Linsolv

I decided to indeed make a series of videos which basically are just recording me at work/play in Inkscape. Then, in an afterthought, I recorded some commentary; I'm not explaining how the tools work, but that's easy to figure out. On the other hand, I am trying to explain what I'm doing and why, which is nice enough I guess. Got 2 videos (I ended up deciding to make a video for each of what I'd consider the "Major parts") up so far, detailing the center plate and the strap; the 3rd is still in the process of uploading. I'd probably have gone farther, but to be honest I've been trying to get some ideas first, since that's about as far as I had planned out. Just kidding. Got all 3 (so far) up now. Started recording a fourth part, but I've found that I'm having some trouble deciding what to do with the parts I've brought in thus far. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0D5C37717E27F55C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL

Neither! Through the magic of vector editing, I set the "stroke" (as in fill and stroke) value to do it for me! EDIT: Um... I'm almost beginning to think that a video tutorial is in order here. What do you cool kids use to record your computer screen again?

Well, see the thing is, what I changed was the gradient, from "random gradient I made up" in the very first one to one I'd found on the web. (here) So working in a 'browner' gold would mean changing the other parts to match, at least in magic Linsolv world where nothing is challenging or time consuming. Relatedly, I'm posting the same belt over and over again, and I feel silly having like, 6 versions of my midcard belt posted. I've got another one to do for SSW, so I'll put this one on hold and apply my NEW LEARNING to the next one.

The emboss I had before got deleted by accident. Oops! Good eye! I toned down the "overall" light that you said was in danger of whiting out the belt itself, reinstated my embossing, toned down the white on the silver, and dropped some shadows. http://i45.tinypic.com/kd66pv.png http://i50.tinypic.com/2j4zk8m.png I'll have a look at maybe getting back to that "Gold" (literally, I just searched for Gold on wikipedia's list of colors, before) tomorrow, but I'm tired, so that's all for tonight. EDIT: Yeah, I added an emboss the the UK flag. I did it by accident, and then when I went to fix it I decided I liked it better. Also, the silver is now greyed out! But I fixed it on my computer -- so, no, I didn't miss that.

Has it been an hour yet? http://i45.tinypic.com/b84k86.png http://i46.tinypic.com/1217fpg.png

To answer your question, I found when I was making my promotion's logo that I prefer vector graphics editors, specifically Inkscape, but a comparable program would be CorelDRAW. Which sorta makes a number of the things you said moot points -- for instance, I don't have to save in stages, because if I need to, say, resize my side plates, then I just change the size and move them. Advantages of .svg files. Incidentally, the boston crab in the middle is the same graphic as I used in my promotion logo (see avatar -- it's tiny, I know...) in the most literal sense -- I copy-pasted it. Then I export them as a .png and bam! Finished. Except that I need to convert them to jpg for the game. Which is usually around the point GIMP comes in. --- Gonna spend a few minutes seeing if I can't find a good tutorial on Inkscape metal gradients, then (hopefully) I'll have a "version 2.0" up in under an hour.

The "thin" look was on purpose -- I had seen a belt I liked the shape of (Hence the somewhat weird octagon) which you can see here: http://www.wrestlingbeltworld.com/images/mb105.jpg However, once I had the main plate, from there I mostly just guessed at what to do. So I'll have a look at the other parts (Moving the plates out, tapering the strap -- gonna need to resize the side plates -- et cetera). I do have a question, how do you guys (ReapeR and Liontamer specifically, since I hate unspecified pronouns) get such realistic metal looks? Is it just gradients, and I need to work on it a bit, or is there a trick?

Much as I'm not the graphical powerhouse the other folks here are... um... I thought this might be the right place to ask... Am I on the right track here, or...? http://i49.tinypic.com/2rc20ev.png http://i49.tinypic.com/9uykyb.png

That TNA belt looks incredible. The only advice I might have is that I think the actual TNA belt has red letters for "TNA," and that might help with the visibility at the smaller size, also.