Learning Inkscape - An Order of the Stick Avatar Guide

Giving your avatar props

Often you'll want some props to go with your avatar. Things like weapons, shields and so on help define your character. These are made just like the clothes; make basic shapes and sculpt them into the objects you want.

For things like weapons, you're almost bound to find something in the OotS archives that looks like what you need. For some items you might need to get creative, but you should be able to compare it with other items in the OotS world and see that they fit in. Drop the item over the top of a OotS comic and see if it looks like it could have been there in the panel.

For my avatar, I'll give her a flintlock pistol as it looks like it would suit her personality. Plus there's one in OotS #235; I've needed to grab a copy of that for the Roy/Roylette comparison; so I've already got a reference. I'll load this comic into the concept layer of my Inkscape file and start making the gun.

A sample gun I can use as a reference

The method for making the gun is just the same as for the costume. First make some basic shapes for the gun barrel and stock, converting them to paths.

Then sculpt the nodes so they look like the object in question. In this case, I can use the pistol as a reference for the node positions:

Then I can use the pen tool to create two curves for the finger guard and trigger:

Group them all together and we're done making the gun!

The next step is to check whether the weapon actually works with our avatar. I'll move the gun over to her and get her to grip the gun. Gripping things in OotS with one hand is done simply by putting the hand over the item in question. (A two handed grip is a bit more complicated: look at a few examples of Roy wielding his greatsword or greatclub to see how to position the other hand).

You don't need to worry too much about positioning the fingers: look at the dwarf in the gun example as a reference. I'm not sure how he can fire that pistol with those fingers!