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Quasdar — Vector Guide #1: High quality pony vectors
Published: 2012-05-13 06:31:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 72776; Favourites: 1295; Downloads: 5392
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Description
Time: 3.5 hoursMade with Inkscape.
Vectors used:
The Date by
*HalfDeathShadow
Blanket Woona by
*Mamandil
Part two: Nodes and outlines
Part three: Landscapes and special effects
This also works for vectors made from other drawings or your own sketches. Frames from the show are used as an example because that's what most people do. Using the show as a reference or looking at other vectors from the show is a great way to learn.
Discussion posts- r/mylittlepony and r/mlpvectors
This is a tutorial for people interested in making fan art that looks exactly like the show, so please feel free to ignore it if you have no interest in that. I'm not going to try to convince you to watch ponies, I submitted this only to pony groups.
Links:
* Inkscape .
* Tutorials folder .
* Inkscape vs. Illustrator CS6 edge quality
* Hotkeys in Inkscape
* Where to find 1080p episodes
* Paint.NET , an excellent, lightweight raster editor
* Color guide
* Eye tutorial
* Benefits of posting vector files
* Time lapse vector creation video
* #MLP-VectorClub
Updated Oct. 9 2012. Overhauled a lot of the wording, added some new images, fixed the slightly blurred images. And if you didn't see it already, there is now a part two to this that goes over how to make outlines and use nodes.
Related content
Comments: 241
Well... If you want to know. XD Inkscape is quite easy though not completely self explanatory at first, I hear people saying that the results of inkscape look better than other vector programs results, ultra fast and lightweight means you don't need a supercomputer to run huge drawings with it (at least if compared to illustrator), fewer crahes (from what I've heard anyway), it gets the job done as well as any other vector program, it's multiplatform if you wish to share your projects with other people with different operating systems, native support for svg files in firefox, opera and explorer (at least on those, possibly in more web browsers too) so you can just put your project files on the net and they'll show up instantly on the browser and it's legally 100% free and open source program.
Nowadays software development milestones are more and more often made by the hobbyists anyway, not by the big companies who are afraid of the invested money will go into waste if the idea doesn't lift off, hobbyists do not have that kind of concerns so much. Take linux for example, it's not exactly as useable OS as windows but it works. I can render stuff in 5 minutes and 30 seconds in windows, In linux the results will be exactly the same but the rendering time is about 4 minutes. I say all the trouble of going multi os is worth it if I do video clips. XD
But have a tryout and see for yourself.
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So far for me, Illustrator has never crashed. (Only Photoshop crashes, lol!)
Illustrator comes with a very useful "Width Tool" that allows the user to stretch and shrink line widths and stokes at any location on any line. This means that I can vector with only 1 line as opposed to 2 lines, and varying the width of that single line can complete the same task that those 2 lines would do. And if something doesn't look right, you only have to adjust 1 line instead of 2.
Illustrator can support SVG files as well, and those are compatible with the browsers you mentioned, including Safari. And as for rendering, Illustrator doesn't need an external library to render, whereas Inkscape does. This results in faster renders for Illustrator.
I understand that people use Inkscape for vectoring because it does what it was intentionally designed to do: vector. Illustrator is a bit more heavy because it has features that can be used for other tasks than vectoring. This wider range of usability is why I favor it over Inkscape.
My parents work at Adobe, so we get the programs for free. Hehe!
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Well that would explain it. XD
Well, that previous post was somewhat exaggetrated. But those were the reasons why I prefer inkscape over Illustrator.
Sure, inkscape isn't perfect, and there are less tools in it than in Illustrator, no width tools for the curves either (though it seems to be on the todo list from what I red fron the site). But yeah, it gets the job done and I think it does it well too.
I prefer open source myself pretty much in every front if possible. There are number of problems with the commercial packages I don't like, Adobe tends to bury itself so deep on the computer that you can't seem to get rid of it until you purge/format your hdd. <_< And from my experiences, it's relatively slow though I haven't tried the newer versions of it... Well it's not like I could afford it anyway. Photoshop I liked a LOT actually. That's one program I missed the most, but again I can't afford it and don't like the idea of using pirated software for my works that I'm going to show to others. So I switched to Gimp. It does get the job done too, but there are somewhat more steps involved too.
Hehe. Talking about free software versus commercial ones. I don't mind the commercial ones at all really if they're done right, like photoshop. There's just one program I can't live without and there's nothing like it on the free software side. FL Studio. XD
Then on the other hand, there's 3DsMax and Maya. And I use open source Blender. Max and Maya are considered industry standard and price for Max is about $3000 or so. And somehow shipping to europe it makes the price 3000€ too... That's like $4000 or so... Max comes with a package of 5-6Gb of stuff or so and buries itself so deep on the hdd that I got rage attacks trying to delete the files manually after a month I've uninstalled it. So the last time I tried it, it was sluggish, took 2 minutes to fire up and couldn't handle many polygons (subdivision editing was horrible), the UI was ugly as hell and felt old, I had trouble seeing what I had selected in the 3D view. Two things, if ignoring price, were really bugging me, I couldn't see what I was doing and it was really THE slowest experience of my life.
Then blender, nearly completely opposite really, It's super fast, boots up the first time in 5 seconds and after that in about a second, It's elegant and intuitive on the UI which is nearly completely context sensitive and you're never lost because you can just easly search different tools by their name too and check/set a shortcut for it on the same go, it's lightweight, it actually runs even on a cellphone ([link] ), it has been used on supercomputers as a tool to calculate the processing power of those, so it's really scalable too, it has physics-, fluid (2 different ones)-, cloth-, soft body-, smoke simulators ([link] ) build in. + a game engine, node based material system and compositor, video sequence editor to act like a video editor, 3D sound syste, camera tracking... And best of all for me, pixar designed harmonic coordinates system for volume deformations which just works wonders on the cartoony character. [link] It makes the bending smooth that is. XD
Anyway, hopefully this wasn't too much of a read though. I get carried away too easily. XD
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So much to read!
But anyways, i have Maya too, but i haven't found time to play around with it much, lol
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Hehe. Yeah I do like to write a bit too much. XD
But well, do try some 3D some time. It's a lot more complicated than vectoring in the end but the princibles are the same, to some extend. Opens up new possibilities anyhow.
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no kidding! i use 3d for posing characters and such, and then screenshot, and then vector or anything else! lol!
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Hehe... That was EXACTLY what I had in mind really. XD
Well. You're all set. For the moment. Love your gallery btw. :3
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You forget to mention Inkscape is Open Souce , or maybe you didn't consider it relevant.
It does though mention a couple of errors I still make... DOH!
Anyhoof, fantastic tutorial.
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I did say that at the beginning 
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Stupid me.
That, or I went blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness.
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I didn't realize drawing ponies could be so complex!
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Inkscape looks like a very handy program for digital art.
Thanks for putting that link in your tutorial, I never knew about the program.
Nice tutorial as well. I want to dabble in drawing ponies.
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Oh perfect I always wanted to ... trace... ponies.. from .. youtube....... *doh*
Its a great tutorial tho 
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Oops, forgot to properly close the closing bold tag.
Also, you should probably throw a few other color guides in there.
*kefkafloyd has some: [link]
=Liggliluff also has some: [link]
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Those have a lot of issues in them.
The anti-aliasing quality applies to Photoshop as well, vectors exported from PSDs have the same bad edge quality.
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Yeah, I just realized when using =Liggliluff 's... because no download is given, you have to use DeviantART's preview image, which is incredibly bad.
And what happens if I... 1) draw the paths of the vector in Photoshop 2) open it in Illustrator and export as SVG 3) export PNG from Inkscape?
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Conversion errors cause your vector to lose its layering, possibly fail to open altogether, and likely mess up different objects. Some things will lose their vector paths and be converted to rasters, gradients may look awful, and paths will have many more nodes than they should have. Complicated effects and objects often won't transfer.
If the conversion doesn't cause any errors, which is very unlikely, inkscape will still export it at a higher quality than illustrator or photoshop can.
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Well, then either you're incorrect or I'm incredibly lucky.
[link] [link]
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Also, these two were made in the fashion I stated above;
1) paths in Photoshop -> save to PSD
2) open PSD in Illustrator -> save to SVG
3) open SVG in Inkscape -> save to PNG
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The fewer programs you use the more reliably you can make glitch-free exports. If you're only familiar with the Photoshop interface you can use that to make your vectors, but it's the most likely way to cause you headaches when you try to convert it. It's worth learning to use Inkscape for the entire process.
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Meh, I'll probably stick with Photoshop, because I haven't had any problems, and I'm more used to it. Thanks for all of the advice, though!
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I always using Inkscape for my pictures because it is user-friendly. You made a nice tutorial. Here is my last picture made with Inkscape: [link]
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this is really fantastic instructions !
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massive massive +plus on the help tip
hard to find a good inkscape tutorial
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Very nice tutorial, it will help a lot! But, I'm not sure why you linked to an outdated copy of the colour guide instead of the fully updated ones at the creators page?
Current version of all MLP color keys By KTurtle [link]
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You're welcome, keep up the great work!
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Correct me if I'm wrong, when I was looking at the Adobe edge quality, I don't find this Hinted option when I was saving as SVG file, I only find SVG Profiles.
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The option comes up when saving a PNG file. [link]
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Oh, that one. Well, the club rule said we're using mostly SVG and it's recommended. I used to provide PNGs as well, but just forgot to use the anti-aliasing option most of the time, my bad, and thanks for showing me the options.
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Ooooh very useful indeed! Twilight is pleased by this.
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Sending this to a few friends to help give them more headway. Very nicely worded tutorial, plus some great tips.
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I've gotta try out Inkscape sometime.
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This is a great guide. I learned by download a PSD file from and I knew exactly what he was doing, but even still, my first vector came out pretty shitty compared to my latest. This is actually going to help me more! Thanks for making this, I shared it on Twitter. :3
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Miter limit. I keep forgetting about that. Those nodes always get me in trouble.
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I usually avoid stroked paths unless they're absolutely straight anyway. Great guide, though!
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Make the setting the correct default for your stroke by making your line how you want it, then press Shift+Ctrl+P for Inkscape Preferences, select Tools->Pen, and press 'take from selection'.
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