Hello! I am really new to inkscape and i'm trying to do stuff.

So, I want to make something where I take a image (such as a polar bear) and basically make it into a solid color, so the end result is a red thing in the shape of a bear. I would also want to be able to make the bear into maybe a german flag, with the front-ish of the bear being red, middle ish being yellow, and back ish being black. Ive been trying to get an image and a shape and doing object --> clip --> set, but that just made everything invisible. I've been trying to do this for a while now, so any help would be appreciated.

Is your polar bear image an imported raster image? Or did you draw it with Inkscape?

If you draw it with the Inkscape Pen/Bezier tool (or trace the raster image), and you make sure it's a closed path (or at least mostly closed) you should be able to click the red chip on the palette, and fill it with red.

After that, you could use some path operation (maybe Intersection or Difference) with some new rectangles, and create the stripes on the bear. See Help menu > Tutorials > Advanced, to learn about path operations.

Even with that tutorial, it's not entirely easy to figure out. So let us know if you get stuck, and we can help. Also consider sharing your SVG file with us, so we can see where you are, and we know what you need to do next. That's the fastest way to get help. Otherwise, we're just guessing, and we spend a lot of time asking questions.