Gold Star – LeMasney Consulting 2

Gold Star – LeMasney Consulting

Daniel Veazey, who has lately become a vocal supporter of 365sketches, recently successfully attempted a technique that I call the ‘candy coating’ effect. On YouTube at and on his blog at he repeated the technique and with some feedback started doing it exactly as I do it, though I sort of like his intermediary technique. At any rate, he inspired me to do a simple execution of it on a pointed shape because I mentioned that the technique can effectively be done on any shape.

1. So, in Inkscape, create some shape, like a star. If it is a shape, rather than a path, make it into a path using ctrl-shift-c
2. Duplicate the path. I like to make it a dramatically different color, like bright green.
3. Using the ellipse tool, create a circle and overlap the top part of the duplicate shape. Use ctrl-shift-c to make the circle a path. Make it a contrasting color, like red.
4. Shift select the green duplicate, so that you have the circle as well as the duplicated original selected.
5. In the path menu, select the intersect path operation. You will end up with a shape that is the overlap between the two shapes.
6. Using the path menu, choose inset path, then repeat this. You will see the shape shrinking in small increments.
7. Make the shape white.
8. If the shape is not placed just inside the original shape, do that now. Note how the white reflection above is inside of the darker star by a small border. Do this.
9. Using the gradient tool, and with the white path selected, click and drag from just above the white shape to just below the white shape.

This is the candy coating effect in Inkscape. You can do it with any shape, though I’ve found that simpler shapes work better. It’s especially fun the see the optical illusion of this effect on a circle.

In this particular piece, I also created a shadow, used a second inset, and a reversed gradient to create extra depth and physical believability. Try it, and have fun.

Thanks to Daniel for caring enough to try it, and for staying connected. I include his video below for your viewing pleasure, though it’s slightly different that the technique I describe above.

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