Jason Ramasami

Hello all. In theory this should also be published to the iPad forum but hey ho. So I have created a set of spreads for a book I am working on in publisher and have saved the file to iCloud. I am now opening this in iPad Designer and going through the various spreads and drawing in pixel/vector and saving back to iCloud. I then open it into Publisher on my Mac and boom. Thats it. Am I missing something? Is this a correct reading of the situation? Does anyone else do this, and before I commit to lots of work on this illustration project - am I doing it right? Thanks in advance Jason

This is a process post for a mural that was put up in my school at the start of this week. I have been working on it since January - the last stage involved AD as I converted the original design into vectors, which ended up printing way better than the previous bitmap version: http://saamvisual.com/process/2018/8/23/the-big-picture I have briefly mentioned this already in a prior blog post about my learning curve in AD here: I understand that the illustration material (an overview of the Bible storyline) might be controversial to some so please bear with me. I have posted it here because it shows how superior the use of vectors was in the end for an important piece of work to my school community. I hope it's helpful.

Great comment. Here are my (probably unconvincing) thoughts: 1. The CSP pencil drawing and then editing/changing tools feel quicker and more intuitive to me. Some of this is because I have set up my iPad version in a very specific way and partly because I think they work better. I went back to AD just now and tried to do some pencil drawing to see if I was mistaken and after a bit of tweaking I realised that you can do a lot of the same things but it feels somehow a bit quicker and looser in CSP. Anyways - it's probably just a personal feeling. 2. The layers issue I think is still relevant I think. Yes - the pinch-to-group gesture is brilliant and yes you can group automatically by drawing within a blank layer, but the several pieces I have produced this summer all became utterly unwieldy at times. To select and arrange individual stray lines into specific groups is at times impossible within iPad AD partly because scrolling endlessly becomes a joke. My point in the post is that these sorts of organisation tweaks and fixes are far better suited to the Mac version where control is different and more tuned into this sort of action. I think my point was that the dance between both platforms is where the power really kicks in. Nothing beats the vector brush work of AD on iPad. I was so glad you commented - take care.

Hey all I wrote a massive blog post documenting my progress with AD over the summer. I hope it's useful.

Many thanks. By the way I did a fine art degree in Nottingham in 1990 - I have a lot of affection for Notts. Are you one of the Affinity team or just coincidentally living in the same city?

Once again I thought I would share something produced on AD using my iPad and iMac combo. This sequence is for an article about how delivering information isn't enough - it's what the student does with it that provides the best indication of what was learnt. Anyways.

Blessings.

Typo: Well spotted! And I’m so sorry about the neck injury(!). On the point of religion, violence and context (all excellent points) I should say a few things: 1. My main aim was to share some process material using the software. 2. It is hard to post personal work here without it being... well, personal. Inevitably something like this is going to be misunderstood or potentially cause offence. I was quite wary about posting it for that reason, but felt it was worth it to simply encourage others to use the superb software in perhaps slightly different ways. 3. Political bullying, violence and imperialistic behaviour are things that can all be attached to this text (and unfortunately people do that). My personal take on this is that it is about someone seeking a deeper connection with God. Admittedly, context is always king and out of context the sword section can seem difficult to agree with. Thanks for your responses everyone.

Current no. But it goes a long way towards what I aiming for stylistically.

This is a personal visual meditation on a poem from the Old Testament, Psalm 63. I’ve spent a lot of time this summer working through the tools in Affinity Designer and I am almost at the point where I can use this software comfortably for client-facing work. So far I have created (and recreated) a number of info graphics to see how far I can push the software. My current process is to 1. Biro sketch 2. Structure in AD with simple shapes. 3. Bitmap draft drawing in Clip Studio on IPad (the tools I have set up there work the most intuitively for me). 4. Ink/shade it with the basic brush in AD on iPad. 5. Some tweaking back and forth between the iPad and Mac versions of AD. The interface is easier on my big screen Mac when it comes to manipulating lots of layers - something I think AD on iPad stills needs some work with. Thankyou to the Affinity team for creating a superb set of tools that feel like a dream come true.

Mainly this one is to do with being able to draw and organise oneself quickly in the app while drawing loads of lines. Instead of being lost in a sea of layers, is there a better way of immediately auto-grouping them?

Brilliant dudes. This has been a huge problem to me - I am waaaaay into a bunch infographic diagrams and have had to adjust the whole way I draw to accommodate - creating multiple lines instead of just one.

I think I have solved this. The Boolean operations weren’t what I was looking for. I needed to use the node tool to create some extra points then break apart the section in question - I misunderstood the Boolean operation as being this - the divide command doesn’t quite do what I was trying for then the red nodes are where the break has occurred. I get it. Thanks all

Please don’t reply. I think I solved it. Thankyou for your kindness though

This is the thing I am looking for help with. Can you show how to create a closed curve?

I’m not new to creating vector imagery but after so many years of utter frustration with Illustrator I left Bézier curves behind for good. It was just too painful. Now with this lovely software I am having to revise the weird and wonderful ways that different vector shapes can be used to create other shapes using the intersection tools in the menu. The problem is that I feel quite fed up with it because there often isn’t any rhyme or reason why something transform another object. The results don’t feel that intuitive, but Designer is good enough for me to come back nd learn this thing properly. Can anyone point me to me to an online resource that explains what each of the Bezier Node and Intersection tools do? One silly example is this: i draw a rectangle and want to break it into smaller sections so I place another rectangle over the top, select both and press subtract or divide and the result is something really weird that I don’t understand. I remember years ago doing the same thing and then breaking the shape up into parts and deleting what I didn’t need - rather like a cookie cutter effect. This seems different. Any help much appreciated.

Thankyou.

Blessings.

Can someone please help me? I don’t quite understand how the sculpt tool works. Is there somewhere I can go for a demo?

Thankyou. I am thankful you replied so clearly. The thing I’d misunderstood was what a brush actually was - with the advent of Apple Pencil pressure tool capabilities the brush idea had been lost for me. Basically my pencil tool lines look very similar to the ‘brush’ lines so I got confused. The next question is about how to how to effectively use the sculpt tool.

I can’t figure out what the basic difference is between these two tools. I feel dumb asking but this is not obvious to me - I am not new to illustration work but I really need a basic primer. Can anyone recommend something? Ta.

I created a file on my mac, saved it to iCloud and then opened it successfully on my iPad. Added some text and saved it. Can't open it on Mac because it is a 'newer' version. Any thoughts? Hoping the files can translate between smoothly fairly soon because this is a great way of working.

Context: most of the vector artwork I produce starts on an iPad with Adobe Ideas. Here is a sample of the kind of stuff I make: http://saamvisual.com/vectors. I draw it, then export a pdf and edit the materials usually in iDraw on the Mac and then into Photoshop as smart layers. Perhaps the greatest development for me in vector drawing is the ability to carve away sections using an erase tool. Adobe Ideas allows this fluently. Is there a similar function on AD? With a touch screen monitor recently acquired for my Macbook I can harness a lot more power than an iPad. I was hoping that AD would be that sort of app. I know that you can 'erase' using drawn masks - but I want to carve out sections from hand drawn vectors. Any idea on whether this functionality exists? Thanks in advance.