Geometric Shapes

pmace

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I'm looking through Fredric Harris book on Decorative Art and see some really interesting geometric borders. Has anybody come across any stock geometric shapes for Procreate anywhere? What I've seen suggested is to draw/scan/import the shapes you want but that seems kind of clunky. A file in native .psd would be great.
 

Sam

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The simplest way I can think of is to draw them in Illustrator or Corel and export as .PNG with transparent background. Then open in Procreate and you have a perfect outline without a background.

A google image search for various shape PNG files might turn up what you're looking for.
 

pmace

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Thanks Sam. Adobe Draw has a ruler and grids so drawing shapes is easy. Free app, you save as a photo and import. Resolution is great and the price is right.
 

Doc Mark

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Depending on what shapes you're looking for, the easiest way to get these on Procreate is to get -premade "shape brushes ". Here's how to do it. Open Procreate, Goto the HELP icon >>> COMMUNITY>>>FREE BRUSHES>>>"Shape Brushes" by "scuptingman". Here you will find many standard shapes (squares, circles, triangles etc.), both filled and line only. He also has some great French Curves and a ruler. There are so many free brushes that you can go crazy. Check out the "gradient brushes and the skin brushes ".

Remember, you can use the "transform tools" within Procreate to change the shapes to your needs. Like making a circle into a perfect elipse or even an egg shape. A simple square can be turned into a rectangle or any trapezoid. The possibilities are limitless.

The Procreate community is extremely helpful and there are hundreds of videos to learn from.
 

pmace

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Thanks Mark, those shapes are great! For scale drawings I downloaded the "Concepts" app by TopHatch. It allows you to draw to scale which I hope will help with borders. I haven't explored it fully yet but it was cheap.
 

pmace

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Thanks Richard. Those shapes will certainly help. Now I just need to determine if it's better to generate a brush shape or draw the geometry in another app better suited to linear elements and import. The main thing is that I don't want to have to draw a hundred little triangles (or whatever) for a repetative border. Thanks again.
 

jan-willem

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Pmace,

Sam is right on the money with his advice to draw borders in vector and export them to png if you want to sketch over/in them. I've been working with illustrator professionally in the past and its practically made for stuff like border patterns. Its a great candidate for some brush presets in a vector program so you can spend your time on the beautiful freehand swirls instead! :drawing:

The problem is what package to draw them in. I love Adobe Illustrator, its workflow is unmatched (imho) but its not exactly free.

The only really free alternative to Illustrator that comes, somewhat, close to it in power is Inkscape. That package is free (as in beer) and open source. As with any vector package it may take some getting used to if your only used to raster drawing programs before.

Since I was curious what you could do in Inkscape (I no longer use Illustrator for work so no longer have access to it) I thought this would be a fun experiment. Turns out its perfectly possible to do this in Inkscape! :thumbsup:

I used Sam's tutorial on a wheat border as a starting point: http://www.igraver.com/runningwheat/page2.shtml

I created a small border segment which I then reduced to a tile able segment. All I had to do after that was draw the shape I desired and use the "Generate from path" extension which comes with Inkscape by default. I think the final result came out quite pleasing:

inkscape_example.jpg

For engraving you probably want to keep it lighter and leave out all the shading but that is a no brainer ;)

So inkscape is a good free alternative if you don't have the money to spend on Illustrator or Coreldraw. Hope this points you in the right direction. If you need more pointers let meknow and I will elaborate. :tiphat:

Kind regards,

JW
 

pmace

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Thanks Jan-Willem. Inkscape looks to be a powerful tool and the price is right too. I'm doing most of my work on my I-pad Pro and it looks like to me that Inkscape is a pc/Mac package. There are free or nearly free apps in the app store for ipad that allow you to draw to scale and then export as a png. It's going to take a while to find one that does what I want such as the example you did. If I was still working and had my AutoCAD I could do it in no time. Thanks for your reply and I'll put inkscape on my laptop.
 

jan-willem

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You are most welcome. You are certainly correct that its not a small tablet app but a desktop app.

I feel you are going to have a hard time though if you wish to find a fully fledged vector application for the Ipad (or any tablet really). For certain work a desktop is still preferable.

That said, since you have experience with AutoCAD, I am certain I am preaching to the choir and you know all this already. ;)

I am still bound to paper or desktop (with tablet) for the moment. Ipad Pro felt wonderful when I tried it in the store but a little too expensive for me atm. Besides, I am not really an Apple fan.

Currently trying to learn how to draw scroll work. I should be getting Advanced drawing of scrolls by Ron Smith any day now. Will see where I go from there. I have no engraving equipment (yet), so may as well start with learning how to design. :pencil:

JW
 

pmace

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The IPP with Procreate works if you are looking for a portable solution. I don't have a tablet so when the IPP was introduced on this forum I got that instead. It allows me to wander rather than being tied to the desk. The nice part about most apps is that they are relatively inexpensive. It's amazing what Procreate does and it was only a few dollars.

Enjoy learning to draw scrolls. It's fun.
 

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