So select nodes, delete them and after that adjust the shape. You can simplify automatically (Ctrl+L) but I don't like its results in this case (I found it useful in other occasions). Here comes the most repetitive, laborious and probably boring step: the calligraphic tools generated tons of nodes, so we will delete a lot of them to make the shapes simpler and then adjust the shapes. Here we don't want to draw the neck, but it partially cover the hair, so we have to improvise.Ĭontinue until you have covered all the necessary shapes. When we want to capture small details and need accuracy, zoom in:Ī drawing is not a realistic image, so enhance the things what matters, like the eyes in this case (larger eyes make the subject cuter and more lovable). Do not worry about small details, we'll take care of them later. Start drawing freely along the shapes on your photo. I used here Red because is clearer in the tutorial what I do. (Alternatively, we can work with the photo at its default size and resize the vector when ready - I prefer to work as the final size because I find this way the preview quicker). By resizing we will lose a lot of small details, but we don't really need them. Import your photo inside the document (drag and drop is just fine) and resize it (with Ctrl pressed to preserve the aspect ratio).

Set the canvas size as you desire, I used here 128x128, as this is an usual size for thumbnails.

So we will start with a photo and will end with a drawing, like this: You may want to use a tablet, but the mouse is enough - the images in this tutorial are made exclusively with the mouse, I chosed to ignore my tablet today as I want to show what is possible using the simplest tools. Traditionally them are made in GIMP ( see my tutorial about drawing them with GIMP), but today we'll try something a little unusual: draw them in vector graphics using Inkscape.Īs a bonus, we will learn to draw those heads even if we don't know how to draw, by using a photo as reference, anyone can do this, you don't have to be an Inkscape wizard. A hackergotchi is a picture of a writer used as an avatar to identify the author of a given RSS feed in blog aggregators.

Inkscape drawings