Craig Deeley

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from actual brushstrokes from the famed painter.

 

Usually I would not try to make strokes so literal. Nor would I borrow from such a famed source.

In that sense these strokes are a bit of a digression for me.

These are examples of brushes that use real strokes almost exactly. They carry the texture and variety of their source. Thick, skittering oil paint, and swashes of thinner oil run over uneven surfaces. 

 

I have become more and more a digital painter... but I love the texture of natural media. I find myself drawn to digital emulation of natural media. Or emulation perhaps of the texture of natural media - with a digital twist.

I have never deliberately tried to make a textured brush for such applications as Photoshop, Expression3, Synthetik Studio Artist or Affinity Designer - that looked exactly like a natural media brush stroke. 

The idea seems a little too in conflict with what makes digital art potentially its own (great) thing.

 

However. These are very nice, heavily textured oil paint strokes. Great for bold paint looks.

 

Enjoy.

CD_Monet_oilstrokes.afbrushes.zip

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from actual brushstrokes from the famed painter.

 

Usually I would not try to make strokes so literal. Nor would I borrow from such a famed source.

In that sense these strokes are a bit of a digression for me.

These are examples of brushes that use real strokes almost exactly. They carry the texture and variety of their source. Thick, skittering oil paint, and swashes of thinner oil run over uneven surfaces. 

 

I have become more and more a digital painter... but I love the texture of natural media. I find myself drawn to digital emulation of natural media. Or emulation perhaps of the texture of natural media - with a digital twist.

I have never deliberately tried to make a textured brush for such applications as Photoshop, Expression3, Synthetik Studio Artist or Affinity Designer - that looked exactly like a natural media brush stroke. 

The idea seems a little too in conflict with what makes digital art potentially its own (great) thing.

 

However. These are very nice, heavily textured oil paint strokes. Great for bold paint looks.

 

Enjoy.

CD_Monet_oilstrokes.afbrushes.zip

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from images of cloud formations.
 
There are just four brushes here, created as an experiment - in search of lovely textured brush strokes.
The attached image gives a nice demonstration of the look these offer.
 
Raising a toast to the New Year (2017), Affinity Designers developers (keep it up!) and fantastic community.
Thanks all!
 
 
 

CD_cloud_brushes.afbrushes.zip

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from actual brushstrokes from the famed painter.

 

Usually I would not try to make strokes so literal. Nor would I borrow from such a famed source.

In that sense these strokes are a bit of a digression for me.

These are examples of brushes that use real strokes almost exactly. They carry the texture and variety of their source. Thick, skittering oil paint, and swashes of thinner oil run over uneven surfaces. 

 

I have become more and more a digital painter... but I love the texture of natural media. I find myself drawn to digital emulation of natural media. Or emulation perhaps of the texture of natural media - with a digital twist.

I have never deliberately tried to make a textured brush for such applications as Photoshop, Expression3, Synthetik Studio Artist or Affinity Designer - that looked exactly like a natural media brush stroke. 

The idea seems a little too in conflict with what makes digital art potentially its own (great) thing.

 

However. These are very nice, heavily textured oil paint strokes. Great for bold paint looks.

 

Enjoy.

CD_Monet_oilstrokes.afbrushes.zip

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from actual brushstrokes from the famed painter.

 

Usually I would not try to make strokes so literal. Nor would I borrow from such a famed source.

In that sense these strokes are a bit of a digression for me.

These are examples of brushes that use real strokes almost exactly. They carry the texture and variety of their source. Thick, skittering oil paint, and swashes of thinner oil run over uneven surfaces. 

 

I have become more and more a digital painter... but I love the texture of natural media. I find myself drawn to digital emulation of natural media. Or emulation perhaps of the texture of natural media - with a digital twist.

I have never deliberately tried to make a textured brush for such applications as Photoshop, Expression3, Synthetik Studio Artist or Affinity Designer - that looked exactly like a natural media brush stroke. 

The idea seems a little too in conflict with what makes digital art potentially its own (great) thing.

 

However. These are very nice, heavily textured oil paint strokes. Great for bold paint looks.

 

Enjoy.

CD_Monet_oilstrokes.afbrushes.zip

After downloading the newest beta 1.7.0.3 I noticed that the Brush related UI hasn’t changed in several years and would like to suggest some productivity improvements.
This is my situation.
I am looking for a way to identify and switch to a brush quickly and easily from both the Brush menu(s) AND by means of clicking a brush stroke in an image.
I have at this point, hundreds (and hundreds) of custom brushes. The previews of these brushes are in some cases very similar. I need a faster way to identify a Brush that may be stored in any of a large number of collections without having to hunt for the brush thru trial and error.
My productivity problem: The sheer number of brushes I have makes searching for a specific brush from among many collections an extremely time-consuming task.
 
Here is my first suggestion:
Missing from the Brush palette is an easy way to spot a brush by name. Where the Brush palette shows a visual preview of the look of the brush and a size indication on the left, having the name of the brush appear in the palette would be far more helpful than the default size listed for quickly identifying a specific brush. See example:
http://i-toons.com//storage/adbr04.jpg
Being able to identify a brush in the Brush palette - by name - would make hunting for brushes in the Brush palette a little less time consuming
However...
My real desire would be the ability to do a fast switch to a Brush from a selection of the stroke that is already in a piece of art.
I may be missing something that may have been changed in the newest beta - but what I still find is this: If I click on a stroke applied to the "canvas" I do see an indicator of the brushes identity in the menus top left. 
See upper portion of this image:
http://i-toons.com//storage/adbr01.jpg
A small preview of the brush. Clicking on this brings up a nice editing shortcut - but…
This mini palette does not tell me what the brushes name is - nor does it give me an option to switch to the indicated brush
See image:
http://i-toons.com//storage/adbr02.jpg
If I click then click the Properties button in this mini menu I do get a more involved Brush Editing menu - But - this menu also does not have the brushes name. See image: 
http://i-toons.com//storage/adbr03.jpg
This is odd because the Brush Edit menu from the Brushes menu does have the name.  This editing menu seems to be a different version of the full Brush editing menu. See image:
http://i-toons.com//storage/adbr05.jpg
Nor is there any option to switch to the selected brush from this Edit menu.
 
Second suggestion:
What I would like to see would be a way (or tool) to select a Brush stroke already applied to the “canvas” and have the brush both identified (named in all Brush menus) and the brush tools attributes switch to those of the selected brush stroke. Select stroke. Brush (tool) changes to (inheruts) the selected stokes attributes. Be able to immediately draw with those attributes.
This fast switch would be a MAJOR productivity enhancement and time saver.
If this feature doesn't exist - I would dearly love to have it added. Either in the form of a new selection tool addition or as something similar to the functionality of the Freehand tool or arrow tool in the application Expression3/Microsoft Expression Design. In those versions of the application, click (tap) a brush stroke on the “canvas” with the Freehand Pen or arrow selection tool and the tools attributes immediately switch to the clicked objects attributes. 
 
An example of why this would be useful. 
If I have several brushes in use in a drawing and want to use one of the strokes in my drawing... Just clicking on the stroke would switch me to the Brush. The drawn stroke would double as a palette and the file could even double as a Brush category - saving tons of time that is presently lost hunting up a brush in the Brushes/brush collections menus.
 
 
Thanks
 
Craig
 

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from images of cloud formations.
 
There are just four brushes here, created as an experiment - in search of lovely textured brush strokes.
The attached image gives a nice demonstration of the look these offer.
 
Raising a toast to the New Year (2017), Affinity Designers developers (keep it up!) and fantastic community.
Thanks all!
 
 
 

CD_cloud_brushes.afbrushes.zip

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from actual brushstrokes from the famed painter.

 

Usually I would not try to make strokes so literal. Nor would I borrow from such a famed source.

In that sense these strokes are a bit of a digression for me.

These are examples of brushes that use real strokes almost exactly. They carry the texture and variety of their source. Thick, skittering oil paint, and swashes of thinner oil run over uneven surfaces. 

 

I have become more and more a digital painter... but I love the texture of natural media. I find myself drawn to digital emulation of natural media. Or emulation perhaps of the texture of natural media - with a digital twist.

I have never deliberately tried to make a textured brush for such applications as Photoshop, Expression3, Synthetik Studio Artist or Affinity Designer - that looked exactly like a natural media brush stroke. 

The idea seems a little too in conflict with what makes digital art potentially its own (great) thing.

 

However. These are very nice, heavily textured oil paint strokes. Great for bold paint looks.

 

Enjoy.

CD_Monet_oilstrokes.afbrushes.zip

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from images of cloud formations.
 
There are just four brushes here, created as an experiment - in search of lovely textured brush strokes.
The attached image gives a nice demonstration of the look these offer.
 
Raising a toast to the New Year (2017), Affinity Designers developers (keep it up!) and fantastic community.
Thanks all!
 
 
 

CD_cloud_brushes.afbrushes.zip

Mad scientists fun with Designer!
designs-that-might-have-been
 
Solid vector fills, effects, and one nice texture intensity brush.

Mad scientists fun with Designer!
designs-that-might-have-been
 
Solid vector fills, effects, and one nice texture intensity brush.

Mad scientists fun with Designer!
designs-that-might-have-been
 
Solid vector fills, effects, and one nice texture intensity brush.

Mad scientists fun with Designer!
designs-that-might-have-been
 
Solid vector fills, effects, and one nice texture intensity brush.

Mad scientists fun with Designer!
designs-that-might-have-been
 
Solid vector fills, effects, and one nice texture intensity brush.

This feels like it might be quite a bit of a dumb question. 
When drawing a shape/fill freehand - with the pencil tool - is there a key or key combo that can be held while drawing, that will close the path?
I am thinking of something like Illustrators pencil tool where holding the Option key (Mac) will close the path being drawn linking first and last node.
I haven’t dug deeply thru the forums yet. 
I did look in the Affinity help:
https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/CurvesShapes/about_linesAndShapes.html?title=About Lines and Shapes
I can’t seem to find what I am hoping exists.
Any guidance is much appreciated.

Happy 2020! If a little late.
I am posting some interesting experiments with Texture Intensity brushes for Affinity Designer:
http://i-toons.com/archive/CD_illustration_brushes2020.afbrushes.zip
These were exported from the 1.8.1 version.
This set has several focuses. 
1.
A fascination with Dave Coopers ink line where a stroke expands and shrinks (pressure) as it is drawn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj3BxL85UUE
2.
In the olden days of Creature House Expression 3 a feature that produced wonderful textured edges on fills was a favorite of mine for adding… wonderful textured edges to fills!
The “edge” was applied to a fill and mapped along the edge of the fill. E3 used a similar technique as ADs textured intensity brushes… The trick to make the edge texture was to have basically a half brush stroke. One edge flat. The rest feathered or textured out as desired. The flat edge mapped directly to the fills edge. There was a little extra voodoo with pixel color at the strokes edge as well…) AD doesn’t have this edge feature - but something like it can be sort of faked. ADs brushes map to fills in a different way - they sort of center the stroke halfway over the edge of a fill. To get a brush to “join” to the fill - I made a brush that mirrors itself - with a 100% dark center. The brush must also meet at its ends so it wraps horizontally as well. The mirrored version seems to blend nicely with a fill - and can wrap in either direction (reverse curves).
Some sample of how this looks are in the attached image. Sadly the stroke and fill don’t share the same “intensity” - if transparency is dropped… But the textured edge done this way can look ok.
Brushes that don’t mirror like this extend out from the fill but often show hard fill edges. 
A future AD feature in the making.
3.
I had been experimenting with hatch and dot pattern edges - looking for an illustration style I admired - and straying into a dot like airbrush look… See attached brushpower image. The hazy moon glow and sand dunes. 
AD has a lot going for it. The textured intensity brushes are the main reason I dig this software. The brush engine has a long way to go as I have mentioned in the past:
Affinity Designer Brush UI enhancement:
Affinity Designer brush-ui enhancement
Identify and switch Brush and Stroke attributes option/tool:
Switch brush
With a little more power in the brush features - this would be such a stellar tool!
Here's to 2020 and maybe making an illustrators wishes come true!
; )
If you happen to use any of these brushes. Post an example. I love to see how the brushes are used! Enjoy!
Craig
 
 

brunzenstein,  Sorry for any confusion about what those brushes are. Hope you like them and find them useful. I would love to see any AD art using the brushes I have shared.   Alfred,  
Thanks for stepping in there to clarify!   I am on a Mac (Macs) as well. It is very handy to know where some assets are stored.

Happy 2020! If a little late.
I am posting some interesting experiments with Texture Intensity brushes for Affinity Designer:
http://i-toons.com/archive/CD_illustration_brushes2020.afbrushes.zip
These were exported from the 1.8.1 version.
This set has several focuses. 
1.
A fascination with Dave Coopers ink line where a stroke expands and shrinks (pressure) as it is drawn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj3BxL85UUE
2.
In the olden days of Creature House Expression 3 a feature that produced wonderful textured edges on fills was a favorite of mine for adding… wonderful textured edges to fills!
The “edge” was applied to a fill and mapped along the edge of the fill. E3 used a similar technique as ADs textured intensity brushes… The trick to make the edge texture was to have basically a half brush stroke. One edge flat. The rest feathered or textured out as desired. The flat edge mapped directly to the fills edge. There was a little extra voodoo with pixel color at the strokes edge as well…) AD doesn’t have this edge feature - but something like it can be sort of faked. ADs brushes map to fills in a different way - they sort of center the stroke halfway over the edge of a fill. To get a brush to “join” to the fill - I made a brush that mirrors itself - with a 100% dark center. The brush must also meet at its ends so it wraps horizontally as well. The mirrored version seems to blend nicely with a fill - and can wrap in either direction (reverse curves).
Some sample of how this looks are in the attached image. Sadly the stroke and fill don’t share the same “intensity” - if transparency is dropped… But the textured edge done this way can look ok.
Brushes that don’t mirror like this extend out from the fill but often show hard fill edges. 
A future AD feature in the making.
3.
I had been experimenting with hatch and dot pattern edges - looking for an illustration style I admired - and straying into a dot like airbrush look… See attached brushpower image. The hazy moon glow and sand dunes. 
AD has a lot going for it. The textured intensity brushes are the main reason I dig this software. The brush engine has a long way to go as I have mentioned in the past:
Affinity Designer Brush UI enhancement:
Affinity Designer brush-ui enhancement
Identify and switch Brush and Stroke attributes option/tool:
Switch brush
With a little more power in the brush features - this would be such a stellar tool!
Here's to 2020 and maybe making an illustrators wishes come true!
; )
If you happen to use any of these brushes. Post an example. I love to see how the brushes are used! Enjoy!
Craig
 
 

This covers a question and a feature or two feature requests.
 
I am looking for a way to identify a stroke.
I am expecting to be able to find and switch to a particular stroke in a collection.
I am not sure if I am missing some simple trick for finding and switching to a stroke - from to tools palette or another (NOT Brushes) palette.
 
This is my situation.
I have at this point, hundreds of custom brushes in several collections. The previews of these are in some cases very similar. I need a fast way to identify a Brush used making art - that may be stored in any of a large number of collections without having to hunt for it thru trial and error.
My present problem: The sheer number of brushes I have makes searching for a specific brush from among many collections an extremely time consuming task.
 
Something that is missing from the Brush palette is a easy way to spot a brush by name.
In fact that would be a big request for a future feature. Where the Brush palette shows a visual preview and a size indication on the left. It would be super helpful to have the brush name included in the preview area.
See example:

 
The Brushes name would be built into the preview - not just a yellow context thing that only shows if hovering over the brush.
Personally - I find the size of the brush less important than its name. The size can change - the name is fixed and as such is a very fast identifier along with the brush image.
 
However...
My real issue is the need to do a fast switch to a Brush from a selection of the stroke that is already in a piece of art.
I may be missing something but what I have found is this: If I click on a stroke applied to the "canvas" I do see an indicator of the brushes identity in the menus top left. See upper portion of this image:

 
This is good. 
However.
This indicator does not tell me what the brushes name is - nor does it give me an option to select the same brush or switch to this brush.
If I click this indicator and then click the Properties button I do get the Brush Editing menu - But again - this menu does not have the brushes name (this is odd because the Brush Edit menu from the Brushes menu does have the name. What shows up in the Properties seems to be context driven) See image:

 
Nor is there an option to switch to this brush from the Edit menu.
 
 
What I would like to see (and this is a super useful feature) would be a way (or tool) to select a Brush stroke already applied to the canvas (where I am drawing) and have the brush both identified and the brush attributes switch to the selected brush - so that I can immediately draw with the selected brush the next time I use the brush tool and draw a stroke.
If this fewture exists already - I need help finding it!!
If this feature doesn't exist - I would dearly love to have it added. Either in the form of a new selection tool addition or as something similar to the functionality of the Freehand tool or arrow tool in the application Expression3/Microsoft Expression Design. In those versions of the application, click (tap) an object with the Freehand Pen or arrow selection tool and the tools attributes switch to the clicked objects attributes. 
 
An example of why this is useful. If I have several Brushes in use in the drawing I am creating and want to use the existing strokes in my drawing as a palette… Just clicking on one of the strokes will switch me to the Brush I want. The drawing doubles as a palette saving tons of time that would be lost hunting up a brush in the Brushes menu and brush collections menus.
 
I hope the user base can either help me find an existing tool or suggest a trick to achieve what I want - or I would like to suggest a new and vital feature/tool be added to make this possible.
 
Thanks
 
Craig

Happy 2020! If a little late.
I am posting some interesting experiments with Texture Intensity brushes for Affinity Designer:
http://i-toons.com/archive/CD_illustration_brushes2020.afbrushes.zip
These were exported from the 1.8.1 version.
This set has several focuses. 
1.
A fascination with Dave Coopers ink line where a stroke expands and shrinks (pressure) as it is drawn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj3BxL85UUE
2.
In the olden days of Creature House Expression 3 a feature that produced wonderful textured edges on fills was a favorite of mine for adding… wonderful textured edges to fills!
The “edge” was applied to a fill and mapped along the edge of the fill. E3 used a similar technique as ADs textured intensity brushes… The trick to make the edge texture was to have basically a half brush stroke. One edge flat. The rest feathered or textured out as desired. The flat edge mapped directly to the fills edge. There was a little extra voodoo with pixel color at the strokes edge as well…) AD doesn’t have this edge feature - but something like it can be sort of faked. ADs brushes map to fills in a different way - they sort of center the stroke halfway over the edge of a fill. To get a brush to “join” to the fill - I made a brush that mirrors itself - with a 100% dark center. The brush must also meet at its ends so it wraps horizontally as well. The mirrored version seems to blend nicely with a fill - and can wrap in either direction (reverse curves).
Some sample of how this looks are in the attached image. Sadly the stroke and fill don’t share the same “intensity” - if transparency is dropped… But the textured edge done this way can look ok.
Brushes that don’t mirror like this extend out from the fill but often show hard fill edges. 
A future AD feature in the making.
3.
I had been experimenting with hatch and dot pattern edges - looking for an illustration style I admired - and straying into a dot like airbrush look… See attached brushpower image. The hazy moon glow and sand dunes. 
AD has a lot going for it. The textured intensity brushes are the main reason I dig this software. The brush engine has a long way to go as I have mentioned in the past:
Affinity Designer Brush UI enhancement:
Affinity Designer brush-ui enhancement
Identify and switch Brush and Stroke attributes option/tool:
Switch brush
With a little more power in the brush features - this would be such a stellar tool!
Here's to 2020 and maybe making an illustrators wishes come true!
; )
If you happen to use any of these brushes. Post an example. I love to see how the brushes are used! Enjoy!
Craig
 
 

Happy 2020! If a little late.
I am posting some interesting experiments with Texture Intensity brushes for Affinity Designer:
http://i-toons.com/archive/CD_illustration_brushes2020.afbrushes.zip
These were exported from the 1.8.1 version.
This set has several focuses. 
1.
A fascination with Dave Coopers ink line where a stroke expands and shrinks (pressure) as it is drawn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj3BxL85UUE
2.
In the olden days of Creature House Expression 3 a feature that produced wonderful textured edges on fills was a favorite of mine for adding… wonderful textured edges to fills!
The “edge” was applied to a fill and mapped along the edge of the fill. E3 used a similar technique as ADs textured intensity brushes… The trick to make the edge texture was to have basically a half brush stroke. One edge flat. The rest feathered or textured out as desired. The flat edge mapped directly to the fills edge. There was a little extra voodoo with pixel color at the strokes edge as well…) AD doesn’t have this edge feature - but something like it can be sort of faked. ADs brushes map to fills in a different way - they sort of center the stroke halfway over the edge of a fill. To get a brush to “join” to the fill - I made a brush that mirrors itself - with a 100% dark center. The brush must also meet at its ends so it wraps horizontally as well. The mirrored version seems to blend nicely with a fill - and can wrap in either direction (reverse curves).
Some sample of how this looks are in the attached image. Sadly the stroke and fill don’t share the same “intensity” - if transparency is dropped… But the textured edge done this way can look ok.
Brushes that don’t mirror like this extend out from the fill but often show hard fill edges. 
A future AD feature in the making.
3.
I had been experimenting with hatch and dot pattern edges - looking for an illustration style I admired - and straying into a dot like airbrush look… See attached brushpower image. The hazy moon glow and sand dunes. 
AD has a lot going for it. The textured intensity brushes are the main reason I dig this software. The brush engine has a long way to go as I have mentioned in the past:
Affinity Designer Brush UI enhancement:
Affinity Designer brush-ui enhancement
Identify and switch Brush and Stroke attributes option/tool:
Switch brush
With a little more power in the brush features - this would be such a stellar tool!
Here's to 2020 and maybe making an illustrators wishes come true!
; )
If you happen to use any of these brushes. Post an example. I love to see how the brushes are used! Enjoy!
Craig
 
 

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from images of cloud formations.
 
There are just four brushes here, created as an experiment - in search of lovely textured brush strokes.
The attached image gives a nice demonstration of the look these offer.
 
Raising a toast to the New Year (2017), Affinity Designers developers (keep it up!) and fantastic community.
Thanks all!
 
 
 

CD_cloud_brushes.afbrushes.zip

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from images of cloud formations.
 
There are just four brushes here, created as an experiment - in search of lovely textured brush strokes.
The attached image gives a nice demonstration of the look these offer.
 
Raising a toast to the New Year (2017), Affinity Designers developers (keep it up!) and fantastic community.
Thanks all!
 
 
 

CD_cloud_brushes.afbrushes.zip

I am posting a third set of custom Textured brushes for Affinity Designer:
Textured pack 03 Intensity brushes (zip file - big - 30+mb)
 
These are more remakes of custom brushes I created for Expression3 back in 2004-2007. Plus quite a few new custom brushes and variants.
This set is also a continuation of the previous sets posted. Strokes developed with a moderately organic, mostly (un)natural media, water or oil based pigment like art approach in mind. There is a big variety of brush "looks" included. None of these are strict emulations of traditional media effects. Each is a little "digital" in its own way. There are quite a few wash stroke variations in this set and a few wild cards.
There are quite a few additional rugged drawing/wet inking brushes as well.
There are also several brushes with raged, dashed or random textures.
 
Example images of the strokes are attached here.
Hope the user base here finds this third set interesting and useful.

I am posting a third set of custom Textured brushes for Affinity Designer:
Textured pack 03 Intensity brushes (zip file - big - 30+mb)
 
These are more remakes of custom brushes I created for Expression3 back in 2004-2007. Plus quite a few new custom brushes and variants.
This set is also a continuation of the previous sets posted. Strokes developed with a moderately organic, mostly (un)natural media, water or oil based pigment like art approach in mind. There is a big variety of brush "looks" included. None of these are strict emulations of traditional media effects. Each is a little "digital" in its own way. There are quite a few wash stroke variations in this set and a few wild cards.
There are quite a few additional rugged drawing/wet inking brushes as well.
There are also several brushes with raged, dashed or random textures.
 
Example images of the strokes are attached here.
Hope the user base here finds this third set interesting and useful.