Goodbye & Hello

Merry Christmas 2018

Gradient Alliance

Bubbles III

Pilot revisited

Two years ago i made this little doodle on paper which turned out nice enough for me wanting to try inking in a vector program.
I had discovered Jason Secrest's super cool YT channel, but despite trying various techniques i was never able to get something i liked.

My first attempt was all about rebuilding the sketch with shapes in Inkscape, then applying "comic brushes" with 'Pattern along path', just as i learned from Jason's tutorials.
But i wasnt satisfied with the outcome. With the perfect symmetry it had lost all the charme the original drawing had...

My next step was to try and ink with a tablet. Took me ages to get a handle with the tablet and i have to say: i cant do it. My lines never come out as i want them, so for me this is very different to drawing on paper.
Gimp has no working pressure sensitivity, Inkscape's smoothing feature didnt work too well and Krita lags on my outdated machine.

I also tried the 'Power Stroke LPE' in Inkscape, which i dont find very practical. Its much easier and convenient to apply "brushes".

But there is a spanish blog im following and one of the posts had the look i wanted. Turns out the artist used a rather punk-ish approach to trace his art with the Bezier Tool, so thats what i did as well.
Its not perfect yet, because i still have to clean up the lines a bit, but this is my best result so far. I used the 'Fill between strokes LPE' and a nice little trick im keeping to myself. But this may also solve my attempts on trying to trace a posterized image, like Shepard Fairey or Ben Hito do.

The colouring was done in Inkscape. The background texture and halftone glow in Gimp.

Marbles

Radiance 2018

Meander II

Last week a user over at the gimp-forum inspired me to have a look at my 2014 Meander tutorial for Inkscape and i noticed its pretty outdated...

Keep in mind that in may 2014, we were still at Inkscape version 0.48 and i didnt know the program as well as i do today.
Its also quite possible the 'Live Path Effects' (LPE) were buggy and not as refined as they are now.
So that probably explains why i used the 'Pattern Along Path' Extension and not the LPE.

Today i'll show you the best method for 2018, which is not only easier but also looks better.

Lets Get XCTD

such a drag...

Dollar Days

Warp Text with Ofnuts' 'Bend Path' Plug-In

Making warped text in Gimp or Inkscape was a challenge until recently.
In this tutorial im gonna show you how to warp text into an envelope shape with ofnuts 'Bend Path' plug-in.

A quick word on the history of this effect:
There was an experimental script by saulgoode, that worked but took ages (like 30minutes) to render the text.

It was slightly quicker in Inkscape but not easier. Node editing is still a lengthy process and the Bezier Envelope, an extension written for Inkscape 0.48, has its problems.

When Inkscape 0.92 introduced the 'Perspective/Envelope LPE', things improved slightly, but its still far from perfect and has to be performed on individual letters, often followed by more node editing.
In comparison, making warped text in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop is easy. Its flexible and has a ton of options. But then again Adobe products arent free :)

Here are some examples of classic warped text, with the names borrowed from Illustrator.

This situation inspired ofnuts of Gimp-Forum to write another excellent path tool for us at the end of 2017.
Its easy to use, lightning fast and maintains straight lines on the vertical.

How to make a blocky gradient

Gimp's Gradient Editor can be intimidating. Im here to change that.

In this tutorial i will show you how to make a blocky gradient that has lots of uses.

How to make a sunray in Gimp

You can use your blocky gradient to make a super quick sunray effect.

How to make a dynamic colour gradient

Using layermasks to apply colours is a very universal and elegant technique, but if you want the ultimate way of making a quick sunray, here's how you do it: