How to make blur in Inkscape

Question

I am learning Inkscape and vector graphics in general. What I am trying to draw is a simple person for my adventure game. This is what I have done:
* basic contours - no problems, path editing is quite intuitive in Inkscape,
* basic colors - I was little bit suprised, that I cannot simple fill the areas, but I get it now.

The main problems are the shadows and the highlights. How can I get such smooth shading like in http://www.scalablegfx.com/svg/girl-sitting-on-floor? Is there some way to make the gaussian blur, or something similar? Is there some menu item I have missed?

I have tried to simulate it by gradients, but the effect is not what I want to achieve. Even when I make several layers of gradients, it is not the same.

Thx in advance,
Sylvia

Answer 1

You are probably looking for "feather". Try:

Filters > ABCs > Feather.

Answer 2

With any object, you can go to the 'Fill and Stroke' panel and modify the 'Blur' parameter. It's just over the 'Opacity'. It blurs all the object with a gaussian function.

I'm using 0.91.

Hope it helps.