Dillerkind’s illustrations with Inkscape

Curious what interesting new artwork people did with Inkscape lately? We have another showroom for you today, with badasses, golems, pandas, and red riding hoods.

Sven Ebert aka “Dillerkind” is one of the i-can’t-believe-i-missed-that artists using Inkscape.

“Today I can finally post some new completed image material. The little redheaded dude is obviously in a slightly aggressive mood and shows his impressively smooth dual-arm-moves… Better be careful now, if you want to avoid fractures and injuries of the kneecaps and below :D”

Being a self-taught illustrator, he started with natural media: paper, pencil etc. Sven started using Inkscape only around 2011. He explains:

It’s where I came from and I still love pencilling. Now, if doing vector graphics has had an impact? Hmm, that’s hard to tell. Right from the start I’ve always seen my vector and pencil stuff as two separate things. I don’t try to mimic my pencil style in Inkscape or vice versa. For me these are two entirely different methods of working and I love how things look different in traditional and digital media. Still I think (or rather hope!) that with all the differences in look & feel, people who know my stuff can still tell it’s all coming from the same guy.

The basic style, the way I draw things, people, faces, weapons, whatever… should still be discernible in my digital pics (which aren’t so much drawn, since I’m only using a mouse to click things together). These two different media and styles probably influence each other, but to be honest, I couldn’t tell what exactly that impact would be.

“Anyway, here’s today’s pic. It’s some dude with an automatic shooter. I scribbled the sketch for this piece (as well as some others) some time last summer while I was in an amusement park. Sure thing, nothing cool to do in such a park so that one has to think of other ways to pass some time, eh? :D”

I’ve seen quite a lot of work by artists who use free software, and Sven’s shading is very, very good. Here’s how he does it:

I use Multiply for shadows and sometimes a Screen filter for highlight layers. Apart from that I’ve been using blur in very few of my pics (maybe 4-6 filters in total, across all the vector pieces I’ve done so far). I’m not a big fan of filters and stuff. Don’t really need them to create the kind of look I like. My style is rather simple and clean, and I try to get things done with mostly basic tools.

Gradients are simple, yet incredibly powerful when you know how to put them to good use. I’m not saying that I know how to do just that, but I sure have grown to love them gradients excessively!

I love the possibility to “recycle” gradients. In fact, in each of my pics all the shadow gradients are linked to one base gradient. Even more, all the colors I use are linked to swatches from the auto-palette. Makes it quick and easy to adjust colors/grads later on, which I do pretty often from the early stages to a finished picture. You know, I don’t have a very good sense colors and thus have to experiment a lot until I find something that looks good.

Without much further noise here goes…

“Number 2 is some kind of golem that has found a cozy place in front of a cave deep inside a forest. Erm.. yes, that is actually all the “background information” there is. Funny side-note: just recently I read Terry Pratchett’s “Feet of Clay”, in which clay golems play a major role. This, however, is pure coincidence and has nothing to do with my choice of subject. I swear! :D In this image I thought I’d go without the line-art layer.”

“I can’t say what kind of animal this is. Originally this was a mere side product of the wolf/doggy sketch… and was meant to be something sheep-like. However, soon this one received additional, and not so sheep-like, features.”

“Here’s something new, Red Riding Hood and a children-compatible friendly wolf :) It’s one of a bunch of small pieces (mostly simple animals) and an addition for the already existing pics in my sister’s waiting room.”

“I already announced this one a little while ago. This should be at least a small step towards more girlie compatible stuff in my shop :D”

“Here’s yet another little vector piece. The sketch was done a couple of months (but at least not years!) ago. A small tribute to the software I’m using and the work and effort the developers put into this program :)”

You can find more pictures, some work in progress images doodles and outline mode Inkscape screenshots in Sven’s blog. You can also start watching his uploads on deviantART.