Inkscape Tutorial: Cartoon Fish

Once more a beginner tutorial for Inkscape, which results in a cartoon style vector fish.

Techniques demonstrated: Pattern along a Path, Envelope Deformation, Clip Path.

This is a very simple vector illustration that I made a while ago for a children's story.
The design uses very few shapes and is in bright colours. It is easy to draw such a design in Inkscape.

I assume little Inkscape knowledge, and the tutorial should be easy to follow for a beginning Inkscape artist.

Open Inkscape and start with a default document.

I made the drawing on an A4 size paper, but as we draw in a vector editing program, size does not matter. The fish in the final design ended up being about 1/2 page width in size.

Before we start

Inkscape remembers by default the last settings of a tool. Therefore objects you draw may differ from the screenshots in this tutorial. Help on how to correct the most common settings can be found on this page: Inkscape Beginner Tips (opens in a new window).

Swirl Decoration

We start by making the swirl decoration on the fish.

• Select the Create Spirals tool  from the tool box at the left side of the screen
• Set the values for Turns, Divergence and Inner Radius to:

• Click and drag the mouse to create a spiral that looks like this:

The spiral is the basis for the fancy decoration on the fish. We will apply path effects to the shape.

Pattern to a Path

We start by creating the pattern.

• Select the Rectangle Tool  from the Tool Box and draw a small rectangle at an empty spot on the canvas.

• Select the Node Tool .
• The rectangle object must be converted to a path before it can be edited with the Node Tool. This can be done by:

1. by clicking the Object to Path  button in the Node Tool - Tool Control bar, or
2. selecting Object to path from the Path menu:

• Select the 2 left outer nodes by either:

1. dragging a selection window around both nodes, or
2. select one node, hold down the Shift-key and then select the other node.

• Add a new node to the selected segment by clicking the Insert New Nodes button  (shortcut: Insert-key). Your drawing should look like this:

• Select the top node at the right side of the rectangle, then hold down the CTRL-key and press the Delete-key.

Note: If you try to delete this node with the "Delete Selected Nodes button" Inkscape may try to preserve the shape of the cube. This depends on your Inkscape settings for the Node Tool. Double click the node tool button , this will open up the Inkscape Preferences Dialog. The last option "Deleting nodes preserves shape" determines how your node tool behaves. It is up to you how you want this set and you can change it at any time. If you have it set to preserve shape, then use the CTRL-key in combination with the DEL-key to delete a node without preserving the shape (override).

• Open the Align and Distribute dialog by pressing  (shortcut: Shift+Ctrl+A).
• Select the single node at the right side and the middle node at the left side of your path. Note: selection order IS important.

• Align the selected nodes horizontally by clicking this button  in the Nodes section of the Align and Distribute dialog. Alignment is done referencing the last selected node. Your path should now look like this:

• Select the left middle node only, and use the Arrow buttons to move it somewhat to the right side (or use the mouse whilst pressing the Ctrl-key to constraint horizontal movement).

Your drawing should now look like this:

We will use this shape as a pattern along the spiral, but we do not need it to remain on the canvas.

• Use Ctrl+X to cut it to the clipboard.
  Select the spiral .
  Open the path editor via Path > Path Effect Editior on the menu (shortcut: Shift+Ctrl+7).

• Select "Pattern along a Path" from the drop down box, and click on the "Add" button. The options dialog for this path effect will appear.

• Click on the Paste Path button  to paste the current path we have on the clipboard as pattern for the spiral.

We do not need to adjust any other setting for this tutorial, but feel free to tweak the settings to your likings. Some tips:

You can make your pattern a bit slimmer or fatter by adjusting the width setting.
You can edit the path of the pasted pattern at any time by clicking the Edit-on-Canvas button. The pattern will be displayed in the upper left corner of your document, in a green color, and can be edited with the Node Tool .

Applying the Envelope path effect

This path effect sometimes shows unexpected results, but it can be used to do quick deformations of objects simulating a bounding box around the object that can be tweaked. Changing node types may cause your object to disappear, so if you intend to experiment with this tool: save your work, remember the undo option (Ctrl+Z) and know that a path effect can be removed from an object at any time.

• The spiral (with the pattern applied) should still be selected.
• Add the "Envelope Deformation" path effect to the effects list in the Path Effect Editor. Your object may resize a bit (but that is not important, as we are working with vectors).

• Click on the "Edit on-canvas" button  for the Top Bend Path. A green path existing only of 2 endnodes will highlight at the top of your object.

Now similar to adding nodes to a path before:

• Select the 2 nodes on the path:

• Insert a new node by clicking  on the Node Tool - Tool Control bar(shortcut: Insert-key):

• Select only the newly added node, and move it a bit upwards. Your drawing should be similar to this:

• Click "Edit on Canvas" for the Bottom Bend Path, and repeat the above steps with the bottom nodes:

The drawing should look like this:

Path effects are applied directly to a path and they can be edited individually at all times. However, if you want to further manipulate the resulting shape, it is better to apply the path effects permanently.

• Click on the "object to path" button  on the Node Tool - Tool Control bar or select Path > Object to Path from the menu:

The applied effects list in the Path Effect Editor is cleared. The shape is now defined by a single path, but it has more nodes than needed.

• Simplify by selecting Path > Simplify from the menu (shortcut: Ctrl+L)

Note: most paths can be simplified withouth significant loss of quality after complex operations, and it is a good practice to do this.

The Fish shape

Now that we have completed the stylish decoration for the fish, it would be good to draw the fish itself. Reason for starting with the decoration is that the resulting shape we have now is also used as basic shape for the fish.

• Make a duplicate of the shape by selecting Edit > Duplicate from the menu (shortcut Ctrl+D). The duplicate is created EXACTLY on top of the original.
  The Node Tool  should still be selected. Select the 2 nodes as indicated below:

• Break the path at these nodes by clicking this button on the Node Tool - Tool Control bar. In the status bar at the bottom of the screen you can read that there are now 2 subpaths:

• Change the subpaths to individual paths by selecting Path > Break Apart (Shortcut: Shift+Ctrl+K) from the menu.

• Deselect both paths by clicking on an empty space on the canvas. Then click on the inner path again, it is now clear that the path is cut.

• Use the select tool , and press the Delete-Key to delete the inner path.

At this point you may want to recolor the cut path, to easily see it against the the complete shape. Shift + Click on any colour from the Color Palette. I used green.

Use the Node Tool to select the 2 endnodes of this path.

Join the 2 endnodes with a new segment by clicking on this button

Your drawing should look similar to below and as you can see the shape follows the outline of the decoration perfectly.

Apply some colour

Apply a nice colour fill to the shape (click with the left mouse button on a colour in the Color Palette). I originally made this illustration in bright pink, but today I go traditionally orange. I changed the outline colour to black (hold down Shift and click with the left mouse button on a colour in the Color Palette).

• Use the select tool.

The shape is on top of the decoration. The order of the objects can be changed by the Page Up- and Page Down-keys.

• In this case we want to send the shape down, so press the Page Down-key.

It is also a good idea to fill the shape of the decoration.

• Select the spiral and click with the left mouse button on any colour in the Color Palette at the bottom of the screen. I used white.

Tail

The shape of the tail is very simple.

• Start with the Ellipse Tool .
• Change the settings for this tool to Start = 90 and End = 270:

• The resulting shape will be a half ellipse:

• Draw another ellipse that is horizontally squashed over the left outer edge of the halfed ellipe. Reset the Ellipse Tool to a full ellipse with this button  if needed.

• Select both shapes and use Path > Difference to cut out the smaller ellipse from the halfed ellipse.

• Now use the Node Tool  and push the line segments a bit to make them look a bit more funky.

• Go back to the Select Tool .
• Give the tail the same fill colour as the fish shape (click with left mouse button on colour in Color Palette).

More tail parts

• Duplicate the Tail with Ctrl+D. Remember the duplicate is created exactly on top of the original.
• Open the Transform Dialog from the menu Object > Transform (Shortcut: Shift+Ctrl+M).

• In the Transform Dialog, select the Scale tab.
• Tick the "Scale proportionally" checkbox and set the width to 80% (height will follow automatically). Click the Apply button.

• Make a duplicate of the smaller tail (it should still be selected) and click on the apply button in the Transform dialog again.

• Change the fill colour of the middle tail object to white.

• Open the Align and Distribute dialog again (if you closed it) .
• Select all the tail objects and align the left sides .

It may be necessary to scale the objects a bit further manually or even to use the node tool to separate the tail objects  from each other. Use the scaling handles to achieve the desired effect.

Complete the Fish

• Select all 3 tail objects and use the mouse to position them like below. There must be a slight overlap for the largest tail object and the main fish shape.

• Select the largest tail object and the main fish shape, union these objects by selecting Path > Union (shortcut: Ctrl++). This makes them into a single large shape:

• Bring the fish decoration all the way to the front (select the spiral shape and hit the Home-key).
• Now draw an ellipse on top of the fish that indicates the eye: outline black and fill colour white. Add a smaller ellipse for the pupil.

Outlines

Decide what outlines you want accentuated. I gave the outline of the fish (the largest object) a stroke weight which was 2x that of the smaller objects. Note: you can select all objects (select one, hold down shift to add others) and then set the outline width in one go by either:

1. right click on the small number next to the stroke color in the bottom of the screen:

1. opening of the Fill and Stroke dialog (Shortcut: Shift+Ctrl+F) and setting the stroke width on the Stroke Style tab

Your completed fish should look like this:

• Select all shapes by dragging a selection window around them and group them. Menu Object > Group (Shortcut: Ctrl+G)

Finalizing the Illustration

Add some elements to the drawing.

Bubbles

• Draw some small spheres in different shades of blue and grey as bubbles.
• Dont forget to vary the outlines in colour too.

Seaweed

• Use the Bezier tool , with shape set to "triangle in" for some seaweeds. This options applies the "pattern along a path" path effect automatically, but with a triangle. The path can be edited exactly as shown before. Some help on using the Bezier Tool is available here: How to draw a Bezier Path (opens in new window).
• Use Path > Object to Path for the seaweed objects to apply the path effect permanently.
• Set fill colour to green and outline to a very dark green.

Background

Draw a big rectangle  as background and fill it with blue. Sent it all the way to the back with the End-key.

Clipping Path

To tidy up the bottom of the seaweed we apply a clipping mask. As the background rectangle is exactly the size we want, that object is very suitable as clipping path.

• Make sure that the seaweed is a bit outside of the rectangle so that we can make a clear cut.

• Duplicate the background rectangle. It should appear as top object.

• Now select all objects that are part of the drawing - drag a selection window around all objects, zoom out if needed.

• Select Object > Clip > Set from the menu.
• Clipping uses the TOP object in a selection, and the clipping object disappears after clipping.

• Note: the clipping parth is applied to ALL objects in selection. As only the seaweed was exceeding the drawing size, we could have just clipped that.

Click on the picture for a higher resolution image.

That's all folks. Feedback is appreciated.