Inkscape Tutorial Low Poly Portrait Video Lecture - Inkscape Design Tutorial

this is Nick with logos fight Nick calm
and in today's tutorial I'll be
demonstrating how you can create a low
poly portrait using any image with
Inkscape and since I haven't yet
generated the thumbnail design for this
video yet the image I'm going to be
using for the tutorial is this image
here I'll have this linked in the
description if you'd like to use this
image as well otherwise you can just use
any image you'd like so as you see here
I already created this low poly portrait
of myself I use this is like a profile
picture on the Facebook page and
everything so just to give you an
example of what the end result will be
the reason I didn't create the thumbnail
yet is because this is something that
takes it takes a while to do it takes a
lot of time and it's fairly repetitive
it's relatively easy to do it just takes
a lot of time and it's repetitive like I
said so let me just delete that I'll get
started here at Inkscape by the way if
you'd like to know how you can make
these scape appear dark and with these
icons here a link to that information
will be in the description of the video
so I'll make sure the view is set the
custom and then I'm going to zoom in at
1 to 1 and I want to open up the align
and distribute menu up here so we'll
want last selected chosen from that
drop-down and then we'll open up the
Edit objects colors gradients and Stroke
menu with that button and we're also
going to want the layers menu view
layers right there we're gonna want that
opened as well so we're going to do is
I'm going to take that image and just
click and drag it into Inkscape click OK
to embed it and if you're using Mac if
you're using Inkscape on a Mac the click
and drag thing doesn't work from what
I've been told so you can go to file and
import and you can import the image that
way so what we want to do now that we
have the image is we want to put this on
a separate layers and what we're going
to work with so we'll come up here to
the layers dialog this is sitting in
layer 1 we're going to lock layer 1
we'll go ahead and click the lock button
and lock that and then we'll click the
plus button right here that says create
a new layer
we're just going to name this layer
polygons click Add and for this for this
entire tutorial we're going to turn on
the snap to pads and the snap to custom
nodes button and what we want to do is
grab the bezzie a pin which is right
here or you can just press B on the
keyboard to grab that and we're going to
go around and draw a little shapes
around all of the main definitive lines
and fill them in with the color beneath
it and I'll show you I'm going to zoom
in a little bit I'm going to hold ctrl
on the keyboard and roll up on the mouse
wheel I'll start right here near the
edge of the head click create another
point right there another point right
there maybe one right here and down
there and right there and like that it
doesn't have to be all triangles it
could be like multiple sides so it's
going along like the contour of like the
hair and the shape of the forehead there
and what we want to do now is grab the
dropper tool and just click and drag to
grab a color in there to make it that
whole color and we can get rid of that
outline by holding shift and clicking on
the X and that's gone and what we can do
now is go back to the bed a pen and do
this again we just go along the whole
image and just create polygons like this
throughout the whole image and go back
to the dropper but what you'll want to
do is you want to use the keyboard
shortcuts because you'll drive yourself
crazy clicking back and forth on the
toolbar a million times so what I like
to do is use the keyboard shortcuts for
this wrapper which is f7 go ahead and do
that and then just hold shift click the
X to get rid of the stroke then we go
back to the bezzie a pen the keyboard
shortcut for that is B so there's that
create that there put another shape in
here back there f7 for the dropper make
it that shade hold shift click the X
press B to get back to the bezzie a pen
and we can just go along and create our
low-poly portrait put that there
grab the dropper tool hold shift click
the X press the B to get back to the
Bezier pen
create another shape right here you kind
of want to go along with like the
different shades like the different
shapes and everything if you notice here
the hair gets darker in color as it like
is it like curls right there so we want
to have shapes going along there I'll
show you that in just a minute so let me
get back to the dropper again we're f7
and B those are the two those are the
two keyboard shortcuts you're going to
want to memorize when you're doing this
is f7 and B on the keyboard so go back
to be create another shape like that put
that there
f7 get rid of that press B go back here
put that there back to there and what
I'm going to do now is I'm going to put
this video on pause I'm going to put
this recording on pause while I go
around and finish this up so the video
doesn't end up being three and a half
hours long so just a second okay so I
put this back there's another thing I
want to show you like I was mentioning
earlier the darker shade of the hair in
here we want to create shapes that go
along and complement that shape so I'm
going to show you as an example here I'm
going to create these shapes right here
to go with the event like the blonde
color fill that in and what I'm going to
do here I'm going to create shapes that
go along the contour of that shade like
that put that back there like that get
rid of a stroke and I'll do that again
if you put another one right here like
that and you should pretty much get the
idea of that from now and another thing
I'd like to point out if any point you'd
like to see how it's coming along
without the image there you would just
come up to the layers menu and click on
the eyeball next to layer one to turn
that off and you can see how it's coming
along and there that is so I'm going to
go ahead and pause this again and I'll
be back with you in just a sec
okay so another thing I want to point
out is when you do it when you're going
over the eyebrows in the eyes that could
also be a little tricky it's one of
those areas where you're not going to be
able to get away with using really large
shapes like you see I'm doing here
you're going to have to use like much
more smaller fragmented shapes and
another thing that I didn't realize if
you notice here you notice I stopped
turning off the stroke while doing is
because I realized they don't dummy that
you don't necessarily have to do that
you can go and do that all at the end
with one click and I'll show you what I
mean
you could do is you could zoom out you
grab the Select tool and click and drag
over all of it and then hold shift and
click on the X and that gets rid of the
stroke so you don't have to go back and
click that a million times I don't know
why I didn't realize that sooner but
that's another thing to keep in mind so
I turn that off and see how that's
coming so far oops
coming pretty good so I'm going to go
ahead and put those uh those strokes
back on there like that
now I'm going to show you creating the
eyebrow here I'll start this here and I
usually just use like one or two shapes
to create the eyebrow press f7 for the
dropper be for the bezzie a pen we're
just going along the contour the shape
of it like that fill that in and now we
want to fill in the area around the eyes
put that there put this here and the
good thing about this is that there's no
really is really no set like rules you
can kind of just make this as whimsical
and you can freestyle this as much as
you want you can put that you can create
the shapes as big or as small as you'd
like and put them anywhere you want like
here I'm just going off of a whim here
make that like that
put that there you have to excuse my
voice I'm getting over being sick
alright so now we're going to do the
eyelashes put that there like that and
I'm going to break this up into two
different parts two different pieces
like that back to the starting point and
the white of the eyes and the actual
eyeball itself so grab the bezzie a pen
okay we come back here we could do the
eyeball now
like that and for the white part of the
eyeball you could probably just go ahead
and make that white you have to use the
actual color in there because it might
not look right let's go ahead and make
that white I'll go back to the Select
tool I'll click on that and make that
white and that should that should be our
I shouldn't look too bad you could
always darken it if it doesn't look
right I think that should be alright so
I'll go ahead and pause the video again
and I'll catch up with you once I have
completed more of this you know what
another thing I want to point out is
that what you're dealing with large
areas of a similar shade you could you
could save yourself by time by using
really large shapes like what I did here
if you notice like when we did the eyes
we had to do really small shapes which
takes up more time but we can account
for that by using larger shapes for like
these bigger areas whether it's like all
the same shade pretty much like for
example I'll make this here and it's
good to make the shapes going like along
the contour of whatever the subject is
you're drawing so I'm going along like
the cheekbone here back to there make
that all the same shade and I can make
this all one big shape in here like that
back to there and fill that in and I'll
put this on pause again and catch up
with you shortly
another thing that would be good to keep
in mind is that as you're coming up on
areas where there's you're going to need
small shapes and fine detail it's a good
idea to create bigger shapes going
outside of them around them first if you
notice what I'm doing here you don't
want to create shapes or like you're
leaving small bits of space between that
and the fine object like that because
that means like this right here because
that means you should have to go ahead
and create another smaller shape like
that and it's going to be it's not going
to look very consistent so that's one
thing to keep in mind when you're going
through this so go ahead and pause this
again and I'll be back in just a minute
okay so I'm all finished up here I think
I'm going to call it a day right here I
think this covers enough ground here so
once you're finished drawing everything
what you could do is you could go ahead
and unlock layer one and I'm just going
to make layer one invisible just for the
time being so I can go ahead and take a
look at how everything looks here now
what I want to do now is grab the Select
tool click and drag over all of it and
hold shift and click the X like I
mentioned earlier to get rid of that
outline now we can click off the to
deselect it we can see how it came out
it actually came out pretty good while
you're going through and constructing
this all you could think to yourself is
that it doesn't look good and it's not
going to look right but when but when
you're finished and you actually zoom
out and look at it it actually looks
pretty good so another thing we want to
do now is just go ahead and take a look
at the spaces between each shape make
sure that there's no prominent spaces
sticking out that we need to fix so I'm
just scanning over this real quick to do
this I'm just pressing down the mouse
wheel and moving around the mouse and it
looks like everything looks pretty clean
here like there's no gaping spaces
between any of the shapes and if there
is what you could do is you can grab the
Edit pans by nose tool and you could
just click on a shape and get the nose
and just adjust those nodes however they
need to be adjusted now let me go back
to the Select tool one last thing I
wanted to point out is that if you
notice there's a lot of whitespace going
between these shapes it doesn't quite
look right
this is called a liya singing this is
something that's common with vector
graphics particularly Inkscape in order
to fix this for the for the low-poly
sort of design anyway what I like to do
is click and drag over everything and
group it together and then what you do
is you could right click it and go to
duplicate and it should take away when
duplicating it for some reason takes
away a lot of that white space between
there and if you noticed you really
can't see any white space between those
shapes anymore since we duplicated it so
that's one way you can do that that's
pretty much how you can create you're
low-balling portrait using Inkscape so
if you have any questions let me know
and it's always thank you for watching
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