No matter how advanced or novice of an Inkscape user you may be, the basics are absolutely essential. Let’s go over some of the best Inkscape tutorials and courses to get caught up on everything you need to know.
Basic Tools and Methods
There’s plenty of tools and methods to become overwhelming, so these are the tutorials you’ll want to take a look at for learning the foundation of Inkscape.
Fun Tricks With Inkscape’s Polygon Tool
The Polygon tool in Inkscape has a slight learning curve, but can be an
excellent way to speed up the creation of complex shapes. In this quick
tip, we’ll go over some neat tricks to make the Polygon tool more useful
with your designs.
How to Create Gradient Fills and on Stroke in Inkscape
The first time you open Inkscape, it may take a while to finally
discover gradients. When you do, they can be rather overwhelming and
confusing at first. Check out this quick tip to learn some tricks with
Inkscape’s gradients, Gradient Editor, and Gradient Tool. While I’m
using linear gradients in this tutorial, the same principals apply to
radial gradients.
Group/Ungroup vs. Combine/Break Apart in Inkscape
The fact that Group/Ungroup and Combine/Break Apart are two sets of
complete synonyms, you might not think that Inkscape would have these as
separate functions. While these are pretty similar at first, I’ll show
you just how different they actually are.
Tips and Tricks For Working With Inkscape’s Nodes
There are so many things to learn when it comes to nodes, but this quick
tip should get you on the right track to properly using and
manipulating your nodes, and ultimately, your artwork in Inkscape. Let’s
check out some neat tips and tricks with nodes!
How to Export Your Artwork in Inkscape
So you’ve spent hours on end drawing a magnificent design in Inkscape
and now you want to publish it once and for all! Thankfully, Inkscape
has a ton of options to export your artwork to more friendly and
compatible file types. We’ll also go over a couple of neat tricks you
might not have known.
Helpful Align and Distribute Tips When Using Inkscape
When you begin doing some serious work in Inkscape, you’re going to want
to keep your work properly aligned. Let’s go over a few cool things
with Inkscape’s Align and Distribute to make your designs as
professional as they can get!
Shadows, Blurs, and Other Useful Filters in Inkscape
As soon as you open the filters menu in Inkscape, you’ll notice that
there’s a ton of them! When filters are introduced, they present a lot
of quick and easy ways to make advanced drawings. Let’s learn about a
few useful filters, the filter editor, and check out some cool design
ideas.
Tips on Using Inkscape’s Fill and Stroke Options
Fill and Stroke is the heart and soul of Inkscape – it’s all just lines
and nodes until some style is applied. In this quick tip, we’ll check
out some of the best stuff Fill and Stroke has to offer!
How to Create Tapered Lines in Inkscape
I love tapered lines in Inkscape because you can make them as simple as
you want, or as complicated as you need them. This quick tip will go
over the basics of tapered lines, using the Path Effect Editor, and a
neat drawing comprised of tapered lines entirely.
What are Clipping and Masking in Inkscape?
Clipping and Masking are fantastic little operations that can make your
complicated objects conform to another element of your design by
changing their entire shape quickly and easily. Let’s go over the
differences, benefits, and some neat tricks in this quick tip.
Using and Modifying Brush Strokes in Inkscape
There’s a lot that goes into brush strokes in Inkscape, but it pays off
with beautiful results. Let’s break down the many options available for
brush strokes in Inkscape and also go over a few tricks that are sure to
keep brush strokes part of your designing.
Using Layers and Blend Modes in Inkscape
Once you start creating more elaborate designs in Inkscape, you’ll
probably find yourself struggling to click certain things without
selecting something else. This is where Layers come in. Let’s go over
this simple menu and how to use it (along with a couple tricks).
Duplicate, Clone, or Copy and Paste?
These three ways of creating identical artwork may sound similar, but
they all have completely different uses. Let’s go over duplicate, clone,
and copy and paste in Inkscape to see which ones fits best in each
situation.
Repeating Patterns Made Easy in Inkscape
In this quick tip, we’re going to go over a tool called Create Tiled
Clones. It’s a very useful menu with tons of options for creating large
amounts of identical, yet dynamic objects, such as patterns. It can be
used for so many things, but let’s just dive right in!
Connect the Dots With Visualize Path in Inkscape
Before you think Inkscape doesn’t have something, check the Extensions
menu. You’ll be surprised to see that there are a bunch of these
additional dialog menus – and they’re pretty helpful most of the time.
Let’s look at Visualize Path in this Inkscape quick tip.
Fun With Objects to Marker in Inkscape
In this Inkscape quick tip, we’re going to go over a neat object menu option called Objects to Marker. It’s a really neat way to use custom designs if the prepacked ones just don’t cut it. Let’s jump right in!
Kerning, Spacing, and Other Text Tricks in Inkscape
Inkscape has a lot of nice built-in features for quickly editing text
and font. We’ll go over these as well as a few neat tricks to really get
the most from your text.
Warping and Sculpting Fun in Inkscape
There are a ton of ways to draw in Inkscape, but sometimes you need to
bring in reinforcements to really get that special shape. Sure, you
could probably freehand it just fine, but we’re going to go over a tool
that allows a controlled the controlled use of warping and sculpting.
How to Optimize Inkscape with Zoom and View
If you’ve worked with advanced drawing in Inkscape before, you may have
noticed that Inkscape starts to seriously slow down. In this quick tip,
we’ll go over a few ways to get your document back up to speed.
Have You Tried These Handy Inkscape Extensions?
Did you know you can easily create things like barcodes and calendars
with a single click? Let’s take a look at these Inkscape’s Extentions
and more!
Tutorials for Beginners
When you’ve got all of the basic tools and methods down, it’s probably a good idea to jump into some great tutorials!
Use Inkscape to Create a Pair of Sunglasses With Ease
In this tutorial, we’ll be designing a cool pair of sunglasses. These
sunglasses use a lot of different shapes comprised from multiple
techniques throughout Inkscape. We’ll cover simple things such as
drawing shapes, to some more complex things like path operations. So,
how about we jump right in?
How to Create an Easy Geometric Aztec Pattern in Inkscape
Let’s learn how to use Inkscape’s Grids and Pen tool to create a
geometric Aztec pattern. While this may seem like a tedious design,
we’ll also go over a few tricks to shorten things up!
How to Create a Cartoon Rocketship with Inkscape
This will teach you how to create a cartoon rocket ship with
some nice lighting using only basic shapes like rectangles, circles and a
triangle. This is a step-by-step tutorial for beginners.
How to Illustrate a Saw Blade with Inkscape
This will teach you how to create a saw blade with a shiny
disc using just basic shapes like rectangles, circles and triangle. This
is a step-by-step tutorial for beginners as well.
Create an Adorable Hedgehog with Basic Tools in Inkscape
In this tutorial, we’ll be using basic shapes in Inkscape to create a
hedgehog character. We’ll also go over some neat concepts such as custom
tapered lines, random object scattering, and shape manipulation.
How to Create a Vector Light Bulb Icon with Inkscape
Today we’ll be learning how to create a vector light bulb icon with the
free, open source vector program Inkscape. We’ll be following a Tango
style of design for this project. Read on to learn more about the Tango
Desktop Project and to learn how to create this icon.
Video Courses on Inkscape
As of now, there are 2 great video courses that cover the basics and advanced in Inkscape. With more than 90 minutes of pure learning goodness in each course, these lessons are sure to make you a pro.
Introduction to Inkscape
Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor that does many of the
cool things that more complex and expensive programs do. But how do you
use Inkscape? Let’s find out.
Advanced Techniques in Inkscape
In this course, we’ll be getting into some of the more advanced tools,
menus, and methods for vector design. This is a great course for those
who want to expand from their basic understanding of Inkscape.
Class Dismissed!
So there’s our great list of fantastic tutorials. For beginners and advanced users alike, this will be a great way to learn Inkscape or at least brush up on the basics. Thanks for reading!
{excerpt}
Read More