Well - I submitted an abstract to the linux.conf.au call for participation to do a tutorial on Inkscape. And I encouraged one of the lead inkscape developers, Jon Cruz, to also make a submission. He tells me he did! Which is very W00t!
But also reduces the chances of having my own tutorial accepted.
I need to figure out how to record voice as well as my desktop and start creating practice video tutorials... to build up a portfolio of handy tips and tricks. I think this would also be a good way to further develop my own skills.
Stewart Smith suggested the abstract should include links to examples of stuff we'll cover in the tutorial - which was a good suggestion - but meant I probaby would have missed the CFP deadline. Instead... I'll blog - here's hoping this helps...
Sunburst:
There's actually a few different ways of creating the sunburst effect so prevalent in current graphic design. Like the background on the Kung-Fu Panda poster. I noticed the poster on a tram stop shelter and thought - look there it is again!
So how do you do it?
You need to make a triangle... there's a couple of ways to do that (use the polygon or line tools), and then you can use inkscape's tiled clones feature or just rotate a clone whilst manually hitting the space bar to make a copy. Holding down control will constrain the angle of the rotate keeping the gaps even. You can also tweak the angle of rotation. The poster uses a slight variation on a theme by swirling the sunburst - but that's easy enough to do in inkscape by just dragging the path into a curve.... kinda nice result.
Someone remind me to blog about Grunge effects and Floral vector details... and I should do a step by step screen grab of the sunburst too... and by the time I do - it might have gone out of fashion.
Here's my attempt to do a sunburst like in the poster... not identical... but I hope enough to give the general idea...
Must give thanks to the master - andy fitzsimon who first told me how to do the sunburst!