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With the Shape Editor Tool (F4), draw a pair of curved lines like a pair of ellipses. Press the Esc key to end the line before you start a new one. Create a straight line then drag the line into a curve with the Shape Editor Tool. The lines should be a bit taller than the spindle in the center.

Place the two lines about 50 pixels apart. Select the Blend Tool (F7). Click and drag from one of the lines to the other line to create a blend. Change the number of Blend Steps to 9 and press Enter .

From the Arrange menu, select Convert to Editable Shapes, then Arrange > Ungroup. Resize and skew some of the lines to make them more random.

If you did not copy the edited rope brush to the clipboard, do so now.

Select all the lines and Edit > Paste Attributes or press Shift Ctrl a.

Clone all the rope lines. From the Arrange menu, select Convert Line to Shape. Then Arrange > Combine Shapes > Add Shapes.

Select the Fill Tool, and change the Fill Type for the combined shapes to Flat. Change the fill colors to RGB 145, 125, 80.

Apply a Linear, Stained Glass transparency dragging from the bottom 1/4 of the shape to the top 1/4 as shown above, bottom right. Group these two rope objects.

Put the rope over the spindle.

Add a curved line from the spindle to the bucket handle and Edit > Paste Attributes to the new line.

Group the new line and the rope on the spindle with the wood frame.

Bring the roof back to the top (Ctrl f).

Select the roof and then select the Shadow Tool (Ctrl F2). Apply a Wall Shadow and use the Infobar settings shown above.

Select the roof and Arrange > Convert to Editable Shapes then Arrange > Ungroup (Ctrl u).

Now if we could only get that shadow to fall on the wood and rope and not the background. Any ideas?

©2008 Gary W. Priester - All rights reserved
This tutorial may not be reproduced in any manner
except as a tutorial for Xara Xtreme users
without written permission by the author.