Episode 074
Episode 074 – Sunset Illustration with Starry Sky
by Richard Querin
In this screencast I demonstrate one way of creating a sunset illustration using Inkscape v0.46.
Part of this also involves creating a starry sky which provides a pretty much half-arsed tutorial on using Tiled Clones to achieve it. I just noticed however that you also can’t see the starry sky in the image above.. but trust me, it’s there. 
I just got a little too subtle with it I guess.
As always it’s only one way of doing things and likely you viewers out there will have plenty of other, more creative uses for the concepts in it. The sunset effect itself is super-simple, just using a multi-colour gradient and the pencil tool along with a couple of simple path effects. The bulk of this screencast ended up being the starry sky bit, but I’m sure you’ll find plenty of other uses for tiled clones with randomization.
The intro music is a song called “Eyes Closed” by The Seldon Plan, which you can find over at the wonderful Magnatune.com (http://magnatune.com/artists/seldon)
Hope you enjoy it.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
[...] Episode 074 is now up on the site. [...]
October 31st, 2008 at 9:02 am
Thank you for your wrok.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:30 am
Excellent tutorial. My favorite part was the tiled clones section on how to randomize the stars. Very thorough.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
You guys always find new inspiration for casts, this one is a real keeper.
Only suggestion would be to arch your sunset slightly, add a little more brightness behind Em, and fade out toward the edges.
Later, DRW
October 31st, 2008 at 3:21 pm
OMG !! this is a very very very nice page (you can earn a bux with adds XD ) thank for all
Inkscape, my girl & beer it’s only i need
Thanx follow like that
[Sorry for the newbie english but i am mexican
]
October 31st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Hi,
Thanks for this new episode.
For your next, i found that :
http://psdtuts.com/tutorials-effects/creating-a-mac-type-background-in-photoshop/
I tried to use filters effects in inkscape to do it but i can’t do anything ….
October 31st, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Thanks to all for the great comments!
@heathenx – I pretty quickly figured out that the stars were perhaps the most useful part. Good thing since more than half the screencast is spent on that.
@Don – Actually I did one of my practice screencasts using a large circle with a radial gradient just as you suggest. Another perhaps easier way is to place a heavily blurred semi-transparent white circle or ellipse just behind the ‘landscape’ to increase the brightness in that one area. Good call.
@miguel – Interesting the order you put those three things into!
Thanks for watching.
@switcherdave – you might find episode 053 that heathenx did which does something very similar to what you pointed to. Check out: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/episode-053/
November 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Great !
Thanks, i’ll do it now
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Awesome!
I just came across Screencasters a few days ago. Actually, I was looking into how to do screencasts for a work project, but I’m a huge Inkscape fan so it was doubly amazing to run into this site.
It’s great how you guys teach these tricks. I didn’t know about adding and jittering nodes ’til now. Thanks rfquerin!
It’s like Inkscape is the sports car for vector art creativity and you guys are out there on the tracks, showing us all how it’s done. I learn something new every episode (I’m working my way back through them all).
Thanks for doing these guys!
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:15 am
@Josh Audette
Thank-you.
November 29th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Thanks for all the great tuts! Who needs illustrator when I got Inkscape and heathenx vids!