Shmoggo

The old frankfurter finally gets to shine its glory in this tutorial. We’ll be drawing a hot dog, a bun, and possibly some sort of condiments!

1. Drawing a Hot Dog

Step 1

Achieving the signature sausage shape is easy - just use the Rectangle tool to draw a thin rectangle, but then drag the circle node to round the ends all the way.

Step 2

To start some shading, grab the Pen tool to draw a white line and a black line like I have below. We’ll be blurring these to create proper shading.

Step 3

Use the Fill and Stroke panel to Blur the lines at about 9%.

Step 4

Since the blurred lines now bleed over the hot dog, we’ll need to do some clipping to clean up the edges. To do this, duplicate the original hot dog shape (this will be our new main shape). Next, Object > Group the white and black lines together, then Object > Lower to Bottom that group so that it’s behind the hot dog. Finally, select the original hot dog along with the group of lines and do Object > Clip > Set. Whew!

Step 5

We’re not done yet, though. What you should end up with is a perfectly hot dog shaped shading object. We need to place this over the new hot dog shape now.

Step 6

Using Align and Distribute, we can easily center the shading object over the hot dog.

2. Split Ends for the Hot Dog

Step 1

You know those split ends where they cut the hot dog off the line? That’s what we’ll be adding next. Grab the Polygon tool and set it to Star mode. Then, set the settings to what I have below and draw yourself a pointy star.

Step 2

Duplicate another hot dog shape and position the star at the end of it like I have below. Now, select the star and the hot dog and use Path > Intersection to get your shape.

Step 3

You can also just duplicate another one and flip it horizontally.

Step 4

Again, use Align and Distribute to perfectly position the split ends on both sides of the hot dog. There we go, one hot dog!

3. Gotta Have a Bun!

Step 1

For the bun, we’ll draw it the same way as the hot dog. Use the Rectangle tool and round the corners completely.

Step 2

In fact, we’ll even do the shading the same way. Two lines, blur, clip, etc.

Step 3

I wanted to add a little bread texture also, so I duplicated the original bun shape, and went up to Filters > Overlays > Canvas Transparency. We can place this texture over the actual bun (using Align and Distribute, of course).

Step 4

Below, you’ll see the texture overlay on the bun. Looks pretty good so far!

Step 5

But we still have the other half of the bun to do, which will be an internal view instead. I’ve used the same shape as before, but made it a lot lighter in color.

Step 6

I wanted to give it a crust border, so I went to Filters > Shadows and Glows > Drop Shadow. I set my settings as I have them below and changed the Blur color the my previous bun color.

Step 7

I also did the same texture overlay.

Step 8

Now we just need to position our buns.

4. What About the Mustard?

You’re right. We’ve got to do at least one topping. I’ve chosen to use my hand crafted, custom Ketchup filter to create this neat mustard topping. Looks great!

Well, Hot Dog!

This tutorial is part of 5 Easy Holiday Drawing Tutorials Using Inkscape

What a fun tutorial this was, especially if you’re a fan of hot dogs. We ended up using a lot of Inkscape’s tools and features to create this nice looking hot dog vector. Thanks for reading!