A BRIEF INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS THE POINT OF THESE TUTORIALS?

I have to be honest with you: I am by no means a master at using Inkscape or art in general. In fact, I have a software engineering and computer science background. However I have always been in awe of the work of great artists and as a hobby have decided to put in the effort to try and improve my own skill. While I still consider myself a beginner at art (and I probably always will), I thought creating a series of tutorials would help further my own art abilities; as they say, the best way to truly learn a subject is to attempt to teach it to others. Plus I get to draw lots of neat art for the tutorials and so get some more general art practice. As well as that I also get some experience in tutorial writing; always a handy skill to have. Finally the idea of writing these tutorials seemed like a lot of fun!

Oh wait, you mean what is the point for you to read these tutorials? Well, these tutorials are primarily aimed towards helping beginners to becoming better artists. In particular, I'm hoping this will be of use to game programmers who need "programmer art" for their games. It is my opinion that vector art is extremely well suited to the beginner artist who is comfortable with using computers. However I have yet to find a good tutorial on how to use Inkscape aimed for beginners. Thus I hope that by providing some information on my own efforts in learning how to use Inkscape I can also help teach others in improving their own skill. This in turn will hopefully lead to better looking art in your game, and thus making your game more appealing to your target audience, which hopefully includes me!

WHY USE INKSCAPE?

Inkscape has a number of features that make it attractive to use as an art software package. Here's a quick summary:

INKSCAPE IS FREE

Many of the leading art software packages out there are expensive, which can be a big setback to artists on a tight budget. While there are demos of many of the leading art packages out there ad well as some good cheap commercial offerings too, "free" is a darn attractive price tag! At the least, it means you can download and try out the full copy of Inkscape without worrying about expiring trial times or missing features.

VECTOR GRAPHICS VS. RASTER GRAPHICS

Another benefit is Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. This means it represents images as geometric constructs such as shapes and lines. This is in contrast to raster graphics, which represents images as a grid of pixel values.

This isn't to say that vector graphics is necessarily better than raster; both have their uses and different pros and cons. However one great advantage of vector graphics for a starting artist is they are easily editable; you can fine tune your vectors to get the picture looking just right. In my view, this makes it more friendly to beginners as it is kinder to mistakes. There's also the advantage that it's easier to make good vector graphics with a mouse if you don't have a graphics tablet.

INKSCAPE HAS A DECENT INTERFACE

I've noticed that a common problem in free open source applications is in their interface, which is a critical part of an art software package. For example, and I know this is a matter of personal opinion, the most popular open source raster graphics editor, The GIMP, has an atrocious unintuitive interface that makes it very difficult to actually do anything other than simple touch ups. On the other hand, Inkscape's interface is reasonably friendly, understandable and easy to pick up as you go. There's still a few rough edges and some of the keyboard shortcuts are a bit hard to learn, but as open source applications go it's extremely good.

INKSCAPE IS BEING ACTIVELY DEVELOPED

Inkscape is an active open source project, meaning new and improved versions of Inkscape will be released in the future.

RESOURCES: WHAT YOU NEED AND WOULD LOVE TO HAVE

THE ESSENTIALS

For these tutorials, I am expecting that you have, at the very least, access to the following:

• A reasonably modern PC. It certainly does not have to be that powerful - my current computer pales against most of the specs I see in forums today, and I've run Inkscape on slower laptops too. The choice of operating system should not matter than much as Inkscape has been widely ported. Basically if you can run reasonably any moderately demanding game released in the last few years you should be fine. I will be using Windows XP on my Athlon 64 3000 with 1 GB of RAM if you need a comparison.
• The latest copy of Inkscape. Available from the Inkscape website. At the moment I am using Inkscape v0.44. I do not think there are many differences between the different operating systems but I will be using Windows XP, so users of Linux or Mac OS may need to translate some of the commands if necessary.

Since these are also ultra cheap and easy to get, you should also get your hands on:

• A good raster based art program. Sometimes you need to work with raster graphics for those final touches, or at the least to resize images or to convert to different file types. I generally use The GIMP for all those little details, and like Inkscape it too is also free.
• Pencils, paper, erasers and other related art tools. For very early concept work I still prefer to work with pencil on paper - ideas just seem to flow better that way. You do not need anything fancy - you probably have all of these already. I just use A4 office copy paper and wooden HB pencils.

SPECIAL ART HARDWARE

Everything listed above you should already have or should easily be able to get. However, if you really plan on using Inkscape for long periods, I highly recommend getting a tool that helps better translate your drawing to the computer. Specifically, I would recommend at least one of the following tools:

• A Wacom graphics tablet. This is extremely useful, and if you are planning on doing any extended drawing work at all (not just with Inkscape) I highly recommend you get one of these. For vector work with Inkscape it is less critical to have a tablet than it can be with other art programs, but it does speed up the process for some tasks considerably. While a lot of tablets can be quite pricey, the smallest Wacom Graphire3 tablet (the 4x5 size) can be found for about A$130 which really is not that expensive. This small size table is quite suitable for working with vectors I am presently using a 4x5 Graphire tablet for my work and while a bit cramped it is certainly better than using the mouse for freehand drawing.
• Scanner. If you manage to get something "right" in a rough pencil sketch on paper it is very useful to be able to scan that in to use as a base for your drawing. It is also possible to convert scan images into vector art, although most times I find it easier to just use the scanned image as a guide. As such the quality of the scanner is not much of an issue. Anything that can convert your hand drawn images into something you can view on the screen is of benefit!

BOOKS

A good book can really help with drawing technique. I can only comment on the books I own and I have not got any on computer art specifically, but here are a few recommendations from my present library on art:

If you are a beginner interested in developing a "comic strip" cartooning style, then I recommend getting a copy of Bruce Blitz's The Big Book of Cartooning. While the writing style is more aimed towards children, the content is suitable for all ages, and Blitz's book has a great coverage of everything involved in creating art for comic strips. Compared to most other "how to draw" books it also has the significant advantage of being rather cheap (art books like programming books tend to be fairly pricey).

For the ever popular Japanese cartoon style I also have several of the How to Draw Manga books. There seems to be about at least six dozen of these and they are fairly expensive for their length, but they are pretty useful for the more detailed manga look. For a beginner you will probably only need the first book in a series to start with - although they all have their strengths and weaknesses if I were pushed to recommend just one to begin with I'd nominate More How to Draw Manga: Vol. 1 The Basics of Character Drawing.

Finally, for life drawing - something that I myself am terrible at - the book I have seen recommended the most is Betty Edwards The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I have tried working through the lessons in this book myself a few months ago but got diverted on to other things; I will give this another go myself some time soon.