Category Archives: chrisdesign

Issue 1 of ‘Code:Free’ – an Art Magazine for FOSS artists

chrisdesign has launched a new PDF magazine entitled ‘Code:Free’ and it is loaded to the brim with awesome examples of artwork created using Free Software. As can be expected, the majority of the art was created with Inkscape and the GIMP, but there are also some nice Open Clip Art remixes thrown in to mix it up a bit. Chrisdesign also writes some tutorials (some of which i have featured on the inkscape tutorials weblog) so be sure to browse his blog.

Be sure to check it out and support the growing number of artists using FOSS to create stunning works!

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inkscape: create a woodgrain effect

The following tutorial is the engish version of the tutorial written by chrisdesign published by him (coco) on inkscape-forum.de. There is also a Portuguese translation of the tutorial on the inkscapebrasil forum.

This is a very quick and easy tutorial.

First, choose the calligraphy tool (draw_calligraphic.png)

The most important setting to get correct here is the ”thinning” set it to about 0.30

wood4.png

Now, draw your ”woodgrain” pattern. (make sure you only draw 1 line with the calligraphy tool to create this pattern.)

wood1.png

Now, draw a rectangle of your background colour, and duplicate the rectangle (rightclick>duplicate)
Select one of the rectangles and the woodgrain pattern, and choose path>intersection.
You should end up with one path of woodgrain and one of background colour.

wood2.png

All that is left is to play with colours and various after-effects:

wood3.png

chrisdesign has used this technique in creating his drawings of “Gibson” guitars.
(yes, these images are for real, fully drawn by chris using inkscape…)

flametop-foto.jpg

flametop-foto.jpg
Chris has also done another tutorial in this series, where he uses this same tecnique to create a brushed steel effect, so keep your eyes peeled for that one…

Links and Resources:
http://twiki.softwarelivre.org/bin/view/InkscapeBrasil/TutorialTexturaDeMadeira 

http://www.grafikdesign-chris.de/

http://www.inkscape-forum.de/