hi, i`m new here!

i already get along great using inkscape, and getting nice results
BUT i still don`t know some things to improve my skills further.

got a few basic questions:

1. Which colors do i need to make fake-gold, fake-silver, fake-chrome.
say i want to draw a golden cube with shades+light, which colors do i need to use?
(brown, yellow, hazelnut, white???)

2. let`s pretend i want to draw a coconut (which is broken in two pieces)
first i draw 2x circles (inside,outside) but which tool enables me to
model the outlined shape of the (circle) to make it look more realistic?
(e.g. sueezing, modeling the circle shape to make it look more natural)
and...
3. how to do wood and marble?

1. Any of those colours will work. You could even use Blue and Red. The trick to make it look metallic is to mix darker and lighter shades to create the illusion it's metallic. See here - viewtopic.php?f=9&t=95#p528

2. You need to convert the circle object to a path (Path > Object to Path). You can then manipulate it's shape more freely and add nodes.

3. Complex textures isn't something vector applications are good for. You'll need to tediously draw the wood grain path by path. I'm not aware of any tricks or techniques that would make this easy.

In regards to 2 if your using the latest SVN then the caligraphy tool has some good stuff for manipulating shapes by pushing and pulling nodes around.
If your in 0.45, try adding some nodes and using the soft selection mode in the node editor. see the sculpting nodes section of:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... iting-Node

with regards to 3, as microUgly says, not the easiest thing, although there are ways to fake it, see:
http://ryanler.wordpress.com/2007/05/31 ... in-effect/

other obvious way to do it is to use a raster pattern for a fill.

in regards to gradients: you can import GIMP gradients (*.ggr) into inkscape (via either dragging and dropping the ggr file or importing it) there are some gimp gradients that simlate metal effects...

cheers,

ryanlerch

I forgot about that woodgrain tutorial. It's an awesome technique. You could probably do something similiar to create a marble effect... something to try.

in regards to gradients: you can import GIMP gradients (*.ggr) into inkscape (via either dragging and dropping the ggr file or importing it) there are some gimp gradients that simlate metal effects...

But how do you call up a particular gimp gradient in inkscape. I mean in the Gimp I can see the names of my gradients in Inkscape I do not.

when you import them, it will appear that nothing happens,

but choose and object, go to fill/stroke, then choose the gradient option. It will generate a simple gradient as default, but go to the dropdown box, and choose your imported gradient that should be in there...
i may do a simple walktrhough/tutorial on this later if im not clear...

hope that helps

I took a couple of gimp gradients and place them in inkscape>share>gradients.

Opened inkscape and then created an object went to edit fill used whatever gradient that was set to linear and then went to the dropdown box and nothing but the regular gradient stop was there and when I click the dropdown box all the color did was switch from one side of the applet to the other. Where am I supposed to put the gimp gradients to use them in inkscape?

AFAIK, that gradients folder does nothing (yet)...

just drag and drop the ggr file into your current inkscape document, and it will put it in the def's at the top of the svg file... (that bascially means that it is included in that file, even if it isnt used...)

then you can use that gradient in that document...

PERFECT. Nice to be able to use my own custom gradients. To bad I have to constantly drag them, but it is better than nothing at all. Thanks for the reply.