I've been playing with InkScape for about a month and I just wanted to say that it's a really great program!

Getting on to business. Right now I'm trying to develop a logo for my business. I've drawn on paint, to get a feel for it, and now I want to draw my logo on InkScape. I've been having some problems though. I've been experimenting with the tools and I can't really seem to make my images smooth. Here is a url to a rough paint version of my logo: http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/7568 ... nt2de2.jpg

Can anyone offer suggestions as to how I can make this image on InkScape? One tool I have been trying to use is the pen. I'm still not very good at it in general, so trying to pull off an image with the one I did on paint is difficult for me. Any suggestions?

Thanks guys!!

-YoYo

I forgot to try the pencil tool and I've been using that and playing around with the nodes to get a smoother look. Here's a url to my pencil version of the logo: http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/9279/pawprintgi4.png

So I have to ask...I feel it's a big step forward, but I kind of feel that I can do a bit more. Any suggestions?

The pencil tool is more for quick'n'dirty sketching. Try the [b]ezier tool instead.

Well, I would do the claw bits like that... just triangles and then maybe some path dragging to give em some slightly curvy shape.

The rest can be done quickly with the ellipse tool. After you got the rough shape down convert em to path (Path->Object to Path) then use the node tool and add nodes where necessary and deform it to your liking.

Always try to use as few nodes as possible, because this makes editing a lot easier.

With the graphic I have now, does anyone have any ideas as to what I can add to it to spice it up a little? I've thought about gradients and I'm playing around with those right now, but are there any specific things anyone can think of?

aho: thanks for the info btw! much appreciated.

This may not be what you wanted but I just googled for a bear paw and did a quick trace and came up with this. Hope it helps I know the frustration of wanting to do something quickly yourself but don't know how to really do it. Just use the node tool and manipulate the nodes to get the desired curves that you want. There are alot of excess nodes but should be pretty easy to clean up use for your purposes.

As far as placing nodes and manipulating I have asked this question several times and the members here have helped alot

Thanks for the help! much appreciated