"mixing" styles and effects technique - easier to

[heyvern]

Okay so I am slamming away on my new project.

I am using the "halo" effect extensively to blend shapes. This works great but causes a headache when I change a fill shapes color. I have to go back to every single shape with a halo applied with that color and change it to match. At first I didn't think to use the halo in the style because sometimes I need to use a different color halo on the same shape colors.

I started experimenting with an easier way to separate the halo effect from the fill effect. Basically have one style for the fill and a separate style for the halo which can be used on any type fill.

IT WORKS! YEEHAAA!

Here's what you do. Very simple. Create a fill style with whatever color you need. Now create a Halo style that matches. Set the color of the halo for this style to match each color.

For example I have 3 brown color fill styles for the fur effect:

Lite brown
Medium brown
Dark brown

I create 3 halo "only" effects to match:

Lite brown halo
Medium brown halo
Dark brown halo

The trick is the ORDER you apply the styles to a shape. Apply THE HALO STYLE FIRST then apply the fill style in the second style pull down.

What happens is that the FILL style overides the fill color of the Halo style (you can uncheck the flll color checkbox for the halo effects but you don't have to since it is overridden anyway). Since the fill style doesn't have a halo effect the first halo style gets used!

The result is now I have 3 easy to edit styles for each... color and halo. I can easily change those 6 styles quickly and update the whole illustration.

So now I could apply a dark brown halo to any of the brown colors depending on the shape behind it. If I change the dark brown color later I just update the one halo styles color.

Considering I have dozens of shapes all with different halo effects applied this saves TONS of time and effort for me.

I like it. Hope this is useful... hope it makes sense. If you experiment with it you will see how simple it really is.

-vern

[Genete]

Thank you for clarify halo aplication in your Share your Work topic.
Regards