Ok, for tylerdurden's animation, he just set a fill color for the path. After you go all the way around with the Pen tool, and you come back, and close the path by clicking inside the tiny square which I told you about, then just click some color on the palette, and it will fill with that color. If you want it partially transparent, you can use either the A slider, in Fill and Stroke dialog > Fill tab, or the Opacity slider (which is closer to the bottom of the dialog, while the A slider is more in the middle).
Remember you can also zoom to your heart's content, and that can also help to see things more clearly. If you know how to zoom with your mouse, that usually works in Inkscape. But if not, you can use the Zoom tool.
I agree that making a separate layer can be a good idea. If you had showed a more complex drawing, I probably would have suggested it too. For example, sometimes people want to trace something from a photo. With a photo, I certainly would have suggested the extra layer.
A lot of what we suggest, when we answer support questions comes from our personal preferences. And there are countless examples with Inkscape, where there are a few, or sometimes even several ways to reach the same goal. You probably noticed how different he and I are in tracing paths - I put more nodes and keep close to the line I'm tracing, as I go, while he just drops out a handful of nodes and drags the path to fit the line. Either way, you get the same result. Most of the time, there is not one single right answer (although Moini hit on something just above which can be done in one one and only one way, which I forgot earlier- read on).
After disconnecting two path nodes, one would still need to do Path > Break apart to be able to color the (sub-)paths differently.
Oh right, thanks Moini. I don't know where my head has been lately
Ray, I didn't give you the whole story about coloring a stroke on a path with different colors. So I'll review that part, then I'll explain about making it wider.
1 -- select the nodes where you want to break the path
2 -- Break path at selected nodes (button on the control bar, or else there's probably a key shortcut)
3 -- while everything is still selected, Path menu > Break Apart
Note that depending how many nodes you break, the fill color might disappear or partially disappear. Generally you need a closed path to have a fill color, and breaking the path makes it an open path (not closed).
Ok, there's an easy way to make the paths wider apart from each other. However, I have a suspicion that it might not be the best solution. The reason for that is that it is going to move the entire path outward. The effect that will have on those little round knobby things...."alignment dots" will get bigger. I don't know what function those have, besides alignment. I mean, they are going to be cut out, right? Does it matter if they are bigger?
If that's going to be a problem, I can think of a way to do it without making them bigger, but it's very involved. It really could not be more complicated, to get it done without making the alignment dots bigger. But here's how to do it the easy way, so you can at least try it (be sure to make a backup file, just in case).
1 -- When you finish drawing them, you'll have 3 paths all together. Select all 3
2 -- Path menu > Combine
3 -- Duplicate (this might not be necessary, but if you don't make a duplicate, you won't be able to see where the path was originally. You'll only see where it's moved to)
4 -- There are 3 different ways to make path offsets, so you'll need to choose the one that's best
Path menu > Outset -- moves the path outward by 2 px, each time you click it. I seem to recall you need a somewhat specific width, so this might be the best way to manage it.
But if that's too tedious, and you don't need a precise size, try Path menu > Dynamic Offset. When you do that, the nodes will disappear, and you'll see a tiny diamond shaped handle in the top area of the path. It usually shows up at the highest point. Drag that diamond handle with the mouse and you can see the path move. Then you can just drag it to where you need it.
If you use Dynamic Offset, or the one below, Linked Offset, you need to use Path menu > Object to Path, after you're finished, to make it a regular path once again. I suspect the cutter won't recongize those offset paths. It might, but I just don't know for sure.
If you think you might ever need to edit the original path, you can use Path menu > Linked Offset. That way, if you edit the original, then the offset path is automatically changed to match. I guess it's kind of like how clones work. It goes the same as the dynamic offset, with the tiny diamond handle. Note that you won't need the duplicate path as I suggested in step 3 above, for linked offset. Linked offset automatically makes you a duplicate.
