Funny Dog – Illustration in Inkscape
It’s been a while and I finally have my office back and a working computer again. We had a bit of a turbulent time here in the North of Queensland with a cyclone [that missed Cairns] and a flood [that didn’t miss and dropped the average yearly rainfall in 36 hours]. I live on the 1st floor, so flooding was rather unlikely… but the water came through the walls, soaked the carpet and the underlining and the humidity was a bit too much for my old computer to take. It was a bit more turbulent than this brief summary makes it sound. :)
Setting up a new, clean computer is always a big thing and choosing the right tools, installing enough but not too much is fun. Inkscape and Affinity Designer are the key tools at the moment and I decided to give Inkscape v.1.3.2 a good spin. I played with all my favorites – clip groups, blurs, gradients, taper strokes, and power strokes.
Sometimes it’s just about having fun with the tools. Do the things you enjoy for no other reason than having fun. Start with some basic shapes and lines. Rough shapes and a general idea of what the design will look like before getting lost in details. Fur is one of those textures that can easily be overdone. You rarely need to draw every hair to make the design look fury. A few well place lines and tapered strokes will do the trick. Less is more!
