A little afterward, I have a nice part of a vector sketch. Then, I turn on "snap to paths", "snap to path intersections", and everything under "Snap nodes, paths, and handles". Then I try tracing my sketch and get something that isn't too good looking...

I opened up Google but couldn't find any way to combine a freehand vector sketch; all I found was (repeated over and over again) how to trace bitmap sketches. Even if I convert to bitmap and trace, it creates a shape along the edge of the bitmap path.

How do I change something like this:



To just one shape in which I can then fill?

I don't think combining is the way to go.

Your options are:
- use the 'sketch mode' to create your drawing (use pencil tool, hold down Alt key)
- after having finished the drawing, make a new layer, lock the old one and use the Bézier tool to trace the drawing manually
- export the image to PNG (please put a white rectangle below) and use the improved centerline trace extension (if you're on Linux or Mac, nobody tested that yet on Windows, https://github.com/Moini/inkscape-centerline-trace)
- export the image to PNG and use an online centerline trace service

Let us know if you need help with any of those.

Interesting. I tried the sketch mode, and it looks as if it has not been implemented fully yet. (Plus, it's quite hard to draw with the alt key held down!)



Strange... Sketch mode seems to give me just a mini line as output (red) :/

Is there any way to trace the drawing manually, but with snapping to the previous line segments (and preferably a preview to see how it will turn out)?

I'd probably just wing-it...

@id0: sketch mode averages the line. If you draw lines like that, the average will be in the middle. Try to draw the whole figure, or only parts of it, for each sketch mode path, if you want to use it.
I'd have done it like tylerdurden, too, but wanted to give all the options.