Making a Repeating Chinese Pattern in Inkscape

Fabric pattern for visual storytelling

One of my favorite movies is "The Last Emperor" (1987), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. One of the reasons is the patterned and textured costume designs (by James Acheson) that, despite the relatively low costume budget (compared to that of a major Hollywood film), still makes me want to reach out to the screen and touch them, after 27 years.

The challenge was how to unify the different period costumes (many of which were antiques) in order to tell the story. The key was on the fabric patterns used.

One of those patterns is this Escher-like tiling:

This pattern is worn by persons of power in the Qing Dynasty scenes, as seen above, and on the shoulder cape of Dowager Empress Ci Xi (portrayed here with relish by Lisa Lu):

Aside from being a trim for caps and capes, this pattern even doubles as faux mountain pattern scale armor for the imperial guards, as seen in this picture from The Foxling blog:

A different pattern – a softer, curling flower (peony?) design is used on costumes of people who are not really powerful – as seen on the young Pu Yi, when he is handed over by his mother to the imperial guards:

Also on the young emperor's skull cap when he discovers he is no longer ruler:

Notice the cap he was wearing when he was proclaimed emperor (at age two) has the tiled pattern (little cap, little power):

This is the hand of design in story-telling. In The Foxling blog, the tiled pattern is called 'Indian' print – also called 'traditional' Chinese ornament in the Orname.net collection which, from the looks of it, may have been derived from basket weave. [It's also reminiscent of Mountain Pattern armor] I imagine the pattern as highly stylized dragon scales.

Here's how I made this pattern in Inkscape:

Step 1. Snap to points and nodes

Enable 'Snapping' and check the snapping sub-options below (raised/outlined ones are enabled):

Step 2. Create guide shapes
Click the 'Stars and Polygons' tool

Choose 'Regular polygon...'

To can make snapping more accurate, turn on 'Outline' view:

Then, while pressing CTRL to constrain the shape, create a hexagon with one of its sides as base (you might need to move your cursor around the shape's center while drawing to do this):

Select the hexagon and do ALT+D key combo to clone it. Place the clone on top of the original (the clone will automatically snap to the original hexagon's nodes so that their sides will be neatly aligned. While the clone is selected, duplicate it using CTRL+D and move it to either of the upper sloping sides so you get this:

select all three hexagons (by dragging your cursor around them or holding SHIFT and clicking on them one by one) and group them by doing CTRL+G. Now clone the group (ALT+D), and flip it using this tool:

If you view the drawing in 'Normal' view, you'll see something like this: 

This shows that the original hexagon was slightly transparent, for better tracing. The fill color, outline/stroke, and transparency can be adjusted with the 'Fill and Stroke' tool (CTRL+SHIFT+F):

(Notice the are two ways of adjusting the transparency: through the 'Alpha (opacity)' slider and the general 'Opacity' slider. The Alpha opacity slider changes the opacity of either the fill or stroke, depending on what tab you're on. The general opacity slider changes the opacity of both the fill and stroke at the same time.)

Now move the clone so that its 'center' is aligned with that of the original:

You can group the two. We will use it as a drawing guide.

Step 3. Draw along the guides

Use the Pen (Bezier) tool to draw:

With the pen tool, trace on top of our guide like this (your pen cursor will snap to the guide's points; I have outlined the new shapes in green, but lines being drawn are black by default so you might not see them at first):

Automatically close the outside shape by bringing the pen to the starting point of the shape  (if it is an open shape or line, you finish drawing by double-clicking when you make your last point) . I made the center lines as three individual lines but you can draw them as two: one with three points and the other with only two. Then select all the new shapes by pressing SHIFT and clicking on the new shapes. Group them (CTRL+G). (You may put away the guide shapes now.)

Adjust the outlines/strokes of the new group by right-clicking on the group, choosing 'Enter group' (usually last line of the menu that appears, selecting all the shapes (CTRL+A), and adjusting the width, join, and cap styles of the shapes in the Fill and Stroke tool >> Stroke style tab:

I chose the settings above (you can have your own) to get this:

Step 4. Clone the drawing

I went back to 'Outline' view (for better snapping), cloned the group (ALT+D), then duplicated and snapped the clones around the original group. This means you should have six clones arranged and snapped around the shape above:

Group these seven shapes (CTRL+G).

Step 5. Create a tile block

Now we will make a tile block based on this group. At first I tried creating a square tile block but it didn't work. I settled for a rectangular shape. Use the 'Rectangles and Squares' tool:

Then, still in 'Outline' view, drag and draw a rectangle across your grouped shapes like this:

You may need to use the rectangle's side handles to stretch or squish and snap the sides of the rectangle into place. You can even put the rectangle in the center of the grouped shapes like this:

Once the tile block is in place, use the object order tools to put the tile block behind the shape group:

I used the END icon to make sure the tile block is really at the bottom.

Step 6. Draw inside the tile block

Then, staying within the borders of the rectangular tile block (and under the 'Normal' view), I traced the final tile drawing like this:

Depending on how you positioned the tile block and how you styled the outlines, you might get variations on these:

Group the separate lines/shapes. These are your final tiles. Now you're ready to create repeating tiles.

Step 7. Create tiled clones with the final pattern

With the final tile group selected, get to the 'Edit' menu, select 'Clone' and click 'Create Tiled Clones...'

In the tool that appears, put in the number of rows and columns you want the repeating pattern to have. I just chose 3 rows by 3 columns here:

This step created clones arranged side-by-side. You may need to tweak the Shift settings when making tiled clones as newer Inkscape versions might not snap the tiles to nodes. Here's my settings:

Your original tile is beneath the first clone on the upper left. To select the original tile and move it out of the way, select one of the clones and do SHIFT+D. Use the SHIFT plus the keyboard directional arrows to move the original tile while it is under the clones.

You can use the original tile to change the style and color of the tiled pattern's outline if you want.

You can now select the tiled clones and group them. Notice there is no background. You can select and copy the group, create a different-colored rectangle and go to Edit > Paste Size > Paste Size to make the rectangle the same size as your tiled group:

Then use the order tool (or END key) to place the rectangle behind the tiled group, then do CTRL+SHIFT+A to open up the align buttons. Align the centers of the tiled group and rectangle together:

Now you have a rectangle with a tiled pattern.

Non-rectangular shape

If you want a non-rectangular shape to fill with this pattern, create a tiled group large enough so that your shape fits inside the tiled group.

Put the shape behind the tile group (using the object order buttons on the toolbar).

While the shape is selected, duplicate it using CTRL-D (or Right Click and Duplicate). This will put a copy of the shape on top of the tiled group. 

Select both the top shape and tiled group, right click on top and 'Set Clip'. You now have a clipped tile pattern and your original shape below. Here they are offset so you can see how the clipped tiled pattern sits on top of the shape (usually they are aligned together by default, unless you moved the top shape before clipping):

By rotating the original tile (use CTRL+SHIFT+M to pull up the transform tool), so that it points up or down, before making tiled clones, you can vary the pattern's tone or mood.

Creative use of pattern – as seen in The Last Emperor – makes a visual story richer and more unified.