Have you played with Freehand, Illustrator or CorelDraw before? If you have, Inkscape will not be alien to you. Basically it is a powerful vector graphic program that is SVG compliant. It can be downloaded for free from its official website www.inkscape.org

Despite its graphic design slant, Inkscape is actually flexible enough for creating product illustration. People in the industrial and product design may find it of use. However, I must frankly say that it is not in the league of the commercial tools yet... but it is getting closer.

In the tutorial below, we will demonstrate a typical process if generating 2D product concepts illustrations using only Inkscape, The process is also applicable with other 2D vector graphics program.

1.Basically, for this simple tutorial we will create renderings using the existing shapes within Inkscape. To create the product (a simple mobile phone) body, I use the rectangle tool . To get the corners rounded, select the created rectangle, then use control handles to give radius to the corners.

2. Now, we apply a gradient fill to the rectangle object. Click Fill and Stroke. In the Fill column, fill the form with Linear Gradient (see screenshot below).

2a. Under Fill > Linear Gradient, click on Edit to open the Gradient editor. We are going to edit the gradient colour and take away the default transparency.  Click on Add stop, select white on the colour wheel. On the Offset bar, set the value to 1.00. Also, set the Value of A (transparency) to 255. This will make the white portion opaque.

3.Point to take note: In order to create a fairly believeable image, we have to determine the direction of the light source. In this example here , we will assume that the light is coming from the left side.

4.Add another rectangle . This will be the basic form for the screen of the mobile phone.

5. Here comes the interesting part... Select the screen object, add radius to the corner using control handles again. Next, click Fill and Stroke. In the Fill column, fill the form with an opaque color.

6. Next, click the Stroke paint column. See screenshot on the left >>> Click on Linear Gradient. We are going to give an area of highlight to the edge of the screen. To edit the colours, click on Edit, and adjust the parameters accordingly (see screenshot below) Next, click the Stroke Style column. In the Width Parameter, set the desired width of the highlight.

Drag the handle of the gradient control to achieve the desired effect and gradient spread.

7.Next we will need to make different objects using the same technique. See the diagram on the right >>> Note: for illustrative purposes, the three objects that made up the screen are staggered for easy viewing.>>>

8. If done correctly, the assembled screen should look like something on the right >>>

9. We are now going to divide the cellphone's body into a top and a cover. Create a Oval . Select both phone body and oval. We do this by selecting one object first, press shift and select the other. Select from the menu..Path >> Division See screenshot below. If done correctly, the cell phone body should now be divided onto 2 parts. See diagram on the right >>>

10. Next we create an oval-shaped detail on the cover. For this, we can use the same technique as described in part 7. Note: for illustrative purposes, the 2 objects that made up the detail are staggered for easy viewing. Use Radial gradient on Fill and Stroke to achieve the highlight.

11.To complete the illustration, we will add an antenae, a speaker hole and a drop shadow. Point to note:  Use Object>>> Raise or Lower to re-arranged the objects The speaker hole is formed using the spiral tool. That's it, the simple cell phone rendering or illustration is completed. Have fun playing with Inkscape.

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