Inkscape Tutorial: Arrow Circle

in today's tutorial I'll be using Inkscape to show you how to create a circular pattern with arrows going around it similar to what you see here on my screen so let's close out of that and get started the first thing we do in Inkscape let's go to view make sure you have I'm on the wrong window let's go to view make sure you have custom selected zoom zoom in zoom zoom in at one-to-one so resumed it and 100% then we'll open up the align and distribute menu with that button right there make sure you have less selected chosen and then we'll go to edit objects colors gradients and Stroke with that button open up that menu and the first thing we'll do is we'll create a circle so click on the click on the tool says create circles ellipses and arcs and hold ctrl and shift in the keyboard and click and drag on the canvas to create a perfectly round circle and we can go back to our arrow and let's come over here to where it says opacity let's drop the opacity in half and come up here to where it says effect and this very first box let's make sure we have that turned off when scaling objects scale is stroke width by the same proportion we're going to turn that off all right so we're going to turn the fill off come over to the fill tab click the X to turn that off come over to the stroke paint tab click the blue button to turn that on and let's click the stroke style tab and let's give that a 70 point strokes it hits seven zero and hit enter and then come over here to this little eye this little lock icon between the two input boxes click and turn that on and commit where it says width we're going to erase whatever numbers in there we're going to type 400 so we end up with something like that now let's take this with this selected and let's go to path stroke the path what we'll do next is we'll click on our create rectangles and squares hold ctrl and shift in the keyboard click and drag to create a perfect square let's turn that red now let's come over to the stroke paint tab and turn that off and then we'll go back to our arrow and let's make this 200 so hit 200 hit enter and then hold shift and click on the circle so you have them both selected and let's align them align the left edges and then align the top edges so it's set up like that and then we can click off of the graphic to deselect both of them and then click on just this one right here let's turn this into a path so we'll go to path object to path and then we'll right-click this and go to duplicate and hold shift in the keyboard and click on the circle and we'll align the bottom edges just like that then we'll click on this red square up here and hold shift and click on the circle so we have them both selected and go to path intersection and we'll take this red square right here we're going to right-click this and go to duplicate we're going to move this off to the right and then click on it a second time to get the rotation handles and hold ctrl in the keyboard and click and drag this thing until the corners are going perfectly up and down like that then we'll go to our edit pads by nodes let's click on that and take this bottom node right here with it selected press Delete on the keyboard to get rid of it and we'll come up here to where it says snap to custom nodes we're going to turn that button on we're going to take these handles and snap it onto those nodes so that it creates a triangle just like that now let's go back to our arrow let's turn the snap to custom nodes off we don't need that anymore now we can click on this a second time to get the rotation handles and hold ctrl on the keyboard and let's scale this thing around so that it's upright kind of like that now let's take this ring right here let's right click that and go to duplicate let's grab our magnifying glass and zoom in on this this top part right here once we're zoomed in we're going to grab our rectangle tool again and let's create a rectangle just a little sliver of a rectangle going over this part of the shape and then we'll go back to our arrow and hold shift in the keyboard and click on this got a path intersection so we end up with a little sliver just like that we're just going to use that for a reference point now let's press 1 on the keyboard to zoom out let's click on this red triangle and hold shift and click on that little liver right there we're just going to use that as a reference point to align this part of the arrow on the horizontal axis so we go like that and I will come over here to where it says align left edges of objects to the right edge of the anchor we're going to click on that and it's going to attach it to the very edge of that right there so we can click off of everything to deselect it let's click on just this red triangle and hold ctrl on the keyboard and click and drag this in let's scale this thing down until it's about about that big you don't want that thing too big maybe about that size we can click on this little sliver and press Delete on the keyboard to get rid of that we don't need that anymore now let's click this triangle and hold shift and click on this black part of what's left of the Ring and let's go to path Union now let's come back up here and let's turn our snap to custom nodes back on and let's click on this a second time to get our rotation handles and in the center of the graphic there should be this tiny little crosshair just like that what we're going to do is we're going to take that crosshair and we're going to snap it onto the corner of this rectangle that's square so snap it on there and then we can hold ctrl on the keyboard and click and drag this thing around so that it moves in a circular motion so we'll start right here and then we'll press the spacebar to make a copy and while still holding ctrl we'll click and drag this thing down here press the spacebar to make another copy click and drag it up here spacebar to make another copy and then right back up here and then we can let go of everything now we could turn this snap to custom nodes off we can click on this red square and press Delete on the keyboard we don't need that anymore and what we'll do is we'll take this this top left portion and we'll right-click this and go to duplicate and hold shift in the keyboard and click on this this this segment next to it next to it and go to path difference then we'll right-click this one we're going to duplicate hold shift in the keyboard and click on the segment beneath it and go to path difference then we'll right-click that duplicate hold shift click on the one next to it path difference then we'll right-click this go to duplicate hold shift click on that one and go to path difference so that's all set now what we could do now is we can click and drag over all four of these and let's bring the opacity on them all the way up and then we can click off of them to deselect everything now it's hard to tell from everything being the same color but we now have four separate segments of a circular arrow so we're going to do is give these all individual colors we'll take this top one make this yellow take this one give it a shade of red take this one we'll make it blue I'll just give it that shade we'll take this one and make it green maybe I'll go different shade of green now stick with that for now and then what we'll do is let's take this first one and let's go to the fill tab and let's edit the gradient we're going to give this a gradient each we're going to give each segment a gradient to give it a little bit of a just give it a little something to pop off the page a little bit take that let's give it a gradient let's edit the gradient let's go to the drop down let's select the second one if you're using Inkscape version 91 these lists of gradients will be up here in your toolbar somewhere I'm using the older version of Inkscape so they remain down here on my screen so we'll go to that second stop let's bring the a column all the way up I'm just going to give that an off shade of yellow maybe an off shade of orange maybe close out of that we can go to the the create and edit gradients tool if you're using a laptop this key will not be on the toolbar there will be a little arrow down here on the bottom left and if you click on that arrow you'll see the gradient in the list but if using a desktop like me this key should be there anyway so once we get there we could take this bring the darker shade towards the back of the arrow and bring the lighter shade towards the front I mean click on this one do the same thing give that a gradient edit that go to the drop down bring that up make this darker close out of that put the darker shade towards the back of the arrow and the lighter shade towards the head of the arrow do the same thing over here give that a gradient edit that go to the drop down go to the second one bring that up and I'm actually going to give this a different shade of blue just like that put darker shade towards the back of the arrow and a lighter shade towards the front and finally we will do the green as well give that a different shade slightly different shade kind of like that and that pretty much does it for that now inversely what you do is let's take this let's select this whole thing and let's right-click it and go to duplicate and let's move it off to the side we could do a monotone variation of this which I'll explain that after I show you how it works let's turn this whole thing black and bring the opacity down in half so we end up where we were just a few minutes ago let's take this top left segment let's right-click it and go to duplicate and hold ctrl on the keyboard and press the zero key and that's going to out set it it's going to do path out set that's the shortcut version of that and I'm actually going to do that a few times for each one I'm going to ctrl zero a second time third time and a fourth time let me zoom out and then hold shift in the keyboard and click on this segment to the right of it go to path difference and then I'll right-click this and do the same thing right click duplicate ctrl 0 1 2 3 4 fold shift-click on the segment beneath it path difference do the same thing to this one right-click duplicate ctrl 0 4 times 1 2 3 4 hold shift click on this segment next to it path difference and then finally we'll duplicate this one ctrl 0 1 2 3 4 hold shift click on that one on top of it and go to path difference and that has created a monotone version of it kind of like that so that pretty much does it for this tutorial that's how you can use Inkscape to create a narrow pattern that moves in a circular motion so if you have any questions just let me know and I'll help you out and thanks for watching

Channel: Logos By Nick

Views: 46,809

Keywords: inkscape, learn inkscape, inkscape tutorial, inkscape logo, inkscape logo design tutorial, inkscape for beginners

Id: yGFp4EoJi9g

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2015