iconoclast

Hi Wayne! I'm not sure if there is an easier way, but it works if you have each of the larger letters (with the gradients) as single layers (to keep their individual gradients). Then you need a copy of the background text for each of the big letters. Simply nest one of this copies to each of the big letters by dragging it to the right area of the layer of the big letter (so not to the thumb nail, but to the area with the layer name).

I use Inkscape for that and import the Spiral into Designer or Publisher as SVG, if I need it. Inkscape's Spiral Tool is pretty nice and allows logarithmic spirals too. But it would of course be nice if Designer would have such a tool too.

I was very active in drawing Comics in my analogue days (until about 10 years ago), but haven't created anything like that since I'm painting on my PC, I must confess. But I think, as I am more interested in Graphic Novels that don't have a standard grid, but a flexible page layout, I would not work with Artboards for the panels. I think, I would drag a white rectangle over each page - the whole page. Then I would create shapes (not imperative rectangles) for each panel and place them where they belong on each page. After that I would add them to each other, all together (Boolean), so that they become only one layer, and then subtract them from the white rectangle (which of course also can be black or a different color, if you like). After that you should have a sort of passe-partout as a grid, that covers the spaces between the panels. Think of, that you can easily manipulate the grid by dragging the nodes (and it's handles) of the passe-partout. I think this is the easiest and most intuitive way. In general, it is helpful to create sketches first, to find your page layout and what shall be on the single panels. Possibly analogue, if that works better for you. Then you can scan that sketches and use them as a kind of template.

Kann sein. Man kann dieses Willkommensfenster aber auch in den Einstellungen ausschalten, glaube ich. Dann hätte man eh immer nur ein Icon. Wollte das nur als mögliche Quelle für einen Irrtum ausschließen.

Wahrscheinlich ist es nicht das was Du meinst, aber beim Laden des Programms erscheinen kurzzeitig zwei Icons (zumindest ist das bei mir unter Windows so) - das eine für das Programm, das andere für das Begrüßungsfensterchen. Das ist normal. Wenn das Programm beim Laden hängenbleiben würde, würden vermutlich auch beide Icons hängenbleiben. Wenn aber das GUI nur einmal da ist, dann ist auch das Programm nur einmal geöffnet. Aufschluss darüber könnte vielleicht auch der Taskmanager geben. Nur um hier einen möglichen Irrtum auszuschließen.

If you want to do this with Designer, I would create the grid first on the top layer or as a group on top. Because every single stroke/shape/curve you draw will create a new layer, I would create a group for the drawings and draw everything inside this group. Place this group below the layer/group with the grid. In Photo, simply create two layers. Add your grid to the top layer. Then click on the bottom layer and draw/paint on that layer.

You could also try "View" > "Grid and Axis". Choose "Advanced", "Grid Type": "Two axis custom". Then "Fixed aspect ratio". Now you can change the "Spacing" of the two axes separately.

Very interesting. Thanks for the hint!

In addition to what I said above - to prevent confusion and frustration - you should know, that the pressure sensitivity can easily be switched on and off in Photo and Designer. In Photo it is a small button, in Designer a small menu in the context bar, at the top of the GUI. Usually both are switched off after you start the apps.

OK, but nice anyway.

Yes, of course the Affinity apps support pressure sensitive graphic tablets.

Not easy to depict with my rudimental english. I had something like in Apophysis, Wonderland or Mandelbulber in mind, where you can even change the forms of the fractals fluently with several settings. I'm not an expert in fractals and math, but as far as I know there are apps that are simply fractal explorers, that show certain fractal shapes (on my Linux-Laptop, I have e.G. installed Xaos, which is a fractal explorer), and you only can zoom in and out and change the colors. And there are fractal editors like Apophysis, Mandelbulber... The last ones are more useful, e.G. to create brushes and textures.

Very nice! Are there any opportunities to manipulate the shapes of the fractals?

Not implicitly. At least the pressure sensitivity is a feature that is not always supported, even not by all graphic apps. In some apps it must be activated first in the preferences of the apps. E.G. in GIMP and Inkscape. At least in the past. I'm not sure if you still needs to do it today. But it is easy to do anyway.

Sometimes the tablet distributors offer their tablets in combination with painting apps. E.G. some Wacom tablets come with a version of ArtRage. But you have to be careful, often those are only limited Demo-Versions of the software. A friend of mine purchased a Cintiq that came with a Demo-Version of Z-Brush, which is a very cool and expensive 2D- and 3D-Painting and Modelling-Software. My Cintiq didn't contain any painting software. Only the driver software to adjust the tablet. My old Wacom Bamboo came with some small apps for painting and vector graphic. But they were not really worth talking about..

Rebelle has this cool features to let watercolors drip and bleed. I would like to have something like that. To be honest, I always tried to prevent things like dripping and bleeding (or even visible brush strokes) in analogue painting, and it really drove me mad if my Airbrush sometimes suddenly spitted and created dirty spots on my paintings. But now that I paint digitally, I sometimes miss this dirty opportunities. It's of course not a problem to copy a spot to an image, and I already created some brushes especially for things like that, but it is not the same, because those spots somehow don't feel honest and I always have to change the brush to place aimed spots on the paintings. In my opinion, even digital painting should be as spontaneous, immediate and handmade as possible. E.G. HR Giger used this annoying deficiencies in analogue painting, like spitting Airbrushes, in a genius way as stylistic devices. One thing that still keeps me from giving Rebelle a try (there have been some acceptable special offers in the past) is that the additional content they offer (brushes, canvases...) are so expensive. It gives me the feeling of this goddamn In-App-Sales, that drive you into ruin. And it's not clear to me if you can create your own ones as easy as I use to do it for ArtRage, Affinity Photo and others. Flamepainter, Inspirit and Amberlight look interesting too. But I'm not sure if I would use them very often. By the way, have you ever tried Fractal Generators like Apophysis, Fractron9000, Wonderland or Mandelbulber? They are all free and open source, and I used them in the past to create brushes, canvases and background textures. GIMP has some Fractal Generators in it's "Render"-category too. Really useful to create content.

Maybe, I don't know Corel Painter. Will take a look at it. But it costs about 420 €, as far as I see, while ArtRage costs 40 € at the moment (normally 80 €). I had a CorelDraw Suite many years ago, and I liked it. But it crashed very often. And that is a thing I still often hear about Corel software. As I already said, it is very individual what people like to paint with and how. Even if different people e.G. like to paint with watercolors, they will not do it the same way. So maybe some people like the huge amount of watercolor brushes that e.G. Krita offers (even those that don't really look like watercolors), while I prefer to have one Watercolor brush that can be adjusted to all needs and almost acts like real watercolors do. By the way, Rebelle seems to be very good to. Haven't tested it yet, but it has some very cool features and creates very realistic painting looks. Unfortunately it is expensive too.

You can't test everything with every operating system and every hardware. Software like the apps from Affinity, Adobe and others are too complex to guarantee that there are no bugs in it. Sad but true.

I don't really know. Must be something that can be changed fluently while you are painting. Something in addition to the impact of the pressure sensitivity. I asked someone who tested it a long time ago, and he was not impressed by it. I'm thinking about buying one anyway, but it costs more than 100 €. My old analogue EFBE-Airbrush has double action, that means that you can drag the trigger back and press it down independently. One to manage the air flow, the other one to manage the amount of color emission. This in combination with the distance the airbrush has from the canvas allows you to modify the opacity and thickness of the stroke very subtle. One of these things must be the goal of the wheel. Possibly it is adjustable what you want to use it for. Don't know.

I don't really know, but I think so. As I said, the only tablets I worked with in my life were an Aiptek, a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch and my Wacom Cintiq 16. The last one is pretty cool. But of course, for more money you get even better tablets. Unfortunately painting is an expensive passion. What I can say is that my Cintiq works pretty good with ArtRage, Affinity Photo and Designer, Krita and GIMP. It also works with Inkscape, but that is not so attractive for me. You can even set different sensitivity presets for each app in the software of the Cintiq.

OK, maybe I didn't notice that point. Yes, that is important, ArtRage is not a tablet, it is software. As I said several posts ago, you need both for painting: a tablet and a good software. In my opinion ArtRage is the best painting app - but it needs a good tablet. And vice versa. Like your computer is nothing without an operating system.

Yes, of course it's software. I already said that, as far as I remember. But you will not be lucky with it if you use it with a mouse, because you will have no pressure sensitivity. And that will not make much sense.

Yes, surprising that I forgot to say, because it is my favorite tool in ArtRage, and I even was an analogue Airbrusher before I started digital painting. The Airbrush in ArtRage is pretty good. As far as I know, Wacom also offers a special Airbrush Stylus, with an Airbrush Wheel - whatever that means. Think it manages the emission of color. Can't say anything reliable about that. ArtRage is a little bit different to other apps. While most apps have e.G. different watercolor brushes for different watercolor effects, ArtRage has one Watercolor Brush, that can be modified with a lot of functions. You can save certain settings, if you like them and want to use them again, so that you get a list of presets, in a separate panel, if you want, that is somehow similar to the way other apps handle their brushes. But the way ArtRage handles brushes is much more sophisticated and handy. In case of the Airbrush, you can e.G. set the brush stroke stepless (0%-100%) from very smooth, clean and soft to grainy. One other important thing in ArtRage is, that you can create Stencils, that are similar to masks in analogue Airbrushing. You can store those stencils in a panel. Stencils are simply images with black and transparent areas. You can easily create them by yourself e.G. in AfPhoto or AfDesigner and export them as PNG, then import them in ArtRage and add them to the Stencil Panel. Stencils can be set to three different modes: the simple Mask Mode, a Guide Mode (the brush stroke will follow the edge of the stencil) and a Ruler Mode (the brush stroke will follow the edge of the stencil, but will be cut a the edge). But there are also normal Selection functions and a Quick Mask too. Another very helpful thing in ArtRage is the Toolbox, a separate file, where you can save all the brush presets, colors, stencils... you used in a certain project. So you can easily load them again, if you need it - even in other projects.

Yes, the Kiwis are cool. Was seriously thinking about emigrating to New Zealand some years ago. But I think I'm too old meanwhile, for an adventure like that.

Your painting should be finished, if this is what you mean. You can't load the painting into Designer while it is still in progress. You can not only link the unfinished work into a document in Designer and then simply update it from time to time. As far as I know, ArtRage's PTG-format isn't supported by any other software than ArtRage anyway. ArtRage is developed by a relative small company in New Zealand (Ambient Design), not really a global player, so the PTG-format has no big importance to the worldwide digital graphic business. Even it is great software.