Drawing to Vector - Inkscape

In this tutorial I run through the whole process of taking a pencil sketch, converting it to a vector graphic and adding colour and shading. I’ll be adding a background that I downloaded from pixabay - adjusting it to blend with my digital art.
Creating vector art from a hand-drawn image is made simple with Inkscape's Trace Bitmap function - I show you how to take a photo or scan of your hand-drawn image and quickly convert it to a vector file or SVG (scalable vector graphic). I demonstrate how you can clean up your image with the eraser tool and the freehand drawing tool, I show you how you can add colour and shading to your image using layers to protect your line drawing and filling with the paint bucket tool. I also add a small offset to make sure I’ve completely filled my line art. I show you how to turn your filled areas into clip groups so you can add more colours and blurring without spilling out onto the surrounding canvas.
This tutorial covers some neat little tricks such as copying and pasting gradients, using the eraser tool to split up the elements of your line drawing, moving selected objects to another layer and more…
In this tutorial, I’m using the latest version of Inkscape - Inkscape 1.2.1
A little bit of knowledge can go a long way.
Follow along with ‘Create For Free’ to create your own artwork - for Cricut, print on demand goods, low content publishing, T-shirt designs, etc.
For more tips, tricks and tutorials, visit Create For Free at:
/ createforfree
#createforfree #inkscape #vectorart
Intro Music: Find Your Way Beat - Nana Kwabena
Inkscape logo by Andrew Michael Fitzsimon

[@StephenBoyd21]

Wow, that was an amazing demonstration of just how powerful Inkscape can be.

[@CreateForFree]

Thanks 👍

[@KristOFF-T]

And it's FOSS! :D

[@MaisieStirfry]

Thank you so much, this was incredibly helpful. I'm off to check out your other videos now!

[@arikabearika]

I want to thank you for doing an actually helpful tutorial. I am so glad that there are still people out there who just make good, solid, no nonsense content. I really appreciate your work. You're awesome!

[@CreateForFree]

Thank you, I appreciate that!

[@anneoflaherty380]

That was a fantastic clear cut tutorial. I followed along and didn't get lost, frustrated or annoyed. Many thanks

[@CreateForFree]

You're welcome!

[@anthonyjones8076]

The only problem I have with this is that I can LIKE it only once... Excellent! Really clarified some tools that I have not used before.

[@tainteddaisie9396]

After getting very frustrated with the software but understanding its potential, THANK YOU for the tutorial!

[@CreateForFree]

Glad it helped, Inkscape is powerful with a lot of features. Like all large software packages, once you understand the basics learning how to use the addition features becomes a lot easier.

[@armandaberlin2156]

brilliant! This video is perfect!! THANK YOU!

[@CreateForFree]

You're welcome

[@pasticciottiontheroad]

Great Tutorial. Thank you very much!

[@CreateForFree]

You're welcome

[@khawajairshadnabi9463]

Very informative tutorial Thanks and keep it up learning a lot from you

[@CreateForFree]

Thanks, glad you finding my videos helpful

[@crisl9079]

Thank you, this was immensely helpful. I am trying to digitize my hand drawn art with Inkscape, and while I like what it can do, it can be a bit overwhelming. I appreciate your calm and straightforward style of explaining things, which makes it so much easier to follow along and learn. Definitely subscribing to your channel.🙂

[@CreateForFree]

Glad you found it helpful.

[@annalogicyoga]

Amazing! Thank you very much! :)

[@CreateForFree]

Thanks

[@AidanJuly]

Great tutorial! thanks !!

[@CreateForFree]

You're welcome.

[@tesg9551]

Amazing. Thanks

[@CreateForFree]

Hope it helped

[@jayescreations489]

way above my skill level. maybe some day I will get there.

[@CreateForFree]

I always learn the basics to new software, then learn new tools and techniques as I need them. I've covered a lot of the tools in more detail in other videos. Thanks for watching.

[@catb7059]

Great, thanks

[@CreateForFree]

Thanks, hope you found it helpful

[@adamgraff2]

Please help me! I uploaded my sketch, but when I go to Trace Bitmap. The preview only shows a few very faint lines of my drawing..Is it because my sketch isn't darkened enough? Do I need to go over the whole drawing with a marker or something?

[@CreateForFree]

So as long as your background is even in brightness (probable scanning your image will work best) then you should be able to use the threshold slider to change the brightness cutoff. You want there to be as much contrast as possible in your copy of the sketch to get the best results. You can use Filters - Colour - Lightness-Contrast to increase the contrast, then use Edit - Make bitmap copy (otherwise it will just look at the original image). Hopefully then you should be able to get a fairly decent tracing. If not, then its time for the marker.

[@adamgraff2]

Thanks for the swift response. It worked got my sketch digitized and am working on coloring and shading now. Your tutorial is helping me a lot very comprehensive. Keep up the good work! Subscribed!@@CreateForFree

[@kashanovazy]

Ty

[@CreateForFree]

You're welcome

[@allartsystuff7551]

Great tutorial!! How do we remove the black outlines if they are not required after converting from png to vector?

[@CreateForFree]

The black outline is a path so if you open the Layers and Objects dialog box to show all the elements in your image, then select the outline so it is highlighted in the dialog box, you can hide it by clicking on the eye icon on the right. This way if you need it back for some reason you can just make it visible again

[@peakypeakaboo]

I am facing this one problem the thing is whatever i draw which is closed figure it gets filled with black like even if i try to draw a square it is filled with the colour i m drawing with

[@CreateForFree]

You have a fill colour that fills the shape and you have a stoke colour which colours the path. If you want to get rid of the fill colour you can click on the X Swatch at the bottom left of your screen.(hold down shift to change the stroke colour) sometimes it is helpful to change your stroke into a path (Path- Stroke to Path) the outline in the video is a path with a fill colour and no stroke. Hopefully that makes sense.

[@peakypeakaboo]

@@CreateForFree thank you so much this is actually helpful since I wasn't able to find it anywhere, thanks again ^-^

[@berkyasuk9188]

Hello! Firstly, i want to thank you to for the informative and fluent video! I'm a beginner at inkscape and i'm tryin to color my illustrations and i have question to you, if you can offer a solution i'll be happy and thankful... I filled all the gaps on my lines (whose are black) and i painted inner of lines with brown (like you), then i clicked "union" button, but this filling space of browns turned black. It seems to me like when i clicked union button, all the fill and stroke settings also matched, i want to "group" them but also edit as a hole vector... Why my "union" doesn't work like yours, whats your opinion?

[@CreateForFree]

If you made a tracing of your illustration the same way as in the video, then your outlines are actually a shape with the path around the edge - select the nodes tool and move your cursor over your image and the outside edge of your line will become highlighted. If you move your cursor over a path with a stoke colour, the path will be in the centre of the stoke. You can change the whole of the stoke to a path by going to Path - Stroke to Path. Now when you move your cursor over it, the highlighted path will be around the edge of the stroke - you can now Union it with your outline. If you fill in your line art with another colour, it creates a separate path, if you have gaps you can fill them in. Then if you want to turn all of the brown sections into a single path you can hold down shift and select them all and Union them into a single path. If you Union your outline with the brown fill colour it will turn them into a single path and so they will become 1 colour. So you only want to Union together section that are the same colour. You might find it easier if you turn off the stroke colour (hold down Shift and click the X at the bottom left) You can group together all the path you want to stay together - this won't effect the colours. If you do need to change anything you can ungroup them, make your adjustments and then regroup them. Hope that all makes sense :-)

[@thebest9023]

More video like this

[@CreateForFree]

I'll see what I can do

[@StoneHazeCraze]

Could you please help me? I sublimate t-shirts and a majority of photos or illustrations are all square or rectangle . I'm wanting to have the photo flow or more blend out into the tshirt .. plz could you do a video 🙏🙏🙏

[@CreateForFree]

I know that many printing processes are unable to fade out images by reducing the opacity. They need solid colours so will often add a white background behind areas that do not have full opacity - which can look awful if printing on a coloured item. One way to overcome this would be to use half tones - similar to the black and white photos in newspapers. That does sound like a good topic for a video, I'll have a think and see what I can come up with. (The Tiled Clones part 2 video explains how you can create half tones)

[@CreateForFree]

I was just having a look at sublimation printing, I can't work out if you can print semi-transparent colours? If you had an image that faded out to nothing for example, would that print correctly on your item? Or does it need to be solid colours like some other methods of printing? Sorry to put you on the spot!

[@StoneHazeCraze]

Exactly what is sent to printer comes thru , the fading will appear the same as what's on screen except no white ink . Anywhere that's white takes on the white of the shirt .

[@CreateForFree]

@Patricia Tangeman Sorry for the slow response, been busy decorating. That makes life a little easier then. I'll see if I can make a video with some examples. In the meantime, you might find these videos helpful. Clipping and Masking: kzbin.info/www/bejne/injFiYqrZ8mXadk Bezier pen and Nodes tool: kzbin.info/www/bejne/amjLYWeGjJhlqpY

[@SeferovAzer6]

Hello everyone👋🏻👏🏻🤲. I have some questions about Inkscape, first of all, well done,amazing picture,amazing vector,amazing poster thank you very much,Create for free 👋🏻👍👏🏻🤲. 1️⃣) Before downloading Inkscape, Is it ok to use it in the browser? Otherwise, it is necessary to download the hökmen. 2️⃣)Is it possible to use Inkscape in the browser, if possible, take advantage of all its features, right? 3️⃣)Inkscape with everything, is it really free or discounted? thank you very much, God bless you 👏🏻🤲.

[@CreateForFree]

Inkscape is open source software so if is completely free. As far as I know there isn't a browser based version of Inkscape so you would need to download it from inkscape.org. Hope that helps

[@SeferovAzer6]

@@CreateForFree Hi,thanks for you,good luck,👋🏻👏🏻🤲.

[@SeferovAzer6]

@@CreateForFree I am alreadt knowing 👏🏻🤲.

[@SeferovAzer6]

@@CreateForFree I am making a logo, I am engaged in logo design, what format do you think would be more suitable if I give the logo to the client? Which format do you recommend? SVG or EPS.Thanks for you before 👏🏻🤲.

[@CreateForFree]

@@SeferovAzer6 Why not provide both, I've not got any experience with the EPS format, but understand it's a professional vector format used mainly for printing. Depending who the logo is for it may be helpful to your client if you also offer a selection of different sized PNGs to suit their needs. The more helpful you are the more likely they will use you again or recommend you.