PixelGlow

+1 - Definitely a useful feature!

I'd love to move away from Adobe Photoshop and use Affinity Photo for all my painting, but I just need one feature to make the switch, Affinity needs to let users Clip a layer to a group. I've made a video showing off the feature, examples of using it, and why it's a must have, please check out the video and consider supporting this feature!
 
- Neil

The new warping options in AD2 are great but doesn't work with bitmap images (no matter if single images, images in groups or converted images into curves).
Feature request: add image support for warp! 🙂

@Andrew Buckle thanks for your post, the general lagginess and delay is due to something macOS Monterey has introduced that impacts the way we load certain UI elements. Do you have the Channels panel visible in the bottom right? If so, try switching to another panel such as Navigator and you should find that some of the hitching and lagginess disappears. Unfortunately, startup time will be impacted, and opening certain dialogs (e.g. Crop Tool presets, Fill and Stroke colour dialogs, macro libraries) will have a delay.
We are trying to work towards a resolution by communicating this with Apple—apologies that we don't have more news at this point.

Untamed
Untamed: 'When Animals Ruled the world' Challenge contribution
Could not participate directly in this challenge as it directly conflicted with Inktober but done one anyway....
Original size:1000mm x 500mm Raster 300dpi (not submission size)
upload 2362 x 1181 px

My favourite as a kid with its art deco looks and having the speed record of 126mph. Back then I didn't realise it was one of a quite a few class A4's. Designed by Nigel Gresley and built in 1938 by London & North Eastern Railway in Doncaster.
I'll likely shrink it down a bit so there's more sky above the funnel but have left it like that for now so it's easier to work on and see the details.
The outline's without the background otherwise it looks even more of a mess.

For a change I started the background. Still more to do on the car though. Mirrors and a bit of grime and highlights

I was recently commissioned to create a set of illustrations to go on construction hoardings around the Euston Station (London) area. I picked Affinity Designer as my weapon of choice, and the results can be seen if you take a wander around the district.
The one small production bummer was that the agency doing the artwork insisted on AI files so I have to convert them all before sending them out. Even despite that I would still have used Affinity for these as it's just a much nicer illustration tool than Adobe. I think these would have taken me twice as long in Illustrator, and given me a migraine along the way.

As an avid fan of Formula 1 racing, I practically grew up listening to the great man's commentary alongside his hilarious Murray'isms   "Unless I'm very much mistaken... and yes I am very much mistaken," "And now excuse me while I interrupt myself" "The first four cars are both on the same tyres" "Tambay's hopes, which were absolutely nil before, are absolutely zero now" "I imagine that the conditions in those cars today are totally unimaginable" "With half the race gone, there is half the race still to go".   Including this TV commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93igduisgzY   Over the intervening months since his passing earlier in the year, I've been off and on developing this drawing in AD as a personal tribute.
EDIT:
Please take note that the elaborate Rothman's badge either side of the front wing and back of the foreground figure, is free stock vectorized content. It's inclusion is simply due too the intricate calligraphy that I was unable to replicate accurately although all remaining elements of the drawing is my work. 

Further development carbon fibre is a pain in the a..
Got the wheel arch vents, hood latches, the lighting detraction from the light lenses done and a little more detail on the spoiler.

07 Fan
Original: 500mm x 500mm 300dpi Raster
Upload: 1772 x 1772 px

04 Knot
Original: 500mm x 500mm 300dpi Raster
Upload: 1772 x 1772 px

My second piece to celebrate the Mexican “Dia de Los Muertos” (Day of the Dead) festival is called “La Danza Azteca”, and is intended to reflect the Aztec origins of the festival, and the troops of dancers known as “Concheros” who dance in public spaces throughout Mexico to honour the traditions and rituals of their pre-hispanic culture. 
My Conchero wears a headdress depicting Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain, water, and fertility, and a necklace bearing the image of Mictlantecuhtli, the God of the Dead and ruler of Mictlan, the Aztec underworld.
As usual, I’ve included some detail shots and the original concept sketch, if you’re interested.
If you like what you see, please also check out my earlier Day of the Dead post “La Calavera Catrina”. 

New vector work – Dia de Los Muertos I: La Calavera Catrina
Today the famous “Day of the Dead” festival begins in Mexico. Definitely NOT to be confused with Halloween, the Day of the Dead is a three-day riotous explosion of colour and joy, where people all across Mexico honour and remember their loved ones and keep their memories alive. This spectacular festival is something I’ve been fascinated with for years, and seeing it first-hand one day is definitely on the bucket list!
I’ve created two pieces to celebrate this festival, and my first one “La Calavera Catrina” (The Elegant Skull) is based on the traditional female costume for the Day of the Dead.
La Catrina is known as the “Grand Dame” of the afterlife. She wears marigolds in her hair - believed to lure the dead back to the world of the living for the duration of the festival through their powerful scent and vibrant colour - and a collection of skulls representing the souls of the departed. She also wears the Sacred Heart crown, to represent the fact that the festival takes place across All Saints Day and All Souls Day – two minor holidays in the Catholic calendar, the quetzal feathers represent her native Mexican heritage, and the roses are an obvious nod to Frida Kahlo.
I’ve also added some detail shots, the outline, and the original concept sketch. Hope you like them!
I’ll be posting my second piece, La Danza Azteca, separately, so if you like what you see - keep a look out!

Nothing to say, it is what it is.

More 'Realism' from me again and yes... more 'fluid' and glass, just plain old water in this instance. It's 100% vector..... not even a vector brush used even though I was tempted to use some here and there. Looks a little darker in places than I had wanted compared to the reference image but 'hey ho' I think without the comparison 'it ain't too bad'. As always C & C is welcome 2021-09-01 21-44-30.mp4

Even though it's a bit inconvenient, I also use Photo in parallel to make my distortions. If you use the live filters and then return to Designer via the editing path, the vector graphics remain and you can even use the perspective filter again in Designer without having to switch back to Photo. I have tried this several times now and it works.
But unfortunately, the graphics are later converted to bitmaps when they are output. Unfortunately, that is not so nice.
I'm curious whether the perspectives and distortion tools will be added to Designer in the next major update.

Desktop_2021_02.06_-_22_12_01_01.mp4

Hi folks!
It's time to update this thing... 
The same set, suitable for cartoonists, character designers and comic artists.



Now it is composed of:

4 layout tools
1 standard pencil and 3 layout pencils embedding typical colors like blue, red and green (you don't need to choose it from color picker).
Now with tilt for shading effect!

8 Inkers
G pens, trapezoid shaped and Sumi-e variants!
All these tools are sensitive to pen pressure and tilt.
Hope you'll enjoy it!
Grab it here!
 
PS. The old one is still here
 
 
DAUB_Comics Basic Set.zip

German 88mm Flak 18 AA/AT Gun "Bärbel" of WW2.
Pretty successful against British and Australian Armour in the Desert Campaign.
Moi3D Model rendered in Mamoset Toolbag and heavily weathered in Affinity Photo.  

 

So as said, I recorded another process video where I use heavily both Designer and Photo - I'd say it is an accurate representation of how I switch from one to the other.
This is a bit longer and labourious, and recently I've been going for quicker ways to do things, but in principle there are still quite a few things that I have worked in my workflow. 
For this one I haven't added detailed comments or explanations, but if you have any questions or doubts please feel free to ask either here or in the comments section on You Tube and I'll do my best to help out. 
thanks for watching as usual
 

and here are the last two from the series, 
thanks again for watching. Next one coming up will be another process video where I definitely mix Designer and Photo, just need to stitch it together and do a bit of editing!
 
 

Thanks MEB, always glad to, and hoping to share another process video soon in case someone might find it useful. 
In the meantime, here's another two from the Tokyo Vampire Hotel series of studies. (yes, the are references to Tarantino, just in case  you were wondering)
Thank you for looking as always! 

Thank you @dannyg9 and an excellent question about 'line between obsession and madness' and I think as long as you can stay on the obsessive side of that line your ok, incidentally I'm quite obsessive and totally mad. I'm not sure what would count as madness in doing realistic vector work, I know a friend once said "if you want to be that realistic just get your camera out." My reply to that is "I could but that's the same as saying to a mountaineer if you want to get to the top use a helicopter". As to methodology all I can say is I try to incorporate as much detail as possible and regularly zoom in and out to make sure what I have put down makes a difference, if not I'll remove it or change it. I usually spend around an hour studying a reference pic before I start to draw planning what I am going to do, the hierarchy of layers and roughly how much detail I think needs to go in. I will also at that point work out how I am going to achieve various textures and highlights/shadows. To give you an idea of what I consider essential detail I have include two pics of a Fountain pen I did a while ago. I did it Inkscape before I found the joys of working with Affinity (I am sure If I was to repeat this project I would save a lot of time doing it in Affinity over Inkscape and I would make a better job of it) You can see in the close up pic (450% zoom) the detail of the lettering on the pen nib is merely a bunch of rough shapes but that it really matters in the final 1 to 1  vector. On saying all of that, I now try to always remember something a good friend and the brilliant artist @IsabelAracama put in a tutorial I did a while ago "draw what you see in the reference image and not what you know is actually there in reality". As to when the decision is made when a piece is done..... I put my work side by side with the reference image to see how close the match is and then post it in an FB group to see what response I get but, I very often go back to a piece of work days, weeks, even months after and make the odd alteration. You say that the possibilities of vector work is "both enticing and overwhelming" and to that I would say I envy your traditional art skills (I have none) but certainly give vector work a bash; nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

So, another realistic one from me (this time non-alcoholic) 😀 I've included the outline view and the reference image used for comparison. It's not the best I've done but not the worst either and once again a little more knowledge gained as it's the first time I think I've done a Plastic bottle.   About a Gazillion layers and 10 Gazillion objects in this one but it was fun to do. Its all vector done in AD with the exception of a few vector brushes for texture (I never refer to Vector Brushes as pure vector).    

Brush link
gumroad.com/l/nsCEh