Beginner

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How To Illustrate 8 Ball Vector Art?

  • Software: Inkscape (or other vector graphics editor)
  • Level: Beginner
  • Subject: 8 Ball

It has been a while since a beginner level tutorial was published at KalaaLog.com and hence I thought I would show how to do something simple.

The 8 ball is pretty important ball in the game of snooker or pool as it is called. I remember the days when I would go with my friends during my bachelors and the glossy balls of vibrant colors, with stark hightlights and shadows from bright lights. Before I get all nostalgic, we will see how we can create a vector art of the 8 Ball.

Create Basic Shape

It is pretty easy to create the basic shape. Create two circiles – one black and one white. Use the text tool to create the digit ’8′.

How To Illustrate 8 Ball - Step - Create Basic Shape

Unless you want to create a very symbolic looking vector art, you would want to get a 3d shape. And for that, group the white circle and the ’8′ text; and then rotate and skew it a bit. Move it over the black circle and roughly to one corner.

The mid-tone shade

Assuming the light source to be on the left, we need to create a mid-tone shaded area.

How To Illustrate 8 Ball - Step - Mid Tone Shade

Create another circle that overlaps the top left area (shown in red). Make a copy of the black circle and paste it exacly over the original. Select the overlapping black circle and the red one and perform intersection operation. (Use the [Ctrl]+[*] or choose intersections from the Path menu). Change the fill and outline color of the newly created shape to white. Make it transparent – opacity around 10% to 15%.

Highlight

As I mentioned earlier, the combination of glossy finish and the bright lights cause the hightlights to be pretty stark.
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How To Draw Vector Art Of An Axe

  • Software: Inkscape or other vector graphics editor
  • Level: Beginner
  • Subject: Axe

I watched Pathfinder the other day. Not a great movie, but I got inspried to vector an axe. So, here is the tutorial.

First we need to create the basic shape of the axe.

Axe - Step 0

Start of with a circle. Make copies of it and place it at the top right and bottom right of the first circle. The blue and the green ones are copies. Color is not important – I put them so for reference.

Axe - Step 1

Select the black circle and perform a subtract operation with the blue circle. Do the same with the green circle. Here you have a basic axe shape.

Axe - Step 2
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Draw A Vector Feather

  • Software: Inkscape (or any other vector graphics editor)
  • Level: Beginner
  • Subject: Feather

It was quite some time since I did vector artwork, and seeing that how much popular the other peacock feather tutorial had become, I thought I would give another try at a simpler tutorial.

Try to study induvidual feathers of different birds. The come in all shapes and colors, but they have a basic form. They have a spine or step like structure with plumage growing out of it.

Step 1

Draw A Vector Feather - Step 1 - Draw Spine Of Feather

The first step is quite simple. Take the polygon/path tool and draw a triangle – a long lean one.

Step 2

Draw A Vector Feather - Step 2 - Give A Bend
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How To Paint Cactus - Banner

  • Software: GIMP (or any raster graphics editor)
  • Level: Beginner
  • Subject: Cactus

In this tutorial, you can have an in depth walk through of creating a digital painting of a cactus.

The final artwork would be as follows.

Cactus Final Artwork

Without waiting further, let us start the editor with a large enough canvas size – a little larger than 480×640 pixels. Always start with a canvas larger than the final required resolution.

Draw a sketch of the basic shape of the cactus in a new layer. Use reference images if required.

Cactus WIP Step 00

Do not bother to add details. Just get the basic shape roughly. You do not need to have a clean line art either.
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