Smudge brush tool in Coreldraw, similar to the new Illustrator Blob Brush Tool in CS4

Smudge brush tool in Coreldraw, similar to the new Illustrator Blob Brush Tool in CS4.

Many times when a new Adobe CS version of Photoshop or Illustrator comes out, some people believes the tools doesnt exist in CorelDRAW, which many times isnt true at all.

Adobe Illustrator CS3 and the new CS4 is good software, at the same time doesnt make CorelDRAW less good. As many times before CorelDRAW X4 already have a tool like this. Its called the Smudge Brush Tool, and you find it in the flyout to the Shape Tool, in the CorelDRAW toolbar. Check it out, its a fun and great tool to use. See my image sample. You just drag the Smudge Brush Tool on top of the shape or object you like to work on.

Have fun!

Stefan Lindblad
Illustrator & artist

Business card wizard

I dont run a tips & tricks page here on my blog & news. So many others do that much better than me, but for once I will make a tips & tricks for you. The Label function inside CorelDRAW X4 have always been around, and its a great thing to use for making labels of all sizes and brand. And it has a lot of predefined brand labels from a large range of label manufacturers, such as Avery labels.

When I first made my business cards in CorelDRAW, i never used the Label wizard Dialog in CorelDRAW. Probably because I so early on, many years ago, made a document with rows & columns. And later on made a single frame document, and had my printer shop to multiplied it for me. And labels I so rarely use these days.
So there I was today, having to make a paper to print out on my home Inkjet & laser printer. Rushing out on a meeting, and I was out of business cards. And I needed to get a set of 10 cards on one paper, an A4 size paper. Here is how I solved it. And after I hade done this I found out that Foster D. Coburn III had made a tutorial similar to mine already in 2005. Great! But then I had already fixed my document and business cards, and was already back from my meeting handing out my business cards. If you like to see Foster´s excellent tutorial go here >>

Start CorelDRAW X4 and go to "Paper Type/Size" and choose either Business Card or Japanese Business Card. And from there make your own design of the card. When you have designed your card, a one page card, while the document is open, go to: Tools and then Options in the menu. In Options choose Document, Label, Avery Ink A4. I choosed Avery Ink A4 J8414 - 87x50,8 because I liked to have a 2x5 row and coloumn document printed out. From there choose "Customize Label" button in the Label Dialog. In the dialog, make the width & height settings of your choice. I choosed 91x55 millimeters, and then choose "Auto margins" in the dialog, which will make the document more centered fit on the dokument. Now save your settings into a name of your own choice. And click OK. The document will now be saved in the "User Defined" folder among the other folders in the Label wizard dialog.

Now the wonderful part, go to Print Preview and print out the document on the printer of your choice. Voilá! Its done.
Good Luck!

Stefan Lindblad

Illustrator & artist

A fake Hong Kong publisher unlawfully published illustrations

Today I got an email with a link from my girlfriend, to what is an awfull rip off by a fake Hong Kong publisher.

It is also interesting at the same time, on how illustration & image copyrights are continously being violated.

There is one thing to like the internet to be free, but to steal images from websites and unlawfully publish them, to make money, but not pay any of the illustrators a single amount. And not even asking them, or notifying them. Not even having contact with them. Just plainly take the images from their respective website and publish in a book. A book that later have been sold on various bookstores online. I mean how bad can it be. Its nothing new, but nevertheless awfull.

The people doing this is evidently a sort of criminals who cant care less. Here is the link to the blog written by one of the illustrators affected by this. And the updates is also interesting reading on how it all progress. Link is: apefluff.com/colorful-illustrations-93c-please-do-not-buy-this-book/
Image here published of the cover is made available by fellow illustrator Princess Camcam

I also made a post about this on the CorelDRAW.com forum.

Spread the word about this awfull behavior of the designers and publisher doing this.

Stefan Lindblad
Illustrator & artist