Hi , Tried searching for this in the boards so if its already been asked, sorry.

I am starting to use inkscape after using flash's drawing tools, which I am used to. I tend to draw lines then fill to make my drawings, when I have finished i will draw more lines whic break up the fills into areas i can color darker for shading. i then get rid of these guide lines.

I am finding it difficult to do this in inkscape. All the tutorials I have seen require you to make lots and lots of shapes just to build a head. Or am I missing something? Does any one having any tuts/tips or guidelines for someone comming to inkscape from flash?

Welcome titanium Dave!

In my signature are links to a couple of good caches of tutorials. I can't think of any particular ones which might help in transitioning from Flash, but there's always Google

I've never used Flash, although I wish I could afford it As another vector graphics program, I assumed Inkscape was somewhat similar....but maybe not... But yes, it sounds like you have figured out the basic process with Inkscape. In order to make something which simulates 3d, for example, usually you'll have a basic shape, and add to it some shapes which outline shaded areas, and other shapes which outline highlights, etc. And of course making full use of transparency, gradients, and blurs (or other filters) is par for the course. Yes, in a complex image, you do end up with many shapes -- objects, in Inkscape. In order to have color at all (except for the background), you have to have either a shape (ellipse, rectangle, star, 3d box) or path with which to contain the color. To be completely filled with color, the path should be closed, although there certainly are times when filling an unclosed path works too. One way to manage it all, is to make full use of Layers. But I'm sure Flash utilizes layers as well.

Other than that, I can only say that transitioning from any program which you know well, to a new one, will take some patience and time. You may well find yourself developing a different workflow.

PS -- I have seen some tutorials for transitioning from AI. So if AI is anything similar to Flash, that might help....although it might be even more confusing, lol!
Sorry, I wish I could be more help

I have never used Flash for drawing, but the process you describe is certainly doable in inkscape. The easiest way I can think of would use layers and the tool.
1. Make a layer called "Guides"
2. Add a layer above that called "Flats"
3. Add a layer called "Shadows" or "Highlights" or "Details" or whatever you is appropriate
4. In the Guides layer draw the basic shape of your line-art (using whichever of the , , or as appropriate)
5. Use the tool to color your basic shapes. You will need to play with the settings of this tool to get the accuracy desired.
6. Select all your colored shapes and move them to the "Flats" layer
7. In the Guides layer add the lines for your details
8. Use the again to create your shadow/highlight shapes
9. Select the detail shapes and move them to the "Shadows/Highlight/Details" layer

You can change the transparency and blur and gradients of all your objects to make the shading blend exactly as you like. When done you can hide the Guides layer to get rid of the line-art without deleting it, so you can go back and edit as needed.

EDITED TO ADD EXAMPLES

I don't understand why you want to use bucket for filling. Why not just use Fill and stroke-dialog (it might not be called exactly that in the English version)? I don't really like the bucket because it uses a rasterized version of the image to find out where to apply the color (at least that is my guess - I haven't used it in years).

I also prefer to use the Fill and Stroke dialog, whenever possible. So I would opt for objects stacked upon objects, using F/S to fill. Of course I also make full use of layers.

I think llog's suggestion is an attempt to help titanium Dave stick to his old workflow. But for me, the problem with the Paint Bucket tool is that it tries to approximate a fill, while the F/S dialog fills exactly.

Anyway, I think everyone eventually finds what works well for them. It's just transitioning from a program one has used for many years, is not always an easy thing. It's almost like learning a new language, in some ways.

Yeah, I was just trying to point out that the described method can be achieved in Inkscape. I would use fill and stroke as well. One point on the paint bucket tool is that the more zoomed in you are on the space, the more accurate it seems to be.

One point on the paint bucket tool is that the more zoomed in you are on the space, the more accurate it seems to be.

Yes, and not to forget the Grow By/Shrink By setting in the control bar

If you use the pencil to draw over filled shapes you can use the division operation in the path menu to cut the solid shape with the curve. Thats probably the closest easiest thing to the workflow originally mentioned.

Wouldn't that require a lot of duplication of the original lineart (i.e., you'd need the original path to do division for each colored space)? And presumably the lineart isn't always going to be a single path even though it outlines an area of a single color.

nice monkey face tutorial.
from my little dealings with flash, most of production work is mostly raster. even though the flash primitives are vector like, actual renders look more raster like or are actual raster images, and the algorithms also seem raster like (when you zoom.) Anyway, the point was that working with flash is more like working with raster programs, and a similar mindset, because of how the tools/technology behaves.
although inkscape is not %100 SVG; i think understanding SVG is most helpful to working with inkscape or other more vector centric programs.

Another Method - draw all lines and outlines that you want with either pencil or bezier tool, stroke them, select all, convert strokes to path. Union, then break apart. This gives you lots of regions to fill, and you don't have to use the bucket. If you want to keep the original lines, you can duplicate or use the clipboard...

druban wrote:Another Method - draw all lines and outlines that you want with either pencil or bezier tool, stroke them, select all, convert strokes to path. Union, then break apart. This gives you lots of regions to fill, and you don't have to use the bucket. If you want to keep the original lines, you can duplicate or use the clipboard...

I love this idea, but don't you want to do "combine" instead of "union" in order to maintain all the interior subpaths?

chriswww wrote:although inkscape is not %100 SVG; i think understanding SVG is most helpful to working with inkscape or other more vector centric programs.

inkscape is pretty much 100% SVG. we dont do anything that isnt SVG . We do have extra parameters in our namespace that let us edit things more intuitively, but its all spec compliant SVG (only non compliant thing I'm aware of is the flow text, which is compliant with how the spec was designed before they changed it, we really need to fix that....)

i meant inkscape has extra things to just a simple pure svg spec implementation, including the fancy filters/extensions, star, spiro, 3d box etc. they're not simple/single svg primitives.
sorry wasn't clear. i'll never make a writer. but inkscape helps me scribble