I/AAAAAAAAA6k/KIrJiBODpuo/s400/dx-rect-arc.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 14&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Select both wave shapes, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;right click &gt; Arrange &gt; Send to Back&lt;/span&gt; or just press &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Ctrl+Shift+[&lt;/span&gt;. Move them behind our wave text and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;DONE&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our final result:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7T4iYtBDnI/AAAAAAAAA4E/Yi5JyDivBcQ/s400/dx-text-wave-final.gif" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hmm…that’s all for today and hope you enjoy this tutorial. Yeahhh!!!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=v2NOUlE"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=v2NOUlE" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=MM2no3e"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=MM2no3e" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=qcf1Voe"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=qcf1Voe" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=30gZS1e"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=30gZS1e" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/235314739" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/235314739/illustrator-tutorial-wave-text-effect.html" title="Illustrator tutorial - Wave text effect" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=5619110898462233741" title="1 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/5619110898462233741/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5619110898462233741" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/5619110898462233741" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/illustrator-tutorial-wave-text-effect.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-783505666052227827</id><published>2008-02-13T11:29:00.002+08:00</published><updated>2008-02-13T11:40:16.091+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Cool Stuffs" /><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="cool-videos" /><title type="text">The skateboarding robot (video)</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Haha..check out this funny skateboarding 3D robot video that was made by Maya.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mDlDNfK5cLo&amp;amp;rel=1"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mDlDNfK5cLo&amp;amp;rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And this is a real cute skateboarding robot:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/u7Pz7mG5IK4&amp;amp;rel=1"&gt;&lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent"&gt;&lt;embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/u7Pz7mG5IK4&amp;amp;rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=Cyu232E"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=Cyu232E" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=VV0xQDe"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=VV0xQDe" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=a8Oddze"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=a8Oddze" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?a=IoUPUHe"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/dx-xel?i=IoUPUHe" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~4/234128570" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dx-xel/~3/234128570/skateboarding-robot-video.html" title="The skateboarding robot (video)" /><link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4864493064099111835&amp;postID=783505666052227827" title="0 Comments" /><link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://dx-xel.net/feeds/783505666052227827/comments/default" title="Post Comments" /><link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/783505666052227827" /><link rel="edit" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/4864493064099111835/posts/default/783505666052227827" /><author><name>dX-XeL</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03782406605602841033</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author><feedburner:origLink>http://dx-xel.net/2008/02/skateboarding-robot-video.html</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4864493064099111835.post-4161682836095250006</id><published>2008-02-12T12:18:00.000+08:00</published><updated>2008-02-13T08:58:05.577+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Blogger Tips" /><title type="text">Blogger - How to list archive pages by title?</title><content type="html">&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Ok, today I'd like to show you how to list the archive pages by title in &lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Blogger&lt;/a&gt;. If you browse through one of my &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2007/04/archives.html"&gt;archive page&lt;/a&gt;, you'll see that it will only list my blogger post title and the date instead of full content of my post (main content, time, no. of comment, etc)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And of course, you can follow the instruction on how to do this in the original article on &lt;a href="http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;amp;answer=42209" target="_blank"&gt;Blogger Help&lt;/a&gt;. But wait, I've followed all through the steps and guess what, I got some errors in the post page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is how it looks like:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7FSMYtBDeI/AAAAAAAAA2g/VzG7WIG1gvs/s1600-h/dx-blog-error.gif"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7FSMYtBDeI/AAAAAAAAA2g/VzG7WIG1gvs/s320/dx-blog-error.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166000620313841122" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you don't want to end up with some errors like above, simply follow my instruction on how to list your archives page by title. Hehe..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please make sure you &lt;a href="http://dx-xel.net/2007/11/blogger-save-and-backup-your-template.html"&gt;backup your template&lt;/a&gt; first in case you mess up with template code.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;For New Blogger&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This feature is currently not available for New Blogger (layout)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 51, 153);"&gt;For Classic Blogger&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 1&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, first, go to your &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Dashboard &gt; Settings &gt; Formatting&lt;/span&gt;. Scroll down and set &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Show Title field&lt;/span&gt; to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Yes&lt;/span&gt;. Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Save Settings&lt;/span&gt; button at the bottom.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7FSWotBDfI/AAAAAAAAA2o/iKsM2OOD4mc/s1600-h/dx-show-title-field-yes.gif"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7FSWotBDfI/AAAAAAAAA2o/iKsM2OOD4mc/s320/dx-show-title-field-yes.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166000796407500274" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Dashboard &gt; Settings &gt; Archiving&lt;/span&gt;. Set &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Archive Frequency&lt;/span&gt; to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Monthly&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Enable Post Pages?&lt;/span&gt; to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Yes&lt;/span&gt;. Click the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Save Settings&lt;/span&gt; button.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7FSdotBDgI/AAAAAAAAA2w/5Tey5JsDKrU/s1600-h/dx-arc-monthly-ppage-yes.gif"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_-NP5DNrjW60/R7FSdotBDgI/AAAAAAAAA2w/5Tey5JsDKrU/s320/dx-arc-monthly-ppage-yes.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5166000916666584578" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 3&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Dashboard  &gt; Template &gt; Edit HTML&lt;/span&gt;. Scroll down on the code area until you see this tag:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;/Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 4&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;copy everything&lt;/span&gt; between &lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt; and &lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;/Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt; tag &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;including&lt;/span&gt; the &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;tag&lt;/span&gt; itself and paste below it. You should have something like below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;/Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;/Blogger&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As you can see, we have two duplicate codes. Don't worry about it. We now call it &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;code #1&lt;/span&gt;(the first one) and &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;code #2&lt;/span&gt;(the second one).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 102, 0);"&gt;Step 5&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Carefully, add the &lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;MainPage&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt; tag before &lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;code #1&lt;/span&gt; and at the end of it add &lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;/MainPage&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You should have something similar as below:-&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);font-family:courier new;" &gt;&amp;lt;MainPage&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span sty