Alternatives to Illustrator

Can anyone suggest any alternatives to Adobe Illustrator for creating vector artwork?

I'm thinking something as easy to use as Balsamiq Mockups , for drawing characters and other objects in my simple games for kids.

I want to create prototype games with artwork that is 'sketchy' -- the way I would draw it on pen and paper.

I'm not a graphic designer but I can sketch like most people. If one of the prototypes has potential, I can always request 'real' artwork from a professional.

I can use Photoshop but I don't think it's a drawing tool and I've just never found Illustrator intuitive.

Any suggestions?

'Can anyone suggest any alternatives to Adobe Illustrator for creating vector artwork?'

You could try SVG-Editor....its ok for basic vector work and it's free.

Heres a link to website-

website

I created a C2 project that includes a version you can test here-

C2 Test

good look

InkScape (tutorials available on the excellent 2D game art for programmers)

Also topic moved, it's not directly related to C2.

Thanks for the tips guys!

chrisbrobs - SVGedit looks most like what I'm looking for, but actually I found your C2 version way more intituive to use than the original.

I'm really confused though -- is your C2 version a duplicate of SVG done using C2? Please forgive the dumb question, I'm a relative newbie and definitely not a developer...

I used Podes-Iframe plugin to embed the SVG application into my C2 aplication.

Here's a link to the tutorial I used-

Tutorial

You can find the plugin in the plugin section on these forums.

Are you on mac or pc? Theres quite a few for mac.

Another vote for Inkscape. Also, maybe Creative Docs creativedocs.net

Heres an interesting one that someone linked a while back Picroma Plasma

Hey thanks for all the good suggestions guys.

I'm a PC user (someone has to be!) so that limits me unfortunately :(

Out of all of these, I'm still leaning towards SVGedit because it seems to have the lowest learning curve. That is what I want!

I second Picroma Plasma. That's way more intuitive than SVGEdit IMO.

Picroma Plasma seems like a really useful tool ... but my personal requirements are for a tool that matches my simple pen and paper sketching behaviour. I just want to produce simple sketch art, nothing fancy.

I may be wrong but Picroma Plasma, and a lot of vector applications, seem to involve creating 'guide lines', then tugging at handles, etc.

To me, this is not like sketching with a pen and paper.

I think there is a gap in the market for this type of simple application, just as there was a gap for wireframing applications a few years ago. In the meantime, SVG editor looks decent.

Ah right. Yeah you're correct, it's mostly tugging away at handles to create a shape.

Although, you can create sketchy style stuff easily but not sure if it's what you're after.

Open Plasma

Press H (hotkey for Freehand draw mode)

In the Mesh tool palette click on the icon that's like a backwards S (next to the cube icon - this sets the stroke to open stroke mode)

And if drawing with a tablet, enable pressure width (top part of the main tool palette - where you set the stroke width - icon looks like a pen on a tablet)