Bat

Bat-creature, created with Inkscape

I must admit that I have my difficulties with the gradient tool in Inkscape. But I somehow forgot that there is a tool in Inkscape called "Gradient Mesh" which - in my humble opinion - makes it far easier to create gradient effects. Fortunately there are a number of videos on YouTube which explain how Gradient Mesh works, and after having watched some of them I am kind of hooked on that tool.

The bat above is still work in progress - there are a few things which have to be worked on still.