I first tried Inkscape back in 2004 recently after it made it's first release. Within minuets I had figured out the interface and what all the tools did. To my point; it was (and still is) very user friendly.

It was my first time seeing the world of SVG and I didn't realize what cool stuff could be done with it. Over time I toyed with it and figuring out what all the path operations did and began learning a few of the tricks.

I started out just making small web graphics and icons. Several months ago I found out that it was also great for making mockups for website designs. Its tools almost seemed to be made for the job; from the text tool and the guidelines to the elegant color system.

And then I bought a waccom drawing tablet and guess what? Inkscape seemed to be made just for it! I've always had an interest in making comics - and Inkscape is perfect for it! (Especially with the upcoming version with flood fill) Everything just behaves like you would expect it to.

It's amazing that one piece of software can be used for so many things yet be so simple to use. But its "amazing" factor doesn't stop there, besides the awing speed that Inkscape is being developed and improved, it runs fast! All transformations are rendered instantly - period - and my computer isn't even all that fast. You get top quality rendering all the time. (ok, so it does get a little slow with a lot of blurring but you can't expect miracles)

Inkscape is one of the more amazing pieces of open source software I've used. Right up there with Blender and KDE. Heck, I like it far more than Adobe's Illustrator! I tried it out a month or two ago and it ran incredibly slow (it loaded very slow too), the interface was confusing and the drawing tool looked ugly. I know really neat stuff can be made with it but I don't want to have to read a 50 page manual to learn how to.

Anyway, Inkscape is a very impressive piece of software and definitely worth a look if you haven't already.