Easily creating diamonds with vector shapes

Inkscape tutorial

While still busy with a lot of other projects at the moment and a little bit stuck with the special tutorial on space / spaceships / galaxy backgrounds and the likes – here’s a quick requested tutorial.
I tried to make it as simple as possible, yet look somewhat convincing.

One very helpful functionality for this tutorial is the snapping of nodes [%]. It allows you to snap nodes to other shapes [their nodes as well as their lines]. This makes it a lot easier to adjust the shapes we will create to stay inside with the facets of the diamond.

Let’s get started

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Start with a rectangle
and convert it to a path.

Move the top nodes inside to create a trapezoid.
Keeping CTRL pressed helps restrict the axis.

Mirror the trapezoid via duplicate and scale.

Delete one of the bottom nodes. The segment will curve. Select the node and make it a line again.

Centre the bottom node to form the diamond shape.

Colour the shape in a light blue [e.g. RGB 0,175, 255].

2dgameartguru - creating diamonds
2dgameartguru - creating diamonds

Create two duplicates, colour them slightly lighter and scale their width down.

Create a square, rotate it by 45 degrees and adjust the nodes to fit the top inner shape of the diamond.

Duplicate the shape twice, erase one nodes to make a triangle and place the shape in the next facet.

Colour the shapes white and make a transparent gradient ~ from 90 to 10 percent transparency.

Using the snap [%] it’s easy to adjust the nodes to keep them in place with the facets.

Duplicate the triangles twice, adjust the nodes and place them in the out facets.

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2Dgameartguru - creating diamonds

Two more duplicates are placed on the bottom part of the diamond.

Another two go on the next facets and another two on the out facets.

Placing some sparkles/ stars on the edges and adding a darker background will make the diamond shine.

Having used white for the gradients, it’s easy to alter the base colour.

Squash and stretch the shape to create variations of the diamond.

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2dgameartguru - creating diamonds

By selecting just the top or just the bottom elements and scaling them horizonally you can get quite a few variations from the basic shape. You might also want to try adding more facets to the base shape.

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Summing things up

Ultimately, this is the quick and dirty way. The lights and shadows of a real diamond are a lot more complex.
If you want to go more realistic, check out reference images. Look at the way the light breaks and adjust the white gradient shapes. Some might need to darken the stone rather than lighten it.

I hope you have fun with this and maybe try out some other stone cutting shapes. Remember google images is your best friend when it comes to finding reference images or just to check if your idea of how it should look resembles the real thing.

I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did finally writing something useful again.


Note:
Here is a quick test with a little bitmap magic, added layers for shine, a bit of star-burst and smaller sparkles.


Here’s the download file: