Complete Noob - Where to start?

[CanucksBrad]

Hello all you talented people.

I should start by saying I have no design training, no experience, and really not a single creative bone in my body. But I have always loved jerseys, uniforms, and the dynamics they bring.

So I'd like to take a stab at what you all do so well, take the crazy thoughts that are swirling up inside my head and try to make them come to life. And I've got some doozies. But I don't even know where to start?

What is the best program for a complete noob? Looking for a free program that works on a mac.

Where do you get the templates?

How do you make a concept?

I am interested and eager to learn all of this, but the first step is finding what program to use, and then just playing around with it. I haven't played with a drawing/animation program since Macromedia Flash in High school, coming up on 10 years ago now.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Brad.

[AnPheitseog]

Youtube has visual tutorials if you are a visual learner, and also an FYI

The Adobe Creative Suite has a free one month trial if you want to play around with things, also GIMP and Inkscape are free

The rest, ill leave to the real experts.

[PaperThin]

Inkscape is one of the more simple programs to use. GIMP is also free, however it's a little more complicated. Templates are found here on the forum, usually.

[CanucksBrad]

So I downloaded GIMP, simply because I had heard of it.

I simply copied and pasted the jersey and the logo from this site, is that a good way to do it?

First attempt. How did I do?

[Shadojoker]

Not bad man

[CanucksBrad]

So GIMP was slowing my computer way down, so I deleted it and tried Inkscape. So far so good.

But now I can't seem to find an image hosting site to upload to. What sites do you use for .svg files?

[PaperThin]

Okay, so here is how you create a jersey. The first thing you do is decide what sport you're doing and find a template that works for the program you're using. Say you're doing a baseball uniform on inkscape, so you find a SVG Baseball template, one of which can be found here: http://boards.sportslogos.net/topic/80541-bmacs-baseball-template-update/ (Template by BMac) So anyways, you can put in logos and wordmarks onto the template and you use them there, you can add numbers to the front and back of the uniforms and so on.

You can make stripes on the uniforms too, by I won't go into detail of that because it's quite complicated. You can use the tool with the pentagon and star to make the stripe, and then crop it to the uniform, (many tutorials on that) Don't take uniforms off the website, since it takes away a lot of the originality and creativity. Here's what not to do:

Don't use the paint bucket or freehand/ pencil tool. They are your enemy. When using images, get rid of the white background so they look much better. Color images by dragging a color onto the desired colored space, or the droplet if the color is from an image. Use appropriate fonts, since it'll make it look way more professional. I could keep on going, but there's a lot to learn. Take your time, watch tutorials, and work hard.

Also, you have to save your pictures as a png file for them to work on an image hosting site. Hope this helps.

[BrandMooreArt]

^ Still better than the Tampa Bay Bucs

[CanucksBrad]

So I have found a whole bunch of tutorials on this site, and they have been amazing for helping me with the technique.

However, still have a thought/question. Say I just want to make a small change to a current uniform. For example, taking the current Canucks uniforms and simply changing the main logo to an alternate one. Is the only way to do this to start with a blank template, and try to recreate the entire uniform from scratch? Trying to get each stripe and everything in the exact right place? Or is there a better way?

Another example is I wanted to see what the Ducks uniforms would look like with their orange as the main colour, and the black/white/gold as the trim. I'm hoping their is an easier way since there is no way I could recreate the intricate striping on the sleeves and bottom on my own.

Thanks for the help.

Brad

[GK Warren]

So, do you start every sentence with "so"?

[CanucksBrad]

So what if I do?

[CanucksBrad]

So I have found a whole bunch of tutorials on this site, and they have been amazing for helping me with the technique.

However, still have a thought/question. Say I just want to make a small change to a current uniform. For example, taking the current Canucks uniforms and simply changing the main logo to an alternate one. Is the only way to do this to start with a blank template, and try to recreate the entire uniform from scratch? Trying to get each stripe and everything in the exact right place? Or is there a better way?

Another example is I wanted to see what the Ducks uniforms would look like with their orange as the main colour, and the black/white/gold as the trim. I'm hoping their is an easier way since there is no way I could recreate the intricate striping on the sleeves and bottom on my own.

Thanks for the help.

Brad

So....

does anyone have an answer for this?

[officeglenn]

So I have found a whole bunch of tutorials on this site, and they have been amazing for helping me with the technique.

However, still have a thought/question. Say I just want to make a small change to a current uniform. For example, taking the current Canucks uniforms and simply changing the main logo to an alternate one. Is the only way to do this to start with a blank template, and try to recreate the entire uniform from scratch? Trying to get each stripe and everything in the exact right place? Or is there a better way?

Another example is I wanted to see what the Ducks uniforms would look like with their orange as the main colour, and the black/white/gold as the trim. I'm hoping their is an easier way since there is no way I could recreate the intricate striping on the sleeves and bottom on my own.

Thanks for the help.

Brad

There's no really easy way to make a small change like that in a vector program like Inkscape. That would probably be easier to do in a raster program like GIMP, especially because 99% of your source files for something like that would be raster.

Also, you asked about a hosting site for .svg files. Again, there really isn't one, because it's a vector file. But there should be a function somewhere in Inkscape like "Save for Web" where you can save a raster version of the file that can be uploaded to the web.

[CanucksBrad]

/\ Thanks.

When I dl'd GIMP it completely slowed down my laptop, don't plan on trying that again. I have an idea for an NHL series for all 30 teams that I want to get to eventually (when my skills are up to snuff) so I guess for the teams that I just want to make small changes to, or have complicated designs (Anaheim for both) I'll just have to suck it up and try my best.

Any tips for copying an existing uniform? Is there a way to have an overlay of the image you are trying to copy as you create the lines and stripes?

[officeglenn]

Probably the easiest thing to do is set the opacity on the layer that the original is on to 50% and then lock that layer, and then do any tracing and other work on a separate layer on top of that.

[CanucksBrad]

Having some trouble again....

How do you colour in shoulder yokes? I've got several templates and I haven't been able to do it on any of them. Because the jersey outline and the yoke outline are seperate lines, there is no way to fill the entire section from what I have tried. Help?