Inkscape Tutorial Vector Flame Icon Video Lecture - Inkscape Design Tutorial

this is Nick with logos by Nick comm and
in today's tutorial I'll be
demonstrating how to create this vector
flame icon using Inkscape and at any
point in this tutorial you could look
down at the bottom left hand side of my
screen see which mouse clicks and
keystrokes I'm using so with that being
said I'll close out of this and get
started the first thing we'll do in
Inkscape is set our view to custom and
then we'll zoom in at 100% and then
we'll open up our align and distribute
menu with this button right here make
sure you have less selected chosen from
this drop-down and then we'll come over
to our edit objects colors gradients and
Stroke menu with that button right there
so the first thing we're going to do in
Inkscape is draw a square so come over
to the create squares and rectangles
tool and click on that and bring the
cursor over to the canvas and hold ctrl
+ shift in the keyboard and click and
drag on the canvas to create a perfectly
symmetric square and what we'll do from
there is convert that into a path by
going to path object to path and then
we'll come back to our select tool and
then we're going to click on this to get
our rotation handles and then hold ctrl
in the keyboard and grab one of these
corner handles and just rotate this
around so that it's going at a perfect
45 degree angle with the corners going
perfectly up and down like that and the
next step is to come over to the Edit
path by nodes tool and click on that and
you're going to see these four points
appear on the shape and what we're going
to do is we're going to bring our cursor
up here to the top left and we're going
to click and drag over those Center two
nodes right there in the middle of those
corners so we have them both selected
and we'll come up to this button up here
that says make selected nodes Auto
smooth go ahead and click that and it's
going to smooth those nodes out so
they're not corners anymore and then
we'll come back to our select tool and
we'll grab this arrow at the bottom and
just bring this up to about here so we
get a shape sort of like this almost
like a like an eye or a leaf and then
we'll just take this shape and put this
up into the left corner right here and
I'm actually going to hold ctrl and
shift and scale this down a little bit
and what we're going to do now is with
this up here we'll right click that and
go to duplicate own that duplicate I'm
sorry copy well right click that and go
to copy so we have a copied to our
clipboard and what we're going to do now
is go to our freehand pen and from this
drop-down up here make sure you have a
from clipboard selected selected and for
the mode we want to use create spiral
path and we want to set the smoothing so
it's at about 48 and once you have that
those parameters set what we're going to
do is draw a line on the canvas and I've
drawn a line up here just to illustrate
the shape that we're going to bring the
cursor in this line right here when
we're drawing this shape we want to draw
going in that going in that a pattern
right there so that it dips down and
then it dips up and then it comes back
down to about an equal plane that the
starting point was on so and what it's
going to do is it's going to take that
shape that we copied to our clipboard
and stretch it out so that it follows
that path so I'm going to go ahead and
take this and just delete that on the
end just delete that and I'm going to go
ahead and draw that shape maybe like
that and once you get that if you don't
quite get the shape that you like if you
end up with something like this you
could just press Delete on the keyboard
and that will get rid of it but I like
how this came out right here so I'm
going to use that and then I'm going to
go to the Select tool and I'm going to
select this and if you go to edit pads
by nodes you'll see this is not
recognized as a path yet this is a this
is an object that's stretched out and
going along that path as you can see
here and I'll go back to the Select tool
if I hold ctrl and shift in this on the
keyboard and scale this down it's going
to make the line thicker but if I scale
it up it's going to make it thinner so
what I'm going to do is I want this line
to be a little thicker than how this is
right now so I'm going to hold ctrl and
shift and scale this down a little bit
maybe that much maybe I'll take that a
little more we want that to be a little
thicker that looks pretty good right
there so once you have it set in place
how you like
it just right-click it and go to
duplicate and then hold ctrl and click
and drag this copy down here and then
I'm going to hold ctrl and shift that
I'm going to scale this one down a
little more because we want this one to
be a little thicker and that's pretty
good just how that is and once our
shapes are finalized we're going to
finalize it by going to path object to
path and if we go to the Edit path by
nodes tool we'll see it's no longer an
object being stretched along a path it's
now an actual path with individual nodes
like that so once we've done that I'll
go back to the Select tool and I'll
click on this original shape that we
drew and go to path object to path and
then we can now take this little eye
shape that we drew and press Delete on
the keyboard we're done with that and
I'm going to take this and move this out
of the way I'm going to come to this
original shape right here click on that
and I'll click that a second time to get
our rotation handles and I'm just going
to rotate this around until it's about
in an upright position that I like maybe
sort of like that we'll take this one
and do the same thing click it a second
time to get the rotation handles scale
it around so it's in an upright position
and then I'm going to flip that
horizontally coming this button right
here saying flip selected objects
horizontally if you want a keyboard
shortcut for that you could just press H
on the keyboard and that'll do that and
I'm going to bring this over here and
I'm going to hold shift in the keyboard
and click on the original shape on the
original shape and I'm going to select
align bottom edges so that they're both
on the same horizontal plane down here
and then I'll click off of that to
deselect and then I'll hold ctrl on the
keyboard and click and drag this off to
the right until it's touching until
until it's touching that shape right
there I'll bring that over maybe about
that much so you can see now we're
starting to get what appears to be the
whimsical shape of a flame and what I'll
do now is I'll click on this original
shape and right click that and go to
duplicate and I'm going to turn that red
just so we can see it when compared to
the other shapes and I'll hold ctrl and
shift and scale this down maybe about
that much and I'll put this one right
about here just so that maybe up here
just so that the edge of it let me bring
the opacity down to show you just so
that the left edge of this is going over
this little cross-section between those
two shapes so once I get it about there
maybe I'll put it right there I don't
want to put it too far out otherwise
this tip is going to stick out so I want
to put it right about there
and once we get that there we could turn
that black and then as you can see we
pretty much have our flame shape and
what I like about this is that you get
this little other shape of a flame
within the negative space of this object
so we could do now is we could click and
drag over the whole thing and just color
it in however we'd like you can make it
red or you can make it a you know orange
give it a gradient that you like and if
you want you could unify the whole thing
together and go to path Union and then
if we go to edit paths by nodes we now
have a vector flame icon that acts as a
path with individual nodes that we can
edit further so that's how you can
create a flame icon using Inkscape so if
you have any questions just let me know
and as always thank you for watching