How to create a Pop Art Explosion



This tutorial will show you how to create a pop art explosion.

Specific techniques used in this tutorial

 * Creating shapes.
 * Creating a polygon.
 * Transforming shapes with rotation.
 * Creating a pattern.
 * Filling with a pattern.
 * Converting text to outlines.

This tutorial can be followed by anyone with a basic knowledge of Scribus but should probably not be attempted by people who have never used Scribus before.

Set-up
First you'll need to download and install the "Startling Font" if you don't already have it: http://www.dafont.com/startlingfont.font (You can use any font but this one looks right.)


 * Open Scribus and create a new document (A4/Letter Portrait will be fine).

This little project needs quite a bit of space so it's probably best to create each "layer" on a different page.


 * Choose menu "Page -> Insert…".
 * Change the number of pages to 2 and OK the dialog.

The Background "Flower"

 * Go to the document's first page.
 * Choose menu "Insert -> Default Shapes -> Right-angle triangle" (it's the third one down the list).
 * Click somewhere near the centre of the page.
 * Enter a Width of 14 and a Height of 150.
 * OK the dialog.
 * In "Properties / Colors" set the Line colour to "None".
 * Set the Fill colour to "Red" with a Shade of 60%.

You've now got your first starting triangle - see figure 1.


 * With the triangle selected, choose menu "Item -> Duplicate".
 * Select the duplicate and in "Properties / X,Y,Z" press the "Flip Horizontal" icon (the double-headed horizontal arrow).
 * Change the Width to 24pt.
 * In "Properties / Colors" set the Fill colour to "Yellow".
 * Drag the new yellow triangle to the right a bit (so you can more easily select the other one).
 * With the yellow triangle still selected, shift-select the red one.
 * Choose menu "Windows -> Align and Distribute".
 * In the Align and Distribute palette, set "Relative To" to Last Selected.
 * Press the "Align right sides of items to left side of anchor" icon (top left).
 * Press the "Align Tops" icon (second from left on the bottom).

You should now have two triangles the same as figure 2.


 * Select the red triangle.
 * Choose menu "Item -> Transform…".
 * Press the "Add" button (bottom left) and choose "Rotation" from the drop-down menu.
 * Set the Angle to 13.9 degrees (you'll have to type it).
 * In the "Origin" box select the top-left circle.
 * Set the number of copies to 25.
 * OK the dialog.

Halfway done, now for the other bit.


 * Select the yellow triangle (you may need to drag-select it to make sure you don't select anything else).
 * Choose menu "Item -> Transform…".
 * Press the "Add" button (bottom left) and choose "Rotation" from the drop-down menu.
 * Set the Angle to 13.9 degrees as before.
 * In the "Origin" box, this time, select the top- right circle.
 * Set the number of copies to 25.
 * OK the dialog.

You should now have a nice "flower" like that in figure 3.

NOTE: You might notice that the bottom "petal" doesn't look perfect but that's not too much of a worry. If you're really bothered about it you can go back and mess around with triangle widths and rotation values to get it looking how you want but that may take quite a bit of time.

Don't worry about the edges being ragged, you'll fix that at the end.


 * Drag-select everything you've drawn on this page.
 * Choose menu "Item -> Group".

The Explosion
Now you'll need to draw the "explosion" that goes between the background and the text.


 * Scroll down to the second page.
 * Choose menu "Insert -> Insert Polygon -> Properties…".
 * Change the number of corners to 7.
 * Click the "Apply Factor" check-box to activate it.
 * Set the "Factor" to -45% (minus 45).
 * Set the "Curvature" to 20%.
 * Click near the middle of the page.
 * Enter a Width of 260pt and a Height of 160pt.
 * OK the dialog. (Drag the shape, if necessary, to the centre of the page.)
 * With the shape selected, in "Properties / X,Y,Z" set the Rotation to 330 degrees.

You should now have your starting shape as in figure 4.


 * In "Properties / Line" set the Line Width to 3pt.
 * In "Properties / Colors" set the Fill colour to "White".
 * Choose menu "Item -> Multiple Duplicate".
 * OK the dialog without making any changes.

Now for the dotted fill. Hold onto your hat!


 * Choose menu "Insert -> Default Shapes -> Circle".
 * Click anywhere you have some space.
 * Enter a Width of 16pt and a Height of 16pt also.
 * OK the dialog.
 * In "Properties / Colors" set the Fill colour to "Blue".
 * Set the Shade to 60%.
 * Set the Line colour to "None".
 * With the small circle selected, choose menu "Item -> Transform…".
 * Press the "Add" button and choose "Translation" from the drop-down menu.
 * Set both the Horizontal and Vertical values to 8pt.
 * Set the number of Copies to 1.
 * OK the dialog.
 * De-select everything and re-select just the copied circle (on the right).
 * In "Properties / Colors" set the Fill colour to "None".
 * Drag-select both circles.
 * Choose menu "Item -> Group".
 * Choose menu "Item -> Send to Patterns".
 * Enter a name of "Dots" and OK the dialog.
 * Select the spiky shape you created earlier (it's actually the duplicate on the top of the two).
 * In "Properties / Colors" press the Fill icon and choose "Pattern" from the drop-down menu below it.
 * Select the "Dots" pattern.
 * In the "Scaling" area below the patterns, set both the Y-Scale and Y-Scale value to 25%.

Phew! You should now have your dot-filled shape as in figure 5.


 * Drag-select both the spiky shapes.
 * Choose menu "Item -> Group".

 IMPORTANT : Because of a bug http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=12848 in the current version of Scribus, if you save a document with a grouped pattern, when you re-open the document the group will have been given a black outline which didn't previously exist. For this reason it is recommended that you keep the "Dots" group in your document - just off the page perhaps - so you can re-create the pattern before exporting.

The Text
Now you'll create the text.


 * Scroll down to the third page.
 * Create a text frame that is around 400pt across by 160pt high.
 * Double-click the frame and enter "BANG" (without the quotes) as the text.
 * Select the page background to de-select the frame.
 * Re-select the frame.
 * In "Properties / Text", set the font to be "Startling Font".
 * Set the font size to be 100pt.
 * In "Color & Effects" set the text colour to be "Red".
 * Choose menu "Item -> Convert To -> Outlines".
 * Re-select the text.
 * Choose menu "Item -> Ungroup".
 * Choose menu "Item -> Combine Polygons".
 * Re-select the text.
 * In "Properties / Color" set the Line colour to "Black".
 * In "Properties / Line" set the line Width to 3pt.
 * Choose menu "Item -> Multiple Duplicate".
 * OK the dialog without making any changes.
 * Select the text (actually the top copy).
 * Press the down cursor key twice.
 * Press the right cursor key twice.
 * In "Properties / Color" set the Fill colour to "Black". (This is in case you want to move the shadow farther along.)
 * Choose menu "Item -> Level -> Lower".

You should now have some text with a shadow, like figure 6.

NOTE: You could have got similar effects with the Text Outline/Shadow functions ("Properties / Text / Color & Effects") but you would find aligning the text with everything else later a bit more difficult.


 * Drag-select the text.
 * Choose menu "Item -> Group".

Bringing Things Together

 * Select the text.
 * Scroll up and shift-select the spiky shape.
 * Scroll up again and shift-select the "flower".
 * In the Align & Distribute palette (open it again if you closed it earlier) make sure the "Relative To" is set to "Last Selected".
 * Press the "Centre on vertical axis" icon.
 * Press the "Centre on horizontal axis" icon.

Finishing Up
Just one more thing to do to tidy things up.


 * Choose menu "Insert -> Insert Shape -> Default Shapes -> Circle".
 * Click anywhere on your page.
 * Enter a Width and Height of 300pt.
 * OK the dialog.
 * In "Properties / Colors" set the Line colour to "White".
 * In "Properties / Line" set the line width to 6pt.
 * With the white circle still selected, shift-select the "flower".
 * In the Align & Distribute palette make sure the "Relative To" is set to "Last Selected".
 * Press the "Centre on vertical axis" icon.
 * Press the "Centre on horizontal axis" icon.

And there you have it. Your very own piece of pop art.