Any Free Alternatives to Illustrator that work?

I'm looking for free alternatives to Adobe Illustrator so I don't have to shell out $700....any ideas?

 

Inkscape, Pencil and Skencil are some alternatives to Illustrator.

 

Inkscape is the most capable vector editor as an alternative to Illlustrator, and in many ways it's more advanced than Illustrator.

It also happens to be free, open-source and cross-platform, so you can use it for free on any computer.

It has less typesetting options than illustrator, but better pen tool and colour fill handling. And nice features like gradient strokes, RGBa and CMYKa colours, a simple realtime blur that can be edited later. Object Clones, on-canvas gradient editing.

There are SO many things that Inkscpe does that sometimes it's hard to do what you want in Illusrator after having used it. I bought Illustrator and use both professionally, and I've grown used to having both. I don't know if I could do as good work as I do if I only had illustrator only.

Get Inkscape at inkscape.org and follow some tutorials. You may not even need to buy Illustrator.

 

Thanks Innovati, will get right on Inkscape and see where it takes me.

 

I like Inkscape, it's free and fairly competent.
It doesn't do (although I believe that it's changing) separations very well, so limited for screenprint.

 

@Tom the corset maker: easy solution for that

either use GIMP or photoshop to create the separations, or else design the stuff on multiple layers if you're using flat colours that won't blend, and then save it layer by layer.