from c-chan's tutorial:
http://ostan-collections.net/annex/InkscapeTutorial.pdf

page 12:
how did he do the hair?




this is the explanation that goes with it. . .
<<<<<<<<<<
hair is a perfect candidate for
point-and-click vector sketching as hair tends to be bristled by default and too
many nodes will interfere with rounding later on. You need only draw each major
strand of hair as a 3 node, open-ended triangle, and then use the Page Up or
Page Down keys to reposition the hair strands above or below neighboring
strands. The 5-node bang above her forehead, for example, is further in front
than all others, and so must not be positioned behind any other hair strand.
Don't worry about leaving the hair in the forefront open-ended, since you will draw
hair in the backdrop that will cover for all the rest. For her hair ribbons, only some
abstract polygonal shapes will do.
Pigtails can also be create with simple 3-node triangular shapes, and then rounded
out later to the proper curvature.
>>>>>>>>>>>

what is c-chan trying to say here?
3 node open-ended triangle?
Does that mean only stroke, no fill? looking at the pictures, they all have 'fill'
so i am confused.
Does he mean by 'open-ended' to actually make a closed shape, with fill, and then
take the connecting nodes off one end so as to make it 'open ended'?? (this way,
even if it's open ended, it keeps the fill) but i dont think so, because the
second you want to edit the stroke, then you loose the fill. . . .
All i'm trying to figure out is how he did the hair. .

as you can see, i am tracing a section of hair. . .



i just used the bezier tool to draw lines, like open ended segments.
i made them touch, and then i Kombined them all

and i get these messed up like triangular areas that are non-filled.
it looks like some kind of intersection. . . .

Is this normal?
Should i just put a triangle on top of it, you know, to 'cover it up'?


how's something like this normally fixed?
i want my lines the way they are.

well, this looks good. . . .



i traced the outline, filled it with purplish color, then sent it to
the back...

but i cant really edit freely any more. . .

my lines. . . i wanted to make them pointy at the ends (you know, the endpoints in the middle of the shape dont look like a natural ending to me. . .), . . .

so i do stroke to path, and look what happens. ..

i loose some of my fill! (i guess i was just hiding the imperfection, but its still there. . .)



what gives??


maybe i should just stick to step by step tutorials for now, huh??

TOMasCRUZ wrote:what is c-chan trying to say here?
3 node open-ended triangle?

He means to create a "V". A "V" is triangular in shape, only has 3 nodes and is open at the top.

He hasn't attempted to draw the hair as one large object, rather he's drawing a collection of "V" shaped objects (some are "W"). He then draws another for the crown of her head where you would otherwise have blank space.

thanks for that.
that's how i best understood it too, and proceeded with that in mind.
i made my Vs, and W,s and w's and v's. . . . each one is standalone, but i made them all touch.
i also went around the top to complete a 'loop'.
At this point, i do not believe i have the ability do do 'fill'. each object is a stroke.
so i combine them all, and now i have 'fill' ability
but then weird things happen, like when a V meets with a v.
i think i illustrated this later on.

Every object can have a fill and a stroke, it doesn't matter if it's open or closed.

You shouldn't "complete the loop" and combine the objects, as you noticed you can get weird effects on the fill because of the node connections of subpaths after you combine them into one object. Just leave them as separate "V"s and let them overlap, they can have both fill and stroke.

wow, i had no idea. thank you.

if i want to make the strokes sharp-ended by turning the stroke
to a path, (so i can delete a node at the tip) i lose the fill

this is what i mean




i made a classic V with fill

i duped it twice to show my problem

look at 2nd object. . .
all i did is take the duped V, and do stroke to path -
as u can see, i immediately loose the fill

the 3rd object shows what i really wanted to do in the first
place, which is to have pointy ends. . . . but the fill is gone.




mind you, i did actually made the hair and the face.
it's far from perfect, but i aint touching it.

What you've described is by-design. You have work around it. What you can do is duplicate the shape before you do "stroke to path", remove the stroke from the lower object and perform "Stroke to path" on the upper object.

thank you

i dont think i like that technique of doing the Vs and the Ws and all that. and having them with fill, even if they are not closed. . . . because i could not control the 'stroke'. . . .

But i do like this technique way better. . . .

and its simple and strait forward too...

a layer for the ink. . . . a layer for the color

and the ink is the one where you basically run a Bezier line from

from point A to point B. . . . and then back to A again.

now you can edit the line and drag out curves and stuff. turn off the stroke, and all you got is fill

yeah, much better IMHO

I like this better too.

I'm not sure what you mean by returning to point A. Aren't you trying to draw a single line?

If you want a nice line that varies in stroke width you can use Path effects.

The development version already has some accessible directly from Pen and Pencil toolbar, see screenshot here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1425&p=7268#p7268

this is what i meant by returning to point A



by the way, thanks for that link to the screenshot of the devel version.

looks cool. . .

the one thing that i find sometimes disconcerting is the z-order. you know. . .like it is tough for me to
figure out what's what under what. . . .kind of wish i could right click on the canvas and i could
see a visual on the z-order of objects, somehow. . . .

Ah so you used fill, the next version will probably make it easier though.

Better z-order visualisation has been reported in the bug tracker, it will be implemented eventually.

TOMasCRUZ wrote:But i do like this technique way better. . . .

and its simple and strait forward too...

a layer for the ink. . . . a layer for the color

You'll find this is how most artists do it. I do this myself, but I draw all the inks first, then use to quickly apply colour to areas.

z-order visualization

thanks, microUgly, i'll have to try the (i have never used it before)