by Meemaw
I found this tutorial in the same place as the grass tutorial we did a couple of months ago. This is to make a tree easily, rather than trying to draw one by hand.
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Open Inkscape and click on Extensions > Render > Random Tree. You'll see a dialog box like the one below. There are only two settings: Initial size and Minimum size. Set those to 100 and 4 respectively. Check the Live preview box and look at what you get. You can try again by unchecking the Live preview box and rechecking it.
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I decided on this one:
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Open up the Fill & Stroke dialog and change the Stroke to a color green with a width of about 40px. Set the Join to Miter so it's still jagged, like trees are.
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Select your tree and click on Path > Stroke to Path. This will convert your tree into a much
more simple shape, because we're going to change it.
We're going to deal with the leaves and the trunk separately so, using the Pen tool, draw a shape around the trunk.
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Select both the tree and the shape you just drew and use Path > Division. You should get something that looks like the tree below. Change the trunk to a brown color of your choice.
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Now, with the cut we just made, our leaves look way too straight on the bottom. To fix this, copy and paste the leaf bunch and then flip it vertically.
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Now place the two leaf sections together, one on top of the other. You can then group them, or you can select both leaf objects and do a Path > Union to merge them. I also lengthened the trunk as well. It's your creation, so it's up to you.
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Now, to make it more realistic, copy the entire tree top and flip it horizontally and give it a slightly darker green color. You can also rotate it and/or change the size. Send it to the bottom of your drawing to give it some depth.
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Now we also want to add a shadow to the tree trunk. Copy the tree top and tree trunk. Give the tree top copy a black fill with a 50% opacity. Leave the tree trunk in position as we'll be clipping it for a proper shadow.
Move the tree trunk on top of the shadow, select them both, and click on Object > Clip > Set. What you will end with is a shadow of the tree top on the trunk.
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Click on your tree top and bring it back to the front. I also moved the trunk down just a little, and shortened up the tree top so the shadow is visible.
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To add some finishing touches, I grouped all the tree pieces, duplicated the tree, changed the size of the duplicate and flipped it horizontally. Then I moved it elsewhere on the page. In addition, I put in some sky and some of the grass we made a couple of months ago.
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The last step is to export the drawing in the format of your choice.
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I'm sure your creation is wonderful! I hope you had fun with this!
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