Webcomic cartoon titles with Inkscape

Again, a basic tutorial which probably does not bring anything new for the experienced Inkscape user: it is about the way I create the cartoon titles for my Fedora webcomic.
If there is something original in there, it may be the style, the tutorial has two parts: the first one about "how I do it" (the wrong way) and the second about "how I should do it".

How I do it

Weeks ago when I started the webcomic I went to what seemed to be the simplest route but in the long run it may not be the best: the problem with the way I do it is that the text is converted to path so it can't be edited later, no easy translation is possible (so the various translations have an English title) and the title text can't be found inside the SVG (maybe some day it will be searchable on web).

But enough with the talk, let's jump at the work: my first problem is the font I use: handfont is a free cursive font, but is is not very developed (I use it mostly because it's completely free), it does not have a bold variant and I want the title text thicker, which I am doing with outset.

So select the handfont font and write something with it:


I could go to the preferences dialog and use a small step for "Inset/Outset" (like 0.1):

But I am too lazy for that (open the preferences, do the operation, change the preference again) so I am doing all the work on canvas: freely resize the text (keeping the Ctrl key pressed to preserve the aspect ratio):


Then outset it (Path > Outset) a few times using whatever the value is default for the operation until I am happy (due to the large size the outset is not bad with a large step, at the small size it would destroy my text):


And, of course, change the color to the desired one:


And resize down to the size I will actually use:


Now duplicate the text for the withe border:


Color the duplicate temporarily in any random, non-white color (we need to see it over the white background) and move it under the initial text:


Then apply the outset effect until happy (no need to resize this time, we are working on a rough border):


And make it white
:

Then duplicate the white border and make the duplicate black:


Move the black duplicate at the bottom of the stack and shift it one or two pixels down and to the left for a drop shadow effect:


Now open the "Fill and Stroke" dialog and add a bit of Gaussian Blur and maybe also decrease the opacity a little:


And out title is ready in all its full glory:

How I should do it

I told you there is a better way of doing it, so the text remains text: by using clones.

Start the same way, writing the desired text at the desired size and using the desired font face. This is the master text, source for cloning, we don't want it to show in the final design so it has to be placed outside of the canvas:


Open the "Fill and Stroke" dialog and unset paint for both fill and stroke, this is a needed step in order to be able to alter the attributes for clones:


Now create a clone of the initial text (Edit > Clone > Create clone) and put it on the canvas:


Change the stroke color and width as you like:


We are adjusting the font thickness by changing its stroke width:


And make the fill color the same as the stroke color:


Then create another clone of the initial text and use a temporary color (it will become the white border):


Increase its with as for the large border:


Move it under the title text:


And make it white:


Now yet another clone of the initial text, with both fill and stroke color set as black and the same stroke width as the white border:


Move it under the entire stack, shifted one or two pixels down and to the right, for a drop shadow:


Add some blur, decrease the opacity:


And the title is ready, looking just as good as the one made the other way. So what's the benefit?


We can change the initial text and the clones are updated automatically:



And we also can change the font face or size, it will work perfectly:


Now tou shoukd know all about creating the title for your own Inkscape-made webcomic!

Feedback

As usual, you can leave feedback, praises, complaints, suggestions and so on on my blog.

a disclaimer will appear here soon

Many thanks to my friends at OpenArt.ro, www.xdrive.ro and Inovatika for motivating me to write this.