Hello
Some weeks ago in this forum, we had a talk about gradient meshes. There, We the users found that a tool for creating gradient meshes had been implemented, partialy.

Maybe in next versions (0.49, 0.50 , 0.51?), this tool will be part of Inkscape.
Meanwhile, There are ways to simulate this feature in Inkscape 0.48.

I have used this tutorial:

http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery ... mental.png

as a base to develop a method, for geting a similar result.

Follow the linked page below. In the page, at the right of the main image, there is a button for donwloading the ZIP file

Any feedback is welcome