I have created a YouTube video explaining how to create a simple speech bubble.

My accent might be a bit hard to follow. Please let me know your thoughts. I know this is a very basic tutorial, but I wanted to show how easy Inkscape makes it to create objects like speech bubbles.

Nice work, harishankar

I do have one comment (very minor issue). Around 1:35 to 1:50 min you drew what you called the "tail" of the speech bubble. I wonder why you drew one line and stopped? And then you put the pointer/cursor of the Pencil in the tiny square at the end (handle?) to continue drawing on the same path, and then you drew the 2nd line? ... Ooohh ok, I see. Apparently using the Pencil (Freehand) tool (which I don't personally use much, and that's why I didn't understand) if you click once, it ends the line. If you were to use the Pen (Bezier) tool instead, you would be able to draw the path more efficiently (in my very humble opinion).

Using the Pen tool, you would click once to start the path (just like Pencil tool). Next click once at the point of the tail (which does not end the path as with Pencil -- instead, it plants a node and is ready to continue, without having to place pointer/cursor in tiny box!). And last, double-click back inside the bubble, to end the path.

In the end, it doesn't save much (if any) time. And the final Unioning solves any potential issue with the paths not being joined or closed. But for me, and probably a few others, it does save the effort of placing the pointer/cursor inside that tiny box, which can be tedious and sometimes can be frustrating (especially if I've had too much coffee

Anyway, just a very minor issue. And possibly more of a personal preference to use the Pencil tool instead of Pen. But for beginners, perhaps helpful info, which is why I wanted to mention it.

Are you planning to make more tutorials for beginners? I hope so, because they can be hard to come by

Hi, thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, I've never been able to use the Pen tool satisfactorily. Something in my brain doesn't process the technique very well. Yes, I agree that this could be better handled by the tool which does Bezier curves. I'll try out what you said and see if it works for me.

EDITED TO ADD: Yes, I see what you mean now. I had to try it out several times before I got it right. It's a handy tool once you get the hang of it.

I'm planning to add more tutorials, but would love some ideas of what topics to cover.

harishankar wrote:I'm planning to add more tutorials, but would love some ideas of what topics to cover.

Ooohh....I could probably come up with quite a list . One thing that comes to mind at the moment is similar to this recent topic: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12901. Some beginniners have the idea that they can break an object into 2 pieces by drawing a line through it and they're looking for some kind of "cut here" command. Of course there isn't, but there certainly are at least a couple of ways to break any object into 2 pieces. My next thought is for kind of a series of tutorials showing the use of each path operation in "real life" situations. The examples in the manual (and other places) show them in situations which visually illustrate what they do. But those aren't usually the kind of situations where Inkscape users will find a need for them. Oh gosh!! I'll stop there, before I get carried away

Back more on topic. You probably already know this, but you could check to make sure you have the Pen tool in Bezier mode. If it's in spiro spline mode, it certainly can behave erratically! Also make sure Shape is None. Personally, I find it very hard to use the Pen to draw smooth nodes on the fly. Some people are very gifted with the click and drag skill, but I can't make it work in any meaningful way (for my uses). So I have mine set to straight line mode. Then if my finger slips while I'm clicking to set a node, I still get a cusp/corner node instead of a smooth node. This allows me to set nodes fairly precisely, before ending the path. And then wherever I need smooth nodes, I select nodes and change to smooth. But I do understand that everyone develops their own skills and practices. Ya gotta do what works for you

Anyway, nice work on this, and I'm looking forward to seeing more

Thanks. Yes, I will post any new tutorials here. Thanks for all your feedback.

Here's a slight variation on this technique (with respect to creating the tail) that I use for my "Greys" comics:

1) Draw a rounded rectangle of the appropriate size and shape
2) With the rectangle selected, press CTRL-SHIFT-C to convert to a path (or Path > Object to Path)
3) Double-click the rectangle to switch to node editing mode
4) Click on the side of the rectangle that you want the tail to come from in order to select the two nodes at the ends
5) Press INSERT twice, creating three new nodes
6) Drag the centre node towards your character, forming the tip of the tail
7) Move the other two nodes using the arrow keys (or drag them while holding CTRL to constrain their movements) to get the shape you want for the tail
8) Add some curvature to the tail, as in harishankar's video, if you want to


This works well for rectangular speech bubbles. For the more traditional oval-shaped speech bubbles that most comics use, I've found a variation on harishankar's approach to be best (i.e. draw the oval and tail separately, then union them once you're happy with the shapes).

That's a good method too. Thanks for the hint.