In the real world, all the shapes you see with your eyes have at least some degree of perspective-the effect of distant shapes appearing smaller. So it goes without saying that to make your shapes appear realistic in an illustrated scene, you'll need to add a sense of depth by scaling things which are close larger than things which are farther away. Perspective also comes into play with the surfaces on individual objects. For this, you can add a sense of depth using CorelDRAW's perspective effect. Let's take a close look at perspective drawing and learn a few tips and tricks CorelDRAW provides.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

I’m sure you know that you can easily draw lines, curves, ellipses, circles, squares, rectangles, stars, polygons and more with CorelDRAW®, but what about other shapes? What if, for example, you wanted to draw a heart? How would you go about doing so? CorelDRAW doesn’t provide a “heart-shape” drawing tool. The only option is to roll up your sleeves and do some node editing.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

Mesh fills offer you the power to solve many types of realistic illustrative challenges with a minimum of objects. But, few new users take the plunge and dive into the complex depths of this slightly intimidating CorelDRAW feature. Next, we'll take some of the mystery out of working with mesh fills and explore a few simple, practical applications.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

When it comes to drawing realistic-looking threads for either illustration or engineering drawings, many users often puzzle of just how to tackle the shape and shading aspects. Here's one basic technique you can try on your own using the tools available in CorelDRAW 11 to create machine-bolt style threads around a cylindrical object.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

In part 1 of this 2-part tutorial, we learned how to create the illusion of chiseled effects in CorelDRAW 11 using the most basic of shapes. Next, we'll explore how to deal with more complex shapes and apply realistic color schemes to simulate lighting. If you haven't yet absorbed part one, now may be a good time since the settings you'll need to have selected and the techniques covered in those step sequences lay the groundwork for the tutorials which follow.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

In this visit to the CorelDRAW 11 toolbox, you'll discover a technique to creating perfectly chiseled shapes. Chiseled shapes enable you to create the 3D illusion of shapes which appear either recessed into or raised above a flat surface (as shown next) from simple two-dimensional shapes. Success will depend on your object's shape, skill with node editing and path commands, and an effect or two.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

One of the most popular effects in CorelDRAW's tool arsenal is the Interactive Drop Shadow Tool. It enables designers and illustrators to instantly apply the attractive soft, beautiful shadow effects seen in today's professional-quality layouts and drawings. Drop shadow effects are based on bitmap characteristics, which presents two questions many users often end up asking themselves: What color model is my shadow based on? and; What is the resolution of the bitmap representing my shadow effect?

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

The Mac® OS X GEL look is still hot even though it was introduced quite some time ago. Creating GEL buttons has already been covered here and covered very well so I thought it would be fun to see if we could create the GEL look in text. Before we get started, however, we need to set a few common parameters. I will be using CorelDRAW® 11 and so some features may be different or may have migrated to different menus, as they often do between versions of CorelDRAW.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

CorelDRAW 11's distortion effects are superb for applying controlled changes to an objects' shape-all the while allowing the object to remain in the vector world. There are several different types of distortion effects you can apply in CorelDRAW 11 - ranging from subtle to downright vicious - thanks to the complex mathematical algorithms on which each type of distortion is based.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago

If you've ever fumbled around trying to align your cursor to something, you can bid this frustrating task farewell. CorelDRAW® 12 object snapping has been re-designed with nine new modes to give you maximum snapping control that works together with the program's new Dynamic Guides.

submitted: 5 years and 3517 days ago