I want to make a sun in Inkscape, by I can't figure out how to do it. By making a sun, I mean a close up picture like would be used is astronomy magazines or such, with visible flames. I've seen plenty of gimp tutorials, but I want to make it in Inkscape. Is it possible? If so, I'd be grateful if you knew of a tutorial.

It's probably possible, but will take some skill with Inkscape. There will be a learning curve for you.

I'm thinking a combination of circular and other kinds of shapes (maybe some stars/polygons with randomization applied), filled with a combination of different colors, with filters applied. Possibly some masking....possibly a lot of masking.

Flames will be the hardest part (imo)....at least the kind of flame you would see in a wood fire. I've only seen one attempt at that kind of flames, with Inkscape only, that even halfway works. I can't remember where I saw it though I'm thinking flames on the sun would be somewhat different though, and perhaps easier.

You know, for a new Inkscape user, it might be a better idea to find an existing image, to use as a guide. You could use Trace Bitmap, as a starting place, and then commence to tweaking that, with filters, probably a whole lot of tweaking. That might actually work pretty well.

How realistic are you thinking? As realistic as possible? Or would some kind of stylized representation work? I think you would have better success with a stylized representation, than trying to go completely realistic.

Hi.

Welcome to the forum!!

For a "semi-realistic" example SVG file look at this.

Good Luck.
RGDS
Ragnar

Similar problem as drawing charcoal strokes.

Such an image is so detailed you will need to consider the output size and format to limit them.
Filtering can give you a good result, also lpe-s can generate an incredible amount of small paths.

Lazur URH wrote:....
Such an image is so detailed you will need to consider the output size and format to limit them.
....

ragstian wrote:For a "semi-realistic" example SVG file look at this.

Well, part of the problem in going into detail, with drawing suggestions, is that we don't know exactly what kind of image of the sun you need to draw. I've seen so many different kinds of images, with different filters on the telescope and/or camera, or however the image is made, from what distance, etc. So the very first step will be to decide on the the kind of sun image you want. It would be a very good idea to search and browse until you find an example of what you want to draw. Then we can give you more focused suggestions.

Let's see, I might have a couple of links....

Not sure if The Hubble Telescope studies the sun or not, but definitely worth a look -- http://hubblesite.org/gallery/
NASA Image Gallery -- http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html
NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory -- http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/main/

And I recently installed a program called NASA Eyes. I don't have a link, but should be easily searchable. It allows to explore the various current and recent NASA missions, with images of Earth, Solar System and beyond, as well as images of the spacecrafts and their pathways through space! Really cool (and free)! (Not sure if it has any images of the sun, but so cool I had to mention )

And don't forget to search Google Images or other search engines for images of the sun.