Here’s a wacom based sketch in Inkscape of an off brand soda can. I used the calligraphy tool exclusively, varying the width of the lines thick to thin as I worked. I really love how the buildup occurs in translucent lines. It’s like working with wet pastels or watercolor crayons, but with the ability to easily erase or modify the lines. A very fun and forgiving technique.
Tags: drawing, sketching, wet media, cray pas, watercolor, still life, scene, soda, printmaking, Inkscape, design, open source, creative commons
So this is a pretty common effect, but it’s easy to master, and works beautifully in Inkscape. Thanks again to the crew on Monday night at Princeton Public Library who came for the fourth installment in the Inkscape Workshop series. To make this image above, do the following:
Using the ellipse tool, create a circle and make it red.
Select and duplicate (ctrl-d) the red circle, make it gray, and send it beneath the first circle using “lower selection to bottom” button in the selection tool’s options bar.
select and duplicate the red circle again, and make it white, then send it above the red circle using “raise selection to top” button in the selection tool’s options bar.
Using the same method, duplicate the white circle and make it orange. Then, move the orange circle so that it’s bottom is at the white circle’s center.
At this point, make all of the circles into paths by selecting all objects (ctrl-a) then making selected objects into paths (ctrl-shift-c).
Select the white and orange circles, using shift-click.
With those two circles selected, use the path/intersection operation. You will have a football shape in white remaining.
With the football shape selected, perform three path/inset operations.
Move the football shape over the red shape. move the gray shape a bit below the red shape.
Using the fill and stroke dialog, apply a blur of 1 or 2 to the gray shape.
Select the white football shape. Using the gradient tool, apply a full white to fully translucent white gradient to the white football shape by clicking and dragging the gradient tool from the middle top of the football shape to just below the football shape. You can play with the gradient to make it just right.
For fun, create a yellow start with the star tool. Place it between the white football shape and the red circle using the raise/lower tools.
That’s it. You can apply the effect to almost any shape as long as you use the instructions set out here.
Weighted Companion Cube from Portal by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Weighted Companion Cube from Portal by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
So my friend Robert has been trying to get me into gaming. He alerted me to the fact that the gaming platform called Steam was coming to Mac OS a few months back, and they offered a free game called Portal as an incentive to get you to download and install the engine. I loved the game, a mix of strategy, first person play, and a manipulation of the physical world that is just amazing. One mission from the game involves having to travel with a weighted companion cube throughout the level, and without giving too much away, you end up having to do something horrible to it at the end of the level. Since it’s just a bunch of metal, you needn’t care so much, but many do. Robert asked me to do a sketch based on my feelings about this event in the game. So, here’s my note of apology to the weighted companion cube, with an acceptable excuse, I hope. 🙂
This is a video that came out of the recent workshop series on Inkscape I’m giving. I was asked to demonstrate clipping and masking in Inkscape, and was not fully prepared to discuss the proper use of masking. I did my research and decided to put together a short overview to talk about it the way I could have in class if I had been a bit more prepared. Hope this helps!
So this is an answer to Erika Bredahl’s picture submission of her dog Yoda. After bitmap tracing the image a few times to get some various levels of shadow and detail, I overlapped the paths and colored them using the eyedropper tool and a vidcap of Yoda from ESB. I then used another vidcap of Yoda in the Swamp scene, took it into the GIMP and used the stamp tool to remove Yoda, then brought the resulting image into Inkscape and bitmap traced it, then gave it some blur.
‘Yoda (/ˈjoʊdə/) is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, first appearing in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back. He is a small, green humanoid alien who is powerful with the Force. In his first appearance in the original trilogy, Yoda is described as the Jedi master of Obi-Wan Kenobi and subsequently trains Luke Skywalker to use the Force. The character reappears in Return of the Jedi where he reveals his age to be 900. Yoda has become iconic in popular culture due to his distinct pattern of speech and role as an old, wise mentor. In the prequel trilogy, set a generation before the original trilogy, Yoda is among the most powerful members of the Jedi Order and a general of clone troopers during the Clone Wars. He also trains all Jedi children, before they are assigned a Jedi master. Yoda appears again in the sequel trilogy, advising an older Luke and empowering Rey to face a revived Emperor Palpatine, along with other past Jedi.’
from “Yoda – Wikipedia” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda curated by lemasney creative. Feel free to share.
This is a fairly simple image that is all about Inkscape’s ability to divide and conquer, visually speaking — making an easy task of taking a photographic image and separating it into distinct graphic components, then emphasizing those components. In this case, I made a video about it to share how I did it. Hope you enjoy it!
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