Make mirrored designs using Inkscape's Clone tool

Inkscape's cloning feature makes it easy for you to make mirrored designs. This way, what you draw on one half will be mirrored on the other half.

Here are the steps:

1. Create an initial design (I used Inkscape's Calligraphic Pen tool here), then select it:

2. Group the still selected object (CTRL+G) [Yes, you can have a group of 1 object in Inkscape]

3. Clone the selected group (ALT+D)

You now have two objects: a group and a clone of that group. If you haven't changed Inkscape's default duplicate settings, the clone will be on top of the original and you might think nothing happened. The clone would still be the one selected so you can flip the clone horizontally by using the 'Horizontal Flip' (H) button

The design will now look like this (clone still selected):

The design looks like a black ribbon here (omg, tuwad na daan). Just move the clone to the right (or left or up or down) using the arrow keys (or SHIFT+Arrow Keys). Here I moved the horizontally flipped clone to the right:

I can now go inside the original group (right click and select 'Enter group' from the menu) and continue making designs inside. Whatever I do (draw, delete, move, join, break apart, color, etc) inside the group will be done on the clone:

It looks like a face now. I can also flip the clone vertically (V) so the mirror image will be upside-down:

You can use this trick to make a quick-and-dirty ambigram:

Based on a design by Ex Maningo

Samples:

Baybayin "Nanay"

Baybayin "Gago"

Baybayin "ToMi"

Baybayin "Tuko"

If you set the original group's rotation point before cloning (by clicking the group two times (do not double click) until the rotation/skew controls show up and moving the center rotation crosshairs) . . .

. . . you can rotate several clones to make a radial design. (While the original object group is selected, do SHIFT+CTRL+M, go to 'Rotate' tab, set the rotation angle and then clone the group then click the 'Apply' button to rotate the clone, then duplicate the clone (CTRL+D) then rotate again until you get the desired number of clones:

I used this trick to move the points in the original stick figure group in the logo below so the negative spaces resembled the graduation mortarboard cap.

VSU Alumni Community Relations Office (ACRO) logo

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