Tag Archives: nodes

Trying to find an identity

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I don’t want to call myself the Open Source Dilettante anymore. I thought it was funny at first, but nobody seems to be laughing. So this week I’m calling my blog “Messing around with stuff.” I think it’s an accurate title. I don’t know if I’ll keep it though. I’m not sure it snaps, you know? I need something that grabs the reader’s attention and says, “HEY! LOOK AT THIS!”

So I’m taking suggestions for a title for my blog. I want to hear ideas from all both of my readers.

In the meantime, here is a cool metallic eagle-head serpent I drew with Inkscape:

I used the pencil tool to draw a spiro with a triangle-in pattern, then added and arranged a couple of nodes in the path effect editor. I added the eye with the calligraphy tool, and differenced it out. I duped the shape twice, once to make a drop shadow and once to have a white under-layer for the chrome effect on the top layer. The background is a radial gradient stretched out horizontally.

Draw a shamrock with Inkscape

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We have to do something for St. Patrick’s Day, right? Let’s draw a shamrock. It’s a fun little sketch I made up in a just few minutes. Follow along with the video, and you’ll be Shamrockstar in no time!

Here’s a quick rundown of the main points:

Bezier Curve Tool

We use this to draw the stem. First we change the shape of the curve to “Triangle out” in the drop-down menu at the top of the screen.

Path Effect Editor

Wow, this thing is amazing. I don’t even know all the stuff you can do with it yet, but what little I’ve learned is really helpful. In this drawing, we just use it to make our stem a little wider. But you can do all kinds of stuff when you’re editing those nodes. You can add more nodes and make really dramatic effects on your drawings.

Stars & Polygons Tool

This is a quick and easy way to draw an equilateral triangle (and lots of other shapes)

Nodes

Changing the object to a path allows us to edit the nodes on our shapes so we can change them into other shapes. When using the Nodes tool, there are a ton of buttons across the top of the screen that make those nodes do just about anything you want them to, except cook and clean.

Difference

This is a neat little effect. Basically, it takes two overlapping shapes, and cuts out the top shape, taking whatever portion of the bottom shape is overlapped with it.

Afterthoughts

I’ve only been making these tutorials for a couple of weeks now. I do it mainly so I can learn, not so much that I can teach. But trying to explain how to do it helps me understand it better. Also, I try to do something every day. I think that’s key. If I don’t keep doing stuff with what I’ve learned, I start to forget it. I feel like I’ve learned a lot these past couple of weeks, and I look forward to sharing lots more with you as I learn.