Creating a Coffee Cup with Inkscape
Tutorial Details
- Program: Inkscape
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Completion Time: 1-2 hours
Download Source Files
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Inkscape is an open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator and other programs for creating vector graphics. In this first Inkscape tutorial for VECTORTUTS, we’ll create a beautiful coffee cup and show off some of Inkscape’s features. We’ll mostly be drawing shapes and using the Gradient Tool to accomplish the desired effect. If you’re familiar with Illustrator or a similar program, you should be able to follow along relatively easily.
If you would like to download Inkscape, go to inkscape.org. If this is your first time using Inkscape, I recommend that you complete a few of the tutorials that come bundled with Inkscape first to get the hang of how the program works (available from the Help menu).
Step 1
Begin by opening up a new document in Inkscape. Let’s start by making the saucer that the coffee cup rests on. The saucer will be comprised of five different ellipses, so get ready to draw. Select the Circle/Ellipse tool (F5) from the Toolbox. Then draw an ellipse about the proportions of the one in the picture below.
Now we need to change the fill and stroke (outline) colors, so select your ellipse and open up the Fill and Stroke dialog window by going to Object > Fill and Stroke (Ctrl + Shift + F). On the Stroke paint tab click the “X” button to eliminate the outline on this shape.
Step 2
Now we want to fill the ellipse with a radial gradient. We’ll be doing quite a few radial and linear gradients in this tutorial, so pay close attention if you’ve never done this in Inkscape before. On the Fill tab (still in the Fill and Stroke window), click the Radial Gradient button. Inkscape automatically fills your shape with a gradient – normally fading to transparent by default.
We want a gradient with two shades of gray, so click the Edit button underneath the gradient. Now you can edit the gradient’s Color Stops and their Transparency. Set the first Stop to a light shade of gray (ddddddff). Set the second Stop to a darker shade of gray (b2b2b2ff). Make sure the Transparency for both colors is set to Opaque (no transparency).
Step 3
The next thing you need to do is adjust the size and center of the gradient relative to your ellipse. Drag the gradient handles on the ellipse to match the picture below. Note: If the gradient handles are not visible, simply click the Create and Edit Gradients button from the Toolbox (Ctrl + F1). Now you’ve completed one ellipse and you know how to create and edit gradients. The following steps won’t be quite as detailed.
Step 4
The other ellipses in the saucer aren’t quite as difficult to make. The next ellipse will form the white lip around the plate. The easiest way to make this is to duplicate the ellipse you just made by going to Edit > Duplicate (Ctrl + D). Then fill it with a very light gray color (f2f2f2ff) from the Fill and Stroke window. Then lower it just a few pixels lower than your first ellipse, and place it behind the first ellipse by going to Object > Lower.
Note: Press F1 (or hit the Select and Transform Objects button from the Toolbox) to move objects around with the mouse or arrow keys in Inkscape. It’s hard to see the light gray ellipse, so I put a dark background behind it to make it easier to see in the screenshot below.
Step 5
Now for the dark gray base of the saucer. Once again, duplicate one of your existing ellipses. Now fill it with another radial gradient with two very dark shades of gray (2b2b2bff and 666666ff). Then move the center of the gradient down to the bottom of the ellipse. The base of the plate doesn’t need to be quite as wide as the rest of the plate. Press F1 and push the left and right sides of the ellipse in a little bit to “squish” it some.
Note that if you hold down Shift while dragging one of the edges, you can move both sides equally at once. Also, stretch the bottom of the ellipse down just a little bit to get the curve of the bottom of the saucer just right.
Move the whole ellipse down a few pixels and press the Page Down button a few times to place the ellipse below the other two. You should end up with something that looks like the image below. Note the proportions of the bottom ellipse (selected) compared to the other two. The saucer is starting to take shape!
Step 6
Now we need to create the center of the plate. Draw a smaller ellipse as shown in the image below (or select the topmost ellipse and scale it down). Open up the Fill and Stroke dialog (Ctrl + Shift + F). Then fill it with a flat gray color (979797). Drag the Alpha slider below the color wheel to 100.
Give it a stroke color of b7b7b7 (full opacity). On the Stroke style tab set the width to match the picture below. The actual size of the stroke will vary depending on how big you drew your ellipses. For me, it was 3px, but you may end up with something different.
Step 7
The plate is almost finished now. The last step is to add a blurry drop-shadow. Duplicate the bottom-most ellipse (the dark gray base). Then blur it 10% (from the bottom of the Fill and Stroke window). Place it below all the other objects.
You now have a finished saucer! You may choose to group the five ellipses to make them easier to select later on. Just highlight them all and press Ctrl+G. Now, on to the coffee cup itself!
Step 8
We’ll begin by drawing two shapes with the Bezier Curves tool (Shift + F6). Make one for the face of the coffee cup and one to form the outer rim of the cup. These shapes need to match up in width and the amount of curve. I recommend that you turn on the grid to help you draw these lines (Shift + #). Also note, Click to create a point, click and drag to create a curve.
I actually drew these shapes in place on top of each other, but I separated them in this screenshot to show how I drew the shapes and their curves. Notice that both shapes and their curve lengths are 20 units wide. Also, notice how the bottom of the rim matches the top of the cup face; They are both 2 units deep. For guidance, the numbers in blue show the order in which I created the points/curves.
Step 9
With the grid still on, place the rim directly on top of the cup face. Eliminate the stroke from both shapes. Fill the rim shape (that looks like an ellipse) with a solid color gray (e6e6e6ff). Fill the cup face with a radial gradient that goes from ecececff at the center to bdbdbdff. Then place the center of the gradient near the top of the cup shape, as shown below.
Step 10
Duplicate the rim shape and scale it in a little bit to form the width of the rim. Give this shape a thin gray stroke (d6d6d6ff) and a radial gradient from ecececff to bdbdbdff. Then drag the gradient handles to match the picture below.
Step 11
The next step is to create the coffee inside the cup. We obviously want to create a shape that gives the appearance of the coffee being inside the rim. To do that we’ll have to create an ellipse for the coffee and intersect it with the inner rim.
Here’s how to do it. Create an ellipse like the brown one in the picture below. Then set it on top of the rim. Then, duplicate the ellipse that makes up the inner portion of the rim. Then select both the duplicated ellipse and the one you just drew. Now go to the menu and choose Path > Intersection (Ctrl + *).
You should end up with a shape that looks like coffee in a cup. Now you can fill it with a radial gradient using any two (or more) shades of brown.
Step 12
Creating the handle for the coffee cup is a cinch. Use the Bezier tool to make a shape similar to the handle shown below. Give it a thin light gray stroke and fill it with a linear gradient from bottom left to top right using two shades of gray (bdbdbdff and ecececff). Now place it behind the cup.
Step 13
To give our cup some personality, we’re going to add some blue stripes around it. The way to do it is a little trickier than meets the eye. You can’t simply draw a line, because the end of the line would never match up with the edge of the cup, as shown below.
Step 14
So here’s the method I came up with that worked quite well. Create an ellipse with about the same proportions as the coffee cup rim. Then fill it with any color (no stroke). Now duplicate that ellipse, place it below the first one, and pull the bottom drag handle down a little bit. Then push the sides in some too. I colored my ellipses two different colors so you can see how this should look.
Step 15
Select both ellipses and choose Path > Difference (Ctrl + Minus Sign) from the menu. Presto! You now have a beautiful vanishing curve. Fill your new shape with whatever color you prefer. Duplicate it as many times as you want. Then place it on top of your coffee cup wherever you choose.
Step 16
Let’s create a reflection on the side of our cup. Draw a shape with the Bezier tool like the one in the screenshot below. Color it white and drag the alpha slider to about 90 so that it’s transparent. Place it on top of the cup face and colored lines.
Step 17
Now for some steam. Begin by drawing a small white ellipse. Make it semi-transparent and blur the edges of it significantly. Place it above your coffee. This will give the general impression of heat and steam.
Step 18
Now let’s create a wispy trail of steam. Create a shape with the Bezier tool like the one below. Color it a light brown or gold color, make it semi-transparent and blur it also. Play around with the Master Opacity and Blur settings until it looks just right.
Our coffee cup is finished! As with the saucer, you may find it handy to group all the shapes that comprise the cup.
Final Image
Let’s place our finished cup on top of our saucer. Then add a small drop shadow underneath the cup. Simply draw a small black ellipse and blur it.
There you have it, a beautiful vector coffee cup and saucer created with Inkscape! I hope you enjoyed making this as much as I did. I also hope this tutorial proved informative in demonstrating the main features of Inkscape – an Open Source alternative for vector art. Enjoy!
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By Peter Anglea
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It’s amazing, I didn’t know you could do that with Inkscape! :P
Inkscape is awesome because it’s cross-platform so I can use it on my Ubuntu desktop :)
Thank you so much. I am not an artist – I am an engineer. I never dared attempt a graphic before, outside of CAD programs. But then I had to prepare a conference poster for my work, and I sort of new what I wanted, but couldn’t find anything suitable in google images. Your tutorial let me dare to try.
Now our small spin-off has a new, open source program (I like the philosophy), I learned a new skill, I have a nice finished poster and I even impressed the boss. And now I have a coffee mug, which is always important for an engineer :-D
“Hero for the Day” to you!
Wow. I’ve never used Inkscape before – it’s much harder than I imagined! Your tutorial was very helpful, thank you!
I used the InkScape first time. It seems really good software. Tutorials are simply Awesome!
yeah! how awesome is this? GREAT – keep more inkscape tutorials coming, man!!!
Its so stressy to “translate” all the illustrator stuff for inkscape!
Add a section and load it with inkscape tuts :-)
Thanks to the autor and thanks to the staff for adding!!!
Wow, nice tutorial! :D
another nice tutorial for inkscape!
Like others said, the handle is a bit flat, but other than that, great tut. I hope to see more. Inkscape is great for those of us that can’t afford Illustrator.
Great tutorial!
Amazing tutorial !!
Here is my attempt ;- http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9877/drawinghs5.png
This is an excellent tutorial!!!
I downloaded Inkscape a few weeks ago and it’s just been sitting there, I’m glad I found this I didn’t know how to use it before this.
Thanks,
Ap
muy buen tuto, sirve de mucho el ver trabajos muy buenos echos con software libre
saludos
This is a great tutorial. I use Inkspace with my Linux distro.
Just finished my cup of Java with red stripes !!! Great tutorial !!!
Thanks a lot, what a great tutorial…!!!
Simple and nice.
It is nice to see a tutorial based on this app!
THanks.
Thanks very much for this tutorial.. it’s very helpful..
It’s my first time in vector world :)
here is my result:
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g194/hadi060/cup3.png
(with some own details :))
Thanks again.
Very interesting
I’m an absolute beginner, and my cup ain’t perfect, but thanks to your tutorial, I made one reasonably decent. I might go and tweak it some more (mainly the coffee, the colour rings and the steam), but it’s not so bad already ;)
I uploaded it to photobucket to show it off:
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f253/ladesyrable/Miscellaneous/saucercup.jpg
Great tutorial.
I am brand new in computer graphic design and I am having a hard time mastering the Bezier Curves tool. Could anyone recommend any resources to assist me? I have been trying all day to move past step 8 but I cant.
Thanks
I also had the same problem as I didn’t know how to use the tool. What I finally figured out was this:
You select the tool, click and hold down your left mouse button on your starting point for the cup. Now drag straight down about 14 blocks (or units i think, with the grid on), click, release your mouse button and move the mouse to your right (if you started on the left side). you will see the curve start, go 10 units (blocks on the grid, will be 90 degrees to the line) stop and double click. don’t worry about the straight line, it will disappear. but it’s essential you click and hold your left mouse button to create the curve, if you just click once it will only create a straight line.
this will create the first half of your cup, for the next side, click and hold from where you ended off with the first curve, move your mouse straight another 10 units, click and move your mouse up, the next curve will be created. for the inner rim, i found you need to make your starting point from the middle out to the edge, 2 blocks rows (units) down from the top, in order to get the curve to go in the right direction.
i hope this doesn’t sound too complicated. my problem now is that when i try to eliminate and fill the cup the colour overflows on the top. anyone know how to fix this?
Nice tutorial! I’ve been doing Graphic Design for a little over a year now and I don’t have InkScape, but I work a lot with Illustrator and it was so easy to create this with Illustrator! I love the outcome! (Mine has red stripes!) And it was so simple to follow. Thanks!
Personally, even though I have Illustrator I still love inkscape.
Thanks a million! I’m just getting started on inkscape and it was great to have a really straight-forward tutorial to learn from. Thanks!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I actually made a pretty decent cup! More inkscape tutorials please!
Thank you much. I’m new to Inkscape and need all the tutorials I can find. Never would have thought this was how to create a cup. Nice job, and I hope you keep ‘em coming!
The only thing I couldn’t follow well was to get my gradient handles to line up like yours did, I added the stops, but my gradient appears reversed, and I can only get one line horizontally and not vertically, it still looks great.
thanks again,
dee
dee
I think your problem with the gradient may have been from you choosing a linear gradient instead of a radial gradient. Look in the fill tab and select the 4th option- radial gradient as opposed to the 3rd option -linear gradient. Then you should have 2 gradient handles.
PS Peter – thanks for a great tutorial!
Thank you for taking the time for doing this. Much appreciated!
I already use inkscape for some 1,5 years.
I made a good quality 2 pages leaflet with it and also several business cards (for me and for my family).
Doing this tutorial I learned some more tricks and procedures to use in my future projects. In fact with the inkscape tutorials I am learnig how to deal with bezier curves which I can than apply to 3D software such as Blender (by the way also a free software).
I tried to do that as beginner.
Really I began this program with this.
Good explanations here..
But I cant do some parts ^^
Well done btw^^
Thanks for this tutorial :) I’ma make my own coffee cup now XD I was wondering also if you know where I can find an Inkscape tutorial on making a shot glass
Thanks, that was a well-written tutorial! It even taught me how to use Bezier curves, which drive me crazy but now I sort of like them.
this is great. ive been searching for simple inkscape tutorials.. im a new beginner.
it s been frustrating…
Thanks heaps! Was very helpful to me seeing as I am just a beginner, but unfortunately half way through my computer froze and I had to shut Inkscape without saving :( Could not be bothered starting again. But was nice and easy to follow form where I got up to :)
Would there be any other pictures you would be able to do a tutorial like this to? Thanks
I love these open source tuts, Please make more !
I’ve been looking at ways to get into vector art. This tutorial was just the ticket! I can’t believe Inkscape is free — it’s perfect to experiment with.
I noticed someone had some trouble w/ the steps involving the Path Intersect and Path Difference commands. I couldn’t get those to work at all. When I select both the inner rim and the coffee using shift + click, then try and do the path intersection ctrl + *, nothing happens. Other than that, I’ve learned a whole lot and my cup’s looking good…any pointers on what I could be doing wrong?
Great and easy to follow – I did it in illustrator and I was wondering if illustrator has the option of gradient handles?
I jus started using inkscape to convert my photo to cartoon, but now i see lot
of possiblities in this app, thanx (Ted Gould, Bryce Harrington, Nathan Hurst
MenTaLguY) Developers.
Very helpful, exactly what I was looking for as a user who has dabbled for an hour or so and wanting to try some more features of inkscape.
Amazing! Great Tutorial!
Very nice tutoria! Thank you very much for your work!! :)
Awesome work! THNX!
Very nice! I have to learn Inkscape for some logo work I’m doing for a class, and this tutorial was very helpful in introducing things like Bezier curves and gradients. The product is quite classy (although the handle doesn’t look as realistic as the rest of it does) and it’s a great introduction to Inkscape’s basic functions.
i cant make the reflection on the side :(
i came here thank you !!! super man !!! :) keep it up
Where might I find some very basic tutorials that teach how to use each of the tools? Every tutorial I find seems to assume the user knows how to identify and use each of the tools.
There’s an Inkscape Quick Tip you can read, it’s a nice introduction to making decorative elements – http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/quick-tip-make-eye-catching-designs-with-inkscape/
Benjamin, if you need a good tutorial on using the tools, I recommend http://en.flossmanuals.net/Inkscape
This is great! I’m a total beginner and this has really helped me get used to Inkscape. I was almost finished when my computer crashed but I am going to start again and see if I can do it without the tutorial :) x
Okay so I finally read the article! I’ve been here more than 10 times since 2009 – if not earlier, but I finally did something about it! So I didn’t want to do the exact same thing, I like to do stuff my way. That’s why I got the concepts from this howto and did my own! :P
Though I’m embarrassed to show it, it’s too girly; I have no plans to upload it to dA even! XS
http://i.imgur.com/o4Kpg.png
My made-upexcuse: I’m sending it to my sister.
I like it – it’s not too girly ;)