Inkscape for Beginners Vector Abstract Background Tutorial Video Lecture

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yes mrs. Nick with logos slide mix calm
and in today's tutorial I'll be
demonstrating how you can create this
vectorized abstract background using
Inkscape and this will be similar to the
other tutorial I made about creating a
low poly portrait but the only
difference is we're going to be using a
different method of creating this effect
and we're also going to be using mesh
gradients for the first time as well so
let's go ahead and get started here in
Inkscape by the way if you'd like to
make Inkscape appear darken with these
customized icons I will have a link to
that information in the description of
the video so let's go ahead and set up
the document I'll go to file document
properties and I just want to set the
display units to px and I want to turn
off the show page border and that we can
close out of that and we'll go to view
make sure you have custom selected and
then we'll zoom in at 1 to 1 and then
we'll open up the align and distribute
menu with this button here and we'll
want less selected chosen from that
drop-down and then we'll open up the
Edit objects colors gradients and Stroke
menu with that button there and the
first thing we're going to do is create
a rectangle so let's grab the squares
rectangles tool and click and drag to
create a rectangle so something like
that
and let's go to the Select tool and we
want to make this the size of whatever
you want your background to be so in my
instance I'm not actually using this for
a background I just use this as a
thumbnail for the video so the size I
used was 1280 by 720 so if you're using
this for something like a website you
want to make it you know 1920 or
something like that go right ahead so
I'm going to set the width here to just
1280 then I'll hit tab on the keyboard
to skip over to the height and set that
at 720 hit enter and let me convert this
to a path of it a path object to path
and now we want to add a gradient onto
here but not the typical linear gradient
or the radial gradient you want to use a
mesh gradient so I'm going to go ahead
and click on the box that says mesh
gradient and this will not work unless
you're using the latest version of
Inkscape version 92 so just make sure
you you're upgraded to the latest
version of Inkscape otherwise you won't
be able to you
mesh Grady's following along with this
tutorial so I'll go ahead and click mesh
gradient and that's going to put give us
a a different sort of gradient as
opposed to like a linear where it goes
from left to right or radial where it
goes in a circle or an ellipse going
outward mesh gradients gives you four
different corners to work with here and
if you go to the mesh tool which is
right here create net it meshes you're
going to notice we got four different
nodes here at the corner so I'm going to
click on this node right here and
highlight that and I'm going to put a
different color at each corner so if you
see here I used red light blue a tannish
cream color and a dark blue so I'll
start out over here I'll make this a
shade of red something like that then
I'll click on this node down here I'll
make that a light blue maybe something
like this over here and I'll click on
that node I'll make that a like a
tannish cream sort of color maybe
something like that maybe something a
little lighter maybe maybe I'll start
with yellow and I'll lighten it up a bit
then I'll take the s row and slide this
to the left and I'm using the HSL tab
here for this under the fill tab there's
different settings get RGB HSL I like to
use HSL so I'll use something like that
and then I'll click this one up here and
I'll change this to like a dark blue
like a like a navy a deep navy blue
maybe something like that and I'd say
that looks pretty good so what I'm going
to do now is let's go back to the Select
tool and let's open up the layers menu
now click on this button up here that
says view layers the keyboard shortcut
shift ctrl L and I'm going to click this
button up here that says create a new
layer and position it above the current
layer name just leave it as layer two it
doesn't matter what the name is go ahead
and click OK and in this new layer I'm
going to create a circle so let's come
over to the circles ellipses tool and
hold ctrl and shift and click and drag
to create a perfectly round circle like
that and I'll convert that to a path by
going to path object of path and I'll go
back to the Select tool and I want to
make this a color like green something
like some that step isn't being used
here
so there isn't really green being used
here so I'm going to change this to
green and I'll bring the opacity of this
down a little bit let me go back to the
fill and Stroke menu bring the opacity
down a bit and then click back on the
layers menu and I'm going to take this
and put this in the top left corner over
here so I'm going to hold shift and
click on the rectangle so we have them
both selected and I'm going to click the
button that says align top edges and
align left edges so we have it stacked
up in the top left corner over there and
then we can click off of the graphic
deselect everything and now I want to
take a duplicate copy of this green
circle and put it in this corner so
click on that hit control D to duplicate
it hold shift click on the rectangle
send not Center it align the right sides
and we want to create we want to create
duplicates to these two green circles
and put them down here now so let's
click and drag over both of those hit
ctrl D to duplicate hold shift click on
the rectangle and align the bottom edges
like that go ahead and click off the
deselect everything and now I want to
take this circle down here on the bottom
and hit control D to duplicate it and
then I'll hold ctrl on the keyboard and
just click and drag it up and down like
that so it locks it on to the vertical
axis and I want to create a quick little
copies by pressing down the spacebar
that's going to create a copy so go
ahead and press the spacebar and create
a few copies like that oops
put that one right there and then I'll
just click and drag over these Center
ones here and I'll just duplicate them
by hitting ctrl D hold shift click on
the the rectangle align the left edges
to put them over there so we have them
on that side click off of that deselect
everything and I'll take this circle
here I'll duplicate that as well ctrl D
I'll just hold ctrl move this over
pressing the spacebar to create copies
like that and these do not have to be
evenly spaced out apart in fact it's
better if they're not evenly spaced
because we want a really whimsical
uneven look to this effect right here so
it's facing these giving these like
uneven spacing between them is pretty
good like you notice it's a bigger gap
here than there is here which is
we want something like that so again
let's click and drag over these copies
here in the middle excluding the ends on
the left and right and I'll duplicate
them by hitting ctrl D then I'll hold
shift click on the rectangle and align
the bottom edges click off it to
deselect everything and let's grab this
circle here let's duplicate that by
hitting ctrl D and I'm just going to
move this around inside the rectangle
pressing the spacebar to create a bunch
of different copies like that and again
we don't want it to be evenly spaced out
we wanted to be very random and sporadic
like that and that's pretty good right
there so what I'm going to do now is
where it says layer 1 I'm going to click
this lock icon so that we can't select
anything on that layer and what I'll do
now is I'll click and drag over
everything which should only grab the
circles because we have layer 1 locked
and I'll go to extensions generate from
path of Verona I don't know to pronounce
that for annoy diagram we'll click on
that the type of diagram we want I Galan
a triangulation whatever that one is
called select that one automatic from
selected objects default stroke go ahead
and click apply and close out of that
and you'll see it created a whole bunch
of different connecting strokes going to
each circle so what I'm going to do now
is click and drag over everything and
I'm going to hold shift and click on one
of those black lines to deselect that
objects so we only have the green circle
selected and then we can press Delete on
the keyboard to get rid of those circles
and what I'm going to do now is I'll
click on the little wireframe right here
and I'll ungroup that by clicking the
button that says ungroup selected
objects and click off that to deselect
everything and what that did was it
broke everything up into individual
little pieces like that which we're
going to need so again what we're going
to do now just like we did in the
low-poly portrait tutorial we're just
going to go and color in each individual
shape with the color beneath it so let
me zoom in on this by holding ctrl and
rolling up the mouse wheel and I'll
click on this shape up here and I'll
grab the dropper tool
and I'll just grab a sample of that
color right there and that should color
it in with that fill and if we turn off
the visibility of layer one you'll see
we filled it in with that color so what
we're going to do now is go and do that
to each and every individual shape so
I'll just click on that and for this
instead of going back and forth to the
toolbar I'm going to use the keyboard
shortcut for that for the dropper which
is f7 I'll just select that and I'll go
back to the Select tool instead of using
the toolbar I'll use the keyboard
shortcut which is f1 and I'll just go in
color in each of these with the
corresponding color beneath it in the
gradient so I'll just go through this
and do everything and if you're
wondering if you missed an object
sometimes it happens sometimes we'll go
through this whole thing and you realize
that you missed one you could just go
ahead and turn off the visibility of
layer one and you'll see exactly what's
what's filled in and what's not so I'm
going to go ahead and fill in the rest
of this I'll speed up the video so you
don't have to watch me doing this whole
thing and then we'll continue on so
speak with you in shortly
okay so as you can see from toggling off
the the layer one you can see I have
everything filled in so what I'm going
to do now is I'm just going to turn off
layer 1 permanently we don't need that
anymore that was just a reference and
I'm just going to click and drag over
everything and what I want to do now is
get rid of the black outline otherwise
known as the stroke to do that with
everything selected I'm just going to
hold shift and click on the X or
otherwise what you can do is close out
of the layers menu go back to the stroke
go to the stroke paint menu and then
click on the X that will also turn off
the stroke and then we can group
everything together by clicking the
button that says group selected objects
and you'll see we have finished the
design but the problem now is that we
have like this white gap between the the
objects there a quick little way to fix
that would be to just hit control B in
the keyboard to create a duplicate copy
and that helps filling in a lot of those
white gaps in there as you can see
there's still some in there what we
could do is you could just duplicate it
again ctrl D and that looks pretty it
looks pretty good so that's how you can
go about creating this sort of
background design using Inkscape so if
you have any questions let me know and
as always thanks for watching
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