Re: First Sentence in Piktok

Quoting Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>:

> --- JS Bangs <jaspax@...> wrote:
> > Quoting Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>:
> >
> > > Added the start of the next section describing my
> > new
> > > pictographic conlang work in progress Piktok.
>
> <snip>
>
> > Surprisingly aesthetic. What are you using to draw
> > the glyphs? If I didn't know
> > better I'd say it was metafont or some other
> > automatic drawing program.
> >
>
> I am drawing the glyphs free-hand using Paintshop Pro
> and my mouse.  I draw them superimposed on a grid to
> help me keep my hand steady, and I draw them very
> large, usually 500 pixels tall or more.  Then UI clean
> up the edges a bit and shrink them down.
>
> As a computer programmer I am seriously thinking about
> writing a program to do the drawing for me.  I would
> specify the pen shape and the pen path and let the
> program draw the smoothed bitmap.
Don't reinvent the wheel. This is exactly what Metafont and Metapost do. Well,
sort of--Metafont actually creates bitmap fonts and Metapost a variety of font
formats, but either of these can be converted to images with freely available
tools. If you're enough of a hacker to think you can *write* a program to do
this, you can handle Metafont without a hiccup. I churned through the MF book
in three days and immediately set about making my Yivrian font, which is now
(mostly) finished, just waiting for me to do the conversions.

> > You don't ever discuss the phonetic forms, which I
> > find very interesting. When
> > you do anticipate having something for those up?
> >
>
> I'm refining the design of the phonetic forms right
> now.  I'll probably have them up later this evening or
> sometime tomorrow.  They are based loosely on Shavian
> letter forms, but use the same form for the voiced and
> unvoiced consonant with a "swash" on the glyph to
> indicate the voiced form.
Let us know when these are up.


--
JS Bangs
jaspax@glossopoesis.org

"We're counting on our virtues
   Because it's too hard to count the dead."
     -Jason Webley

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