#inkscape tutorial

[secondbeatsongs]

how to make neon signs in inkscape!

I lost my mind and spent a large amount of hours yesterday perfecting my methods and figuring out how to do this, so if you're interested in making something like this:

here's how to do that!

step 1: cover your workspace in a dark grey rectangle, and lock that layer down.

I've been using 80% or 90% grey - you want this so you can see your neon effect, but you don't want it entirely black at this stage, or you won't be able to see your shadow layer.

step 2: create some text!

pro tip: rounder sans-serif fonts look the best for this, because think about what a neon sign is made of - it's tubes, bent into shapes! so if your font or design looks too sharp and pointy, it'll feel unrealistic when you make it neon.

(this is, of course, a perfectionism thing on my end, so feel free to ignore any and all rules in order to make the thing that you want to make. as with all art, you can do whatever you want forever!)

bonus pro tip: if you, like me, have over 1400 fonts installed and programs tend to lag when you browse through all of them, nexusfont is a great free software that lets you sort your fonts into categories, search them, and preview what any text looks like in different fonts! I love it. it is my best friend

now I'm going to do this with a few different fonts, so that you can see how it works with them. so today, I'm picking Futura Round, Harlow Solid Italic, and then to challenge myself, Beauty School Dropout and Block

make the text white, and also select the text and go to Paths -> Object to Path, because some things don't work right if they're not paths.

let's start off easy with Futura Round!

Step 3: duplicate your text layer

now bear with me here. but you need to take the text you're working with, and either right-click duplicate or copy/paste the layer until you have seven total copies of the text you're working with.

arrange them like this, making sure the top one is the first layer on the list (and so on), and then in the layers tab, label them like so:

pro tip: if you don't have the layers tab open, go to Objects -> Objects and Layers, and that'll pop it right up

Step 4: blur time!

switch to the Fill and Stroke tab, and make these changes to the paths:

glow small: 15% blur, 100% opacity

glow medium: 20% blur, 90% opacity

glow large: 50% blur, 70% opacity

glow xlarge: 70% blur, 70% opacity

your workspace should now look like this:

this is good!

pro tip: these numbers are just loose guidelines! at the end, mess around with everything to make sure that the glow looks right to you! nothing is an exact science

Step 5: shadow and outline

for the shadow layer, make it solid black, and then change the opacity to 50%

for the outline layer, we're doing something fun and weird. so right now it's a fill object, but we want it to be an outline instead! so let's hit the X in the lower left to make it empty, and then shift-click on...for the sake of this, let's say blue. to make our nice blue outline.

now's the weird part

now. use the align tool (Objects -> Align and Distribute), select the outline layer and the main layer, and align them so the outline text is exactly centered on the main one.

then go to Paths -> Path Effects, and when the tab opens, select just the outline layer, then click the drop-down arrow in the Path Effects tab and select Offset

here's our goal right now:

we want to offset the outline until it fits inside the text underneath it, and also mess with the stroke layer settings until you have a nice thick outline that doesn't overlap itself.

mess around with the plus and minus buttons. there are no exact numbers here; you just have to know when it looks good! but for me, the settings were a -0.34mm offset, with a stroke width of 0.700mm

this is roughly what you want it to look like:

now, with the outline layer still selected, blur it out just a bit until it looks fuzzy, and like the white center is a highlight rather than a separate layer. for me, the right number was about 8.3% of blur, to get a result like this:

Step 6: layering and changing colors

okay! at this point your work should look something like this:

you now want to select every layer except the shadow layer, and use Align to center them all on top of each other.

pro tip: make sure to untoggle "move/align selection as a group", otherwise this will not work.

you should now have something that looks like this, with the shadow layer sitting all by itself somewhere off to the side

now's the fun part: colors!

since we've decided that this neon light is going to be blue, it's time to change the glow to reflect that!

here's what it looks like when you change all of the glow layers to be that same, #0000FF blue as the outline layer

and here's what it looks like when you take the glow small layer and make it just a bit lighter (#4343FF) using the stroke and fill tab

in general, mess around with the layer colors until you like how they look! I find that it generally looks better if the glow small layer is a bit lighter, and the glow medium layer is as dark as the original color. everything else is fair game.

also the main layer can stay white (if you want it to seem very bright), or you can make it a very very light blue if you want it to be a bit more subdued.

Step 7: final steps

take your sad, neglected shadow layer, and move it slightly up and to the right of your main layer, so that it works...well, basically like a drop shadow.

then take your original rectangle, and switch it to 100% black.

now. gaze upon your masterpiece

that's a good neon sign if I've ever seen one.

but now. now's when we lose our minds

Steps 8-??: perfectionism and nonsense

so let's move the Futura one aside (and hide it! inkscape lags if there are too many blurry layers visible at once, so hide anything you're not using!), set the rectangle back to grey, and move on to Harlow Solid Italic.

I've sped through a few of the steps here (out of order) so you can see what I'm doing. I've added outlines to the large glow and xlarge glow, and bumped them up a bit so they'll have a larger glow area in general

this time I've made the large glow a little bit lighter than the xlarge glow and medium glow, and made the main layer a very pale pink instead of just white. I also blurred the outline layer just a bit more, because this font needed a bit more fuzz to make it look good.

hell yeah. this rocks.

now, one detail for perfectionism: in neon signs IRL, if you look closely, there are wires attaching them in the back, often connecting each letter to the next. so...let's do that!

get your pen tool, set it to spiro path, and then make little droopy lines connecting each letter.

make these thin, 100% opacity, and a very light (almost white) grey color. then group all of them together, and move this group under the small glow layer

pro tip: some of the cords might go mostly through the shadow layer. if this is the case, just put the cord group one layer above the shadow layer instead, and then it'll be fine. but you might make the cord color a pale-greyish pink to make it look like there's glow hitting it.

ultra advanced technique: duplicate the cord group, make it black and 50% opacity, position it slightly up and to the right of the original, and then move it one layer below it. you've got cord shadows babey!

lookit that. stare at that beautiful perfection. I love it. this brings me joy.

and now: the one that will be the most work

let's gooo Beauty School Dropout!

this one I'm using as an example for what to do with a font that's a bit too pointy to look realistic

this font is really fun and bendy, but the ends of the letters are flat instead of rounded, and the corners are a bit too sharp. so...let's fix that!

now, there are several ways we can do this (after doing Object to Path ofc).

one way is to edit the path yourself, going slowly, and making sure everything is perfect, editing the nodes individually.

or, you could select the text layer using the node tool, then click the button in the top bar labeled Add Corners LPE, and then drag the little circles and triangles around to smooth out the corners

I've decided to do the LPE method, but the problem here is that if you apply the LPE effect before making sure all of the corners look good nodes-wise, it's hell to try and fix it. so before LPE-ing, look at all the spots that you're going to apply the effect, and make sure each has one point at each sharp corner, with no weird overlapping bits. okay? okay.

also for the line beneath the text, it looks like it's made up of a bunch of different segments

and since I want to keep this line because I think it looks cool, we're going to have to deal with that, and make sure that it's all one solid piece, otherwise the outlining won't work. so I've gotta delete all the extra segments, and then move the points on just one of those segments until it's the full original line width, before rounding those corners as well.

basically I've got my work cut out for me here, this will all take a bit.

...aaand an episode and a half of Supernatural later, here's this!

look at how nice and round that is! perfect for the rest of the neon process

and with cords, shadows, layering, etc

hell yeah.

more things: it's block font time

let's make an outline-style neon sign!

my seven layers:

for all but the last two, I've not used the fill option with them at all - I have simply used the stroke outline.

now don't be worried! the stroke-to-path still works just the same way even using an outline to begin with! so it's easy to get an outline of an outline, and do the offset thing just like you did before

however, because this font is more complex-looking, there will probably be some errors when you offset it

for example, it didn't fully outline the second half of the Os, so I just copied the left halves, mirrored them, and replaced the right half with the complete left half

pro tip: keep in mind that you have to re-apply the offset to any bits that you add to the outline layer!

doing the same steps as last time, editing the glow blurs as I see fit, once again we end up with beauty and perfection.

another thing you can do: turn off the lights!

I'm going to use Beauty School Dropout and Harlow for this, but after making your beautiful neon signs, here's how to make it look like a turned-off sign, for if you want to make...idk, a gif of a light turning on and off, or a burned-out sign, or something like that.

so start with (ideally, duplicated copies of) your neon signs:

and then simply delete every glow layer, change the outline layer to 90% grey and your main layer to 70% grey, change the cords' color to a darker shade of grey than whatever it already is, and lower the opacity of the shadows by about 10-15%.

doing that, you end up with this

bam! lights turned off!

last thing: logos and other stuff

you can make neon signs with images as well as with text! the steps are essentially the same, though you may have to do more editing to make it look good, and use simplify on the path if it's too detailed.

and if you're using anything besides an .svg, you first go to Paths -> Trace Bitmap to turn your image into a vector! but unfortunately I've already used 29 images in this post, so here, just look at this Keith Haring thing I made as an example:

is it messier than the text? yeah for sure. does it have some pointy bits I could smooth out more? definitely. but, I've watched three episodes of Supernatural today, and that is more than enough time spent on this. so this is what you get.

but yeah, that's how I make neon signs in inkscape! I used to do it in GIMP, but this works much better, and looks so nice and clean! <3

(man, graphic design really is my passion)

[adiladedesign]

How to draw SVG Fir Tree with Inkscape

[dollsahoy]

It's hard to express, but

I understand that a lot of people on the internet would consider me Old

I do make an effort to keep up with how things change

mostly because I am incessantly curious and always want to learn and learn about new stuff

but also because I do not want to be one of those Old People Stereotypes who is actively hostile to things changing

especially things I was taught were How Things Are

So when I see people younger than I am reacting hostilely to changes in things that are, as far as their daily lives go, pure trivia

I do start to wonder if resistance change is just universal, with young people having more time, as they age, to get used to it

(and note this is about little things that don't change daily life for most people, like the classification of Pluto or dinosaur feathers, and not about life or death things)

[virtualcuriosities]

I noticed a lot of people struggle with text in Krita, so here's a tutorial.

[rainorchid-blog]

[spriteattack]

Inkscape Mini Tutorial - Designing simple Animals using basic shapes and strokes This mini video tutorial from 2Dgameartguru.com explains the design of simple animals with basic shapes and strokes in Inkscape v1.3. In this short video, I apply easy-to-use tools to create and pose a simple bird made up of circles and lines. The lines can be bent, curved, and repositioned quickly to put the bird or any other animal into a pose. I add the Path Effect Taper Stroke to the tail feathers to shape them.

[windrunner]

do you guys think user "angry at operating system bullshit" is really mad about this because i can't tell

[technovellum]

@spriteattack My first post on tumblr will be a link to an artist, 2dgameartguru, who works tirelessly and beautifully to teach in Inkscape and Affinity Designer. I find his tutorials very easy on my ears and mind. He is firmly NO to AI scraping and stealing.

I am technovellum, an old, ill, has been. On better days I try to learn something new. I am writing a script for a radio show or app. I began when I fell ill. Small steps.

I came to tumblr to follow people who have interesting things to teach or show. Boop!

technovellum

[lusus-studio]

In this tutorial we'll show how to create a tiled texture or pattern in Inkscape, using a fleur de lis design surrounded by an ornate border.

[sexyirish7]

Shop Sign Wall Lights

I put together a few sets of shop sign wall lights. But there are instructions. I kept some swatches as a default white color so that you could pick which color you want the light to be while in live mode. This saved on the file size of the package file because the more textures a file has, the more bloated the file size is.

I had some fun with some shop names although I mainly included generic titles in both English and Simlish.

DOWNLOAD for FREE: SFS

OR at Patreon*

*You must be over 18 to access my Patreon page.

INSTRUCTIONS ON CHANGING LIGHT COLORS

Once you place the light in build mode, then go to live mode. Click on the light and you will get the following pie menu.

Select SET COLOR AND INTENSITY and then choose THIS LIGHT. The color options will then appear so you can select which color you want.

If you use the name signs along with the Awning Lights, make sure to place the name on top of the awning so when you select the color picker, the correct sign changes colors. The other option is to place the name separate from the awning, go to live mode and change the color, then go back to build mode and add the awning light you want.

Enable the bb.moveobjects on cheat and then you can make adjustments to location and size of objects. You can adjust the position of the light on the wall by depressing the Alt key while placing the sign (on PC). You can adjust the size of the item by depressing the Shift key and either [ (for smaller) or ] (for bigger) (on PC).

CREDITS

Awning Shop Lights - 19 swatches of various awning wall lights. 18 are pre-colored and one is white so you can change the color yourself in game.

Candy Shop Lights - 20 swatches

Pottery Shop Lights - 25 swatches

Tattoo Shop Lights - 21 swatches

Enjoy!

Creations by SexyIrish7

These cc objects are new 3d meshes created using Blender and Sims 4 Studio.

Polygon Count: 6

All CC have:

*Ability to search catalog using search terms: sexyirish7 and si7

*Customized thumbnail

*******

CREDITS:

Software credits:

Sims 4 Studio v. 3.2.4.1 (Star): https://sims4studio.com

Blender 4.0: https://www.blender.org/download/

GIMP v. 2.10.34: https://www.gimp.org/

Inkscape v. 1.2: https://inkscape.org/

Thank you to the creators and moderators producing tutorials and answering questions!

*******

Model and Image credits:

Mesh created by me.

Simlish font credit to Franzilla: https://modthesims.info/

Image credits:

Awning Lights Image credits: Modified image from Adobe Stock  

Candy Shop Image credits:

Swatches 1-3: Image by pch.vector on Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/christmas-candies-symbols-set-neon-style_11241813.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=26&uuid=8b541325-0e62-4e37-9468-6bacd30f8963&query=neon+lollipop+candy

Swatches 4-8: Image by gstudioimagen on Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/sweet-candy-neon-seamless-pattern_5595774.htm#fromView=search&page=2&position=30&uuid=e2259de5-014d-4d04-af87-1198ee0f35e2&query=%40gstudioimagen+neon

https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/sweet-candy-neon-seamless-pattern_5595775.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=27&uuid=e2259de5-014d-4d04-af87-1198ee0f35e2&query=%40gstudioimagen+neon

Swatches 9-10: Image by openclipart.org https://all-free-download.com/free-vector/download/peppermint_candy_clip_art_13182.html

https://all-free-download.com/free-vector/download/round_candy_with_stick_card_on_pink_background_6823183.html

Swatch 11: Image by All-free-download.com https://all-free-download.com/free-vector/download/round_candy_with_stick_card_on_pink_background_6823183.html

Swatches 12: Image by katemangostar on Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/ice-cream-cart-neon-sign_3238564.htm#fromView=search&page=8&position=42&uuid=2f82b4d1-5ca8-449c-ae22-4573861ebcb0&query=neon+sign+retail

Pottery Shop Image credits:

Swatch 1: Crafting icons created by andinur - Flaticon https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/pottery_17392031

Swatch 2: Image by katemangostar via Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/aquarius-neon-sign_5561944.htm#fromView=search&page=2&position=5&uuid=c55e5e21-0550-46f0-b9be-cfa85ff38796&query=Ceramic+Neon

Swatch 3-4: Pottery icons created by Smashicons - Flaticon https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/vase_3760867

https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/vase_3760970

Swatch 5: Icon by istar_design_bureau via Freepik https://www.freepik.com/icon/pottery_1958438#fromView=search&page=2&position=20&uuid=096084ae-13fe-429c-a419-e6e13ccd37b9

Swatch 6:Icons by Eucalyp - Flaticon https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/pottery_6552610

Swatch 7: Icon by berkahicon via Freepik https://www.freepik.com/icon/spin_13785816#fromView=search&page=2&position=0&uuid=096084ae-13fe-429c-a419-e6e13ccd37b9

Swatches 8-11: Icons by Freepik https://www.freepik.com/icon/pottery_8540816#fromView=search&page=3&position=43&uuid=096084ae-13fe-429c-a419-e6e13ccd37b9

https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/machine_9200546

https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/vase_8838322

https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/pottery_3305262

Tattoo Shop Image credits:

Swatch 1: Modified Image by katemangostar on Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/tattoo-salon-neon-text-with-tattoo-machine-neon-sign-night-bright-advertisement_2438198.htm?log-in=email

Swatch 2: Image by Nippy Custom https://www.nippycustom.com/products/tattoo-neon-sign

Swatches 3-5: Image by bohlam via Vecteezy https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/2185717-tattoo-studio-neon-signs-style-text-vector

https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/34210463-neon-sign-tattoo-studio-with-brick-wall-background-vector

*******

TOU:

Do not re-upload and claim as your own

Do not re-upload and hide behind a paywall

[beesetc]

digitized this drawing as a test using inkscape and this tutorial, took like 5 minutes, much easier than I expected! Removed the bullet journal dots with the speckles option, only one lonely dot stands fast

trying to make drawing fun again!!

[kimjimagery]

I tried the story book route with this what if story of Tad becoming a jaguar,  this format was inspired by the Tad story book “Tadeo Jones 3. El libro de la película: La tabla esmeralda”. 

All the images are done in Clip Studio paint then I transfer it over to Inkscape in order to set up the font and put everything together. 

I'm new to inkscape  layout and how it functions so the text may appear a bit wonky and yes I watch tutorials.

Art © KimJ Characters © Enrique Gato

[rainorchid-blog]

[spriteattack]

This mini video tutorial from 2Dgameartguru.com is on creating easy-to-pose stickmen with basic shapes and strokes in Inkscape v1.3. In this short video, I apply easy-to-use tools to create and pose a stickman by making the limps simple lines. The lines can be bent, curved, and repositioned quickly to put the stickman into a different pose. In the second part of the video, I add the Path Effect Power Stroke to the limbs to make them more dynamic.

[green-with-envy-phandom-event]

This is a very dumb question (so anonymous yay!) but I usually don’t do much digital art. What does it mean to “Ink” your lines?

No worries, there is no dumb question!

Inking lines means to give hard, definitive edges to your lines, and to clean up/erase any messy or extra parts left over from the sketch process.

Here's an example:

Two things to keep in mind:

- we don't mind if the sketchy look of the line is an obvious style choice, so have fun with that!

- you can also sketch and line traditionally, scan the piece, and submit the cleaned up lines to the event! We have a tutorial on how to do that for people who are less familiar with digital art programs -> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MOycvmKiadMdnRuaDwdHEKdSThrAorSKwSPTyKgdmTM/edit?usp=sharing