I am trying to design a t-shirt with dates listed on the back like you would find on a concert t-shirt. This shirt has deployment dates, so it is a nautical theme. I am trying to get each individual date to look like a wave. I have paths that are wave like and put the dates with them so that they bend with the paths. Does anyone have any pointers to help make the dates look better or more real? The t-shirts are navy blue and the waves right know will be yellow. I just started with inkscape today, and I must say it is awesome and pretty simple to use so far. I have gotten a whole lot farther with inkscape in a few hours than I have trying to the same thing with GIMP for the past few days.

Perhaps you could post a version of what you have and we might be able to better make suggestions.

how do I post an image?

Where can I upload my images?

once you have your image uploaded you can use [img]http://image_url[/img] to display it in the forum. If you're uploading an SVG you can use [svg]http://image_url[/svg]

Here is a sample, I don't know how to enhance it. Any pointers?

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7449/fishfrydatesct0.th.png

Aside from the obvious things, such as changing fonts, colours, line thickness, etc, I might suggest using "ribbon" method for pattern on path. This will stop the text from tilting and give it a feel of momentum. But that may or may not look any good.

How do I get just the bottom of the wave to be a color. When I fill, I get the top also.

That's probably because Inkscape doesn't if it should colour the top or bottom so it basically creates an imaginary line between the two end nodes and colours the area that the imaginary line defines. What you need to do is define the area to colour by closing the shape (i.e. draw all sides of the shape to colour).