Wanted to show the candle I made following a tutorial (unfortunately I can no longer remember where the tut was from, to give the person credit, but, it was probably from one on this site). I did a few things my way versus the tut, but it came out almost the same, and this is fairly easy to accomplish. p.s. I know it still needs a little clean up...
dee

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Hi dee,
Oh, nice work! I've love to see the finished version.
I think I've seen that tutorial somewhere too, but after searching the forum, I don't think it's here.

Was it this one? Create a Realistic Candle in Inkscape (Vectortuts+)

SUV - thanks, that's it, I like to give credit whre credit is due.

The only other thing I was going to do is clean up the blur that overflows from each side of the candle onto the background. For whatever reason, when I select the candle base and the blue and do Path, Difference, inkscape removes the blur, so when I re-apply the highlight and blue it, once again it overflows the boundary, it's this bad loop I can't get out of! lol. It works fine for the guy in the tut, but not for me, and I've tried several things already. so, any idea on how to do this, or do a mask that works, please let me know.
thanks
dee

flamingolady wrote:(…), when I select the candle base and the blue and do Path, Difference, inkscape removes the blur, so when I re-apply the highlight and blue it, once again it overflows the boundary, (…)

Clip the blurred path(s) instead of using 'Path > Difference'?

SUV - unless I'm doing something wrong, clipping also loses the blur and puts me back in the same loop, lol.

Didn't go through the tutorial, but I assume you have a path that is the general shape of the candle (i.e., the candle without any highlights or shading or anything). This should be your clipping path. This will eliminate the blur outside the candle but should leave the blur inside the candle.

I was so confused there for a while -- I'm looking through the tutorial, where's the blue, what's blue, lol! My bad By "blue" you mean "blur", right?
To perform clipping, you need a clipping path. You can't use the candle base itself, you have to duplicate the candle base, then move it on top of the blur.

I'm not sure how or why the author would use Difference, but my guess would be that they used the background rectangle, and differenced the candle base (the thing you would use for a clipping path). Difference and Clip are very different things, although they can accomplish similar tasks.

Brynn - yep, blue means blur, lol, as I get older my eyesight is getting worse, I really need to put on those dept store magnifiers, sorry about that!
I don't use clipping or mask much (obviously I need to learn it better), I think I've been doing it backwards, have been clipping with the candle on the bottom and the blur on top, that explains a lot! (I did use a duplicate at least).
Back to the drawing board. thanks for the advice everyone.
dee