Hello All,

I'm new Inkscape user. For the last couple of days I'm trying to draw a soap bubble.
The results are quite good but not sufficient (for mine taste). Can someone please direct me to a tutorial on this topic or some other sort of instructions?


Best Regards,
Alex.

did you try looking on youtube? there is a lot of tutorials on there and good old heathenx http://screencasters.heathenx.org/

Yes. I checked them both. Lots of helpful tutorials but none dealing with soap bubbles.

Welcome Alex!

Someone posted a link about making bubbles the other day. Maybe not soap bubbles, but I'll try to find it and share the link

EDIT
Well I didn't find the one I was looking for, but I did find this one: http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/category/ball/ And still looking, there's another I've seen too. Ok here it is: http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/ ... -tutorial/ Also, I haven't looked at your file yet, but if I have any comments after looking, I'll post again

Yeah, I don't think I could do much better than the tutorials I suggested. I would say that the shading you have already, seems too dark to me. But then I don't know exactly what's in your head. I suppose there might be situations where that type of shading would work. I haven't yet attempted to draw anything like a bubble or glass vessel, realistically. But I've always thought that when I do, I'll work against a dark, or even black background, to help get the illusions right, i.e. reflections, translucency, rainbow effects, etc. Maybe a dark background would help you "see" it better?

Oh, I just remembered, I think there is a tutorial for drawing a glass vase or bottle or something, in the Inkscape manual (Help menu with internet connection). Let me get that link....oh ok, well here's a link, but it seems one would have to buy the book to get the tutorial. But it looks more like a plastic bottle to me, than glass, and probably not helpful with your bubble: Basics - Help menu > Tutorials
Manual - Inkscape: Guide to a Vector Drawing Program
Inkscape Community - Inkscape FAQ - Gallery
Inkscape for Cutting Design

Try using a camera. Photograph the kind of bubble(s) you're looking to imitate. Use that as a template (not necessarily to trace).

Reference: When Pixar embarked on doing Finding Nemo, their first attempts at making underwater scenes failed. The director then suggested they get hold of some footage to use as a reference.

Perhaps if you had a bubble or two in an image within Inkscape you might get some inspiration. Bubbles are quite complex with their numerous reflections and refractions.

Hello All,

First of all let me thank you. You gave me many references and possibilities for further research.

I've embarked on a mission to find a new logo for some foundation dealing with supporting certain ill people and their families, after a tragic encounter I had at the beginning of this year. So any help would be appreciated.

Once again, thank you.

Alex.

Do you have any guidelines for the new logo, whether by requirement or desire? If it might follow a certain theme, you could search using the theme description, and often find good results. And again, just to find models to look at. For example: grundge. Not that I think grunge would make a good look for your purposes....unless the organization serves teens and pre-teens, lol! But some appropriate theme. ....maybe like "inspirational logos"....? Or looking for bubbles, maybe even try searching "aquatic logos".

Some of us have started making little drawing challenges for ourselves, just as a means of practicing our Inkscape skills, and getting very gentle and minimal comments and suggestions. (This is happening in Competitions forum, although we are not really competing against each other.) Anyway, I think my next turn, I will put in for "bubbles". It is a challenging type of subject, and there could be many different and interesting approaches.

Somewhere, maybe over 2 years ago, I saw an excellent bubble image posted. I usually only look in our forums here, or at DeviantArt, which really reduces the scope of a search. But again, such searches would only be to find model images. I'm not sure about tutorials, other than what I've already posted.

Also, please feel free to share your work on the whole logo, either in Finished Work or Work In Progress forums here, if you like I know I'd love to see it

Hello brynn,

I have a quite a clear idea how I'd like this logo to look like. Thank you.

I've been sketching for a while, scanning other logos, reading some books on designing logos and basically trying to reach the simplest and effective logo I possibly can. And now I'm looking for ways to implement it (preferably, in vector).
The current logo basically looks like a prescription so anything graphic will do the trick, but how one of the authors I red put it, you should strive for a logo that can be easily recognized and remembered i.e. not inventing complex graphic symbolism full of hidden meaning and messages but a simple everyday shape which can be remembered as it is. And there is nothing simple more than a soap bubble.

P.S. Hopefully, I can force Inkscape to produce something even remotely resembles a bubble. Because now, I've asked one of the colleagues of mine to describe what he thinks, my current design represents (the one I posted) and his reply was – "An igloo".

From above.

Back to the old drawing board, double entendre

Excellent!
Well I know that Inkscape is capable of producing a realistic bubble. But I would say that an advanced skill level would be required, to be successful. Or otherwise, the kind of motivation and dedication that you seem to possess. Btw, I found the old topic with the really nice bubble, but the image has been removed

OH, one last tip. You could search the Open Clipart Library (link on InkscapeForum index page). If there is one like what you want, you can actually download the SVG file, where you could look and see how they accomplished the various features.

Good luck!

ist wrote:I've been sketching for a while, scanning other logos, reading some books on designing logos and basically trying to reach the simplest and effective logo I possibly can. And now I'm looking for ways to implement it (preferably, in vector).
The current logo basically looks like a prescription so anything graphic will do the trick, but how one of the authors I red put it, you should strive for a logo that can be easily recognized and remembered i.e. not inventing complex graphic symbolism full of hidden meaning and messages but a simple everyday shape which can be remembered as it is. And there is nothing simple more than a soap bubble.

Aw.. i love to read those kind of things!

There are a few things i would suggest:
- Don't use filters/blur. They are not going to add anything to the logo, specially if you are at the initial stage.
- Play with the shape. Instead of a plain circle you could try the tweak tool, it's fun and help to add movement to the logo.
- Adding more bubbles and playing with different reflection would help too.
- Try a different color for the background. This always help my creativity process. ( i know i know.. a logo need to be in black and white... )

ist wrote:Hello All,

I'm new Inkscape user. For the last couple of days I'm trying to draw a soap bubble.
The results are quite good but not sufficient (for mine taste). Can someone please direct me to a tutorial on this topic or some other sort of instructions?


Best Regards,
Alex.

Hi Alex,

I'm the one who posted an image containing the bubbles and a link to the tutorial I used to learn how to make them. Here's my post so you can see the bubbles:

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=9400

Scroll about 2/3rds of the way down (or until you see a big SpongeBob) and you'll see the bubbles and all the info on how I made the graphic.
They aren't really "soap bubbles" but you should be able to adapt them fairly easily. The main thing you'll need is to add a rainbow effect like you'd normally see in real soap bubbles. You can probably do this fairly easily by just adding a circle behind the main bubble with a faint and partially transparent rainbow gradient. Feel free to download the SpongeBob svg from openclipart.org (linked on above mentioned thread) to take a closer look at the bubbles.

Or... wait, I just remembered that while doing the bubble tutorial I saved a Bubbles.svg (turned it into an SVGZ for the forum. with several different types of bubbles.

The Bubbles.svgz file should help you considerably in learning HOW to make bubbles as I've layered the document in a very descriptive way to make it easy for anyone familiar with Inkscape to understand. Please do let me know if these will help.