my red grapes drawing

[brynn]

Hi Friends,
I thought I'd post one of the several realistic WIPs I have going.  Maybe it will be instructional for newbies who might want to draw in the realistic style.

So it's a small clump of red grapes.  You can see that it has a little tendril still attached, which is what caught my attention.  So I took a picture with my phone, and started to draw it....which was more than a year ago....maybe 2.

The grape on the left is pretty much finished.  I know it's hard to see it, but when the drawing is finished, you'll see that it lies in shadow.  The grape on the bottom is finished also.  And also a small portion of a grape that shows from behind the grape on the right (which I've barely started on) is finished.  On the full size screenshot, I've left open some of the layers with the many complex shapes which are needed to create the realism, so you can see what is involved.  Those are only the shapes needed to create what botanists/biologists call glaucus, which is that white powdery-looking substance that you see on grapes (and some other fruits and veg).

For the colors below the glaucus, see the other screenshot of the single grape.  There I'm pretty much done with the colors, and of course this is before any blurring, so you can see all the many and complex shapes.

Even using layers (38), by the time each grape is almost finished, I have some pretty significant slowing (because all the layers have to be open).  So I'll be looking forward to trying the new (I suppose unofficial?) 64-bit version to see how much improvement it might provide.  I got a nice boost of performance when I set the "threads" from the default 2, to my number of cores (8).  So I don't know if this will do more than that or not....maybe?

So anyway, if you're curious how it's done, and the screenies don't answer all your questions, please feel free to reply 

[Lazur]

Looks interesting!
With that detail it seems you follow more of a painter's logic than a graphic designer's.

That 38 layers sound alot of layers to me.
I mostly use only one layer at all.
Never really liked the move up or down functions between them, I miss the gimp's easy dropping option.

Tried the 64bit version and could crash it several times with an svg of 1mb size so maybe something more is missing for a fluent performance?
 

By the way, have you decided the final composition? Will you add more grapes, or put the existing one next to a wine bottle or alike?

[brynn]

With that detail it seems you follow more of a painter's logic than a graphic designer's.

Well I never thought about that, but maybe so.

As far as the layers, not all of them contain parts of the drawing.  There's a layer for the original outlines (so I don't lose the original clipping paths) and a layer for the original photo.  And there's also a 2nd photo on its own layer.  There's a layer that I call "extra stuff" which is paths I might need later and don't want to delete entirely.  I make full and elaborate use of layers!

The grapes have 15 layers.  The 3 finished grapes share one set of 15.  But because the 2 whole grapes lie on top, I just created another set of 15 on an upper set of layers, for those 2.  The reason I did that is so I could lock the finished grapes' layers, and not accidentally mess them up.  (For me, it's too easy in Inkscape to accidentally drag objects, although that may be more related to my touchpad mouse.)  I'll have to unlock those though, when I work on that portion of a grape that's behind the stems.  And then finally, the stem  has 4 layers, although there may be places where I have to distribute pieces of the stem into certain grape layers (because of how the stem lies on top of some grapes and behind others).

I guess there are a couple of reasons why I use so many layers.  One of course is to manage Inkscape's performance issues.  (This image is already 1.08 mb!)  But I find it really helpful to aid in selection.  There are many very small objects, and in certain places there may be 6 or 8 objects overlapping.  Even with Alt + click, it can be hard to select the correct object.  And also, in the final editing process, I might be editing a lower layer, but I need to switch all the layers back on to see if the edit was correct.

Actually, I submitted a "bug" report about layer visibility being included in the Undo queue and Undo History (long time ago).  I could switch a layer on and off 6 or 8 times to make sure 1 single edit looks right (because there are so many subtle areas that can be affected by tweaking a single object) and it's crazy to have those in the Undo History or the undo queue.  I think Undo should be for changes on the canvas only.  But I guess that's another story.

I actually don't use the Shift + PgUp or PgDn very much, to move objects between layers.  I draw the objects on the layer where I want it from the start.  Although there are some times when I draw an object without realizing I'm not on the right layer, and then I have to move it.  Although I don't find those key shortcuts very hard to use anyway.  But I seem to recall that Inkscape has a new layer manager under development, so maybe there's hope for you 

Oh no, there will NOT be any more grapes -- those are the hardest part!  I'm not sure about the final composition yet.  Maybe a thumb and fingers holding the stem, or maybe I will draw some kind of a hook to hold the stem, or maybe some kitchen item could hold the stem, like a coffee cup or something.  Wine bottle is a good idea.  Actually I've shown a somewhat larger version than 100%....actually the screenshot may be around 200%.  Or maybe it will just be the grapes and nothing else?