Inkscape for Beginners: Vector Snowflakes Tutorial

this is Nick with logos by Nick comm and in today's tutorial I'll be demonstrating how you can design these three simple snowflake icons using Inkscape and at any point in this tutorial you could look down at the bottom left hand side of my screen to see which mouse clicks and keystrokes amusing so we'll minimize this and just start adhering scape by the way if you'd like to know how you can make Inkscape appear darken with these custom icons a link to that information will be in the description of the video so the first thing we want to do here in Inkscape is make sure that we have the view set the custom and we'll zoom in at 1 to 1 we'll open up the align and distribute menu with that button up here we're gonna want less select and chose from this drop-down and then we'll open up the Edit objects colors gradients and Stroke menu so the first snowflake design I'm going to create is this one here on the left so to create that one first we'll go to the stars and polygons tool which is over here and in this toolbar up here we're gonna want star selected we're gonna want six corners spoke ratio 0.375 and then rounded randomize both set to zero and once we've done that we could hold ctrl and shift in the keyboard and click and drag on the canvas to create a star like this we're gonna want positioned like this not with though not with the points going vertically like that we're gonna want it the we're gonna want it like that okay and what I'll do is I'll take the opacity of that and bring that down in half I'll go back to the Select tool I'll right click that and go to duplicate turn that copy red then I'll hold ctrl and shift and scale this in about that much I'll leave that there for now and the next thing I'm going to create is the little legs of the the snowflake here I guess you can call it so I'll grab the squares and rectangles tool and I'm just gonna click and drag to create a rectangle going over the center of this thing like that and then I'll take this little circle note up here at the top and I'll just bring that down as far as it'll let you go in order to have rounded rounded edges like that and then we go back to the Select tool and what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna right click that and go to duplicate and I'll turn that green and then click on it again to get the rotation handles and I'm gonna hold ctrl on the keyboard and grab this bottom right arrow and rotate this around one two three three steps like that now I want to take this and put this up here like that maybe right about there and then I'll right-click that and go to duplicate I'll flip that horizontally with this button up here and I'll hold ctrl and just click and drag this over to the left over here like that what I'm going through now is hold shift and click on the other green shape and group them both together with that button here group selected objects I'll hold shift and click on the red shape and click on the button over here that says Center on the vertical axis just to make sure that they're centered and evenly spaced apart and then we can click the ungroup button to ungroup them click off of everything to deselect and I'm going to take this red rectangle right click that go to duplicate hold shift click on the green stripe over here and go to path difference and then tap break apart and then hold shift and click on this piece right here this little green object click on that to deselect it and you should just have this object selected I'll just press Delete on the keyboard to get rid of that I'm gonna do the same thing over here where click will click on this red rectangle right click it go to duplicate hold shift click on the green object and go to path difference and then path break apart hold shift click on this green object deselect it and then press Delete on the keyboard then we could take click on that green object hold shift click on the other green object and unify them together by going to path Union and then we're gonna want to duplicate them so we'll right-click that and go to duplicate and I'm gonna flip them vertically with this button up here flip selected objects vertically and hold ctrl on the keyboard and just click and drag this down to this and what I'll do now is I'll hold shift and click on the red object and I'll right-click them and go to duplicate and I'm gonna take this duplicated copy and just put that over here we're gonna use that for the other snowflake in a minute so we're want to do now is click on this green object then hold shift and click on this green object and unify then bolt together by going to path Union and then hold shift and click on the red rectangle and make sure they're centered upon the horizontal axis like that if then with them still selected we can unify them together by going to Pat Union and I'm just gonna make that green for now so you could see it up against everything else and then I'll hold shift and click on the large black star in the background make sure it's centered on the vertical and horizontal axis like that and we can click off of it to deselect everything and now I'm gonna click on just this green object and I'm gonna right-click it and go to duplicate and then I'll click on it again to get the rotation handles and I'm gonna hold ctrl on the keyboard and take this top right arrow and just rotate this around 1 2 3 4 4 steps like that then I'll duplicate it again right click duplicate get back to the rotation handles hold ctrl 1 2 3 4 and there you go so what I'm gonna do now is when I take this red star in the center hold shift click on the black star behind it and go to path difference and then I'll click and drag over the whole thing and go to path Union bring the opacity of that all the way up and we could pick a shade of blue to make this thing whatever color you'd like just go with the blue something like that and there we have our first snowflake so I'm just gonna hold ctrl and shift and scale that down and move that out of the way next I'm gonna create this snowflake over here to the right which we can use this over here so let's take this and I'm gonna flip that vertically click off of it to deselect everything I'm gonna click on this green object right-click it good.you placate hold ctrl and just move this to about here and then I'll unify them together by holding a holding shift and clicking on the other one and then unify them together by going to path Union and then I'll right click that and go to duplicate and I'll flip that vertically and hold ctrl and move this one down here like that and then I want to hold shift and click on the other green set of objects so we have them both selected we'll go to path Union and then I'm gonna hold shift and click on the red object and just make sure it's centered on the horizontal axis and then unify them together by going to path Union and what I do now is I'm gonna right click that and go to duplicate click on it again to get the rotation handles hold ctrl and rotate it around 1 2 3 4 4 steps like that then I'll right click that and go to duplicate hold ctrl 1 2 3 4 click and drag over all of it go to path Union bring the opacity all the way up and I'll hold ctrl and shift and scale this one down as well and I'll make it the same color this is by just pressing f7 on the keyboard to get the dropper or f7 doesn't work the drop or icons over here down on the left click on that make that the same shade go back to the Select tool and scale that down a little more and there's our second snowflake and finally we will create the one in the center here and to do that I'm gonna grab the Stars and polygons tool again this time we want polygon selected six corners and everything how it is from previously then hold ctrl and shift and click and drag to create this polygon we're gonna want the corners going vertically like that and I'll bring the opacity of this down in half go back to the Select tool right click that go to duplicate and I'll just make this copy red hold ctrl and shift and scale it in about that much that's pretty good then I'll hold shift and click on the blue shape behind it and go to path difference and then I'll come up here and turn on a snap to cusp nodes tool then what I want to then I want to grab the bezzie a pin which is over here or it just press B on the keyboard and we're gonna draw a shape we're gonna start at this top left corner and click then come over to this corner and click and then this corner and then to this inside corner and then to this inside corner and over here and then back to the starting point to create that shape and I'll just make that red I'll get rid of that black outline by holding shift and clicking on this X down here and I'm gonna bring the opacity of that down in half as well we'll go back to the Select tool now I'm going to click and drag this object down here to snap to that corner right click that go to duplicate I'll flip that vertically and put this one up here you might want to move these out of the way and I'll take this right click that go to duplicate bring it over here click on it again to get the rotation handles and hold ctrl and bring it around one two three four four steps and snap that over there and I'll right-click that go to duplicate I will flip that horizontally snap this over this corner and then we can hold shift and click on the one opposite of it right-click it go to duplicate flip it vertically and then just snap these ones down here like that then we can click and drag over all of those and go to path Union and I'm just gonna hold ctrl and shift and scale is down a little bit and finally we're gonna create a rectangle we could turn off the snap to custom nodes now I'm going to create a rectangle going through the center of it like that I will make the corner sharp by clicking on that button we don't want rounded corners for that one go back to the select tool and make that a little thinner like that and click and drag over both of them and just make sure they're centered on the vertical and horizontal axis and then click off fit to deselect everything now I'll click on just the red rectangle right click that and go to duplicate click on it a second time you get the rotation handles and hold control on the keyboard and rotate this one to three four four steps right-click it duplicate it again hold ctrl one two three four like that click and drag over all of it and go to path Union bring the opacity all the way up and now we have our three different snowflakes so that's pretty much how you can do that with Inkscape so if you have any questions let me know and as always thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Logos By Nick

Views: 32,106

Keywords: inkscape, learn inkscape, inkscape tutorial, inkscape logo, inkscape logo design tutorial, inkscape for beginners, vector, vector design, vector graphics, vector logo, vector tutorial, vector icons, graphic design, learn graphic design, graphic design for beginners, beginners, tutorial, snowflake

Id: WLHDSGEf7Lk

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2016