retrograde

Haha, you're welcome, those giant Cragar rims on that Camaro piece were fun to make. Using 3d and an HDRI image for reflections is cheating though , glad it was useful for you.

Hey Peter, nice bike details. Chrome is tricky to get right, and as it changes as it follows the shape of each element, it's hard to offer a one solution fits all description. Generally you're going to have to experiment until it looks convincing... Chrome tends to look most convincing when it appears to have something reflected in it, because really shiny chrome is basically a mirror. Typically in 2d work that's means a strong horizon line as if (the bike) was sitting out in an empty parking lot on a sunny day with a mountain or hill ridge in the distance. You'll see typically a deep blue sky with a fade to light blue or white right at the point where it meets the top of the ridge or horizon at it's darkest point. This should be a sharp transition where the white sky meets the brown horizon. Then the ridge which is typically a dark brown or sometimes a dark green fades to light brown or light green as it wraps around the form of the object. The trick with this method is to not over do it. Larger pieces are good while many of the smaller pieces can get away with mostly highlights and a subtle sense of graduation of tone. Think of the light direction as well keeping it consistent throughout and watch the amount of blurring on too many elements as that can contribute to a loss of detail... In my work in progress example below of something I'm working on at the moment, notice how the sharp horizon follows the shape of the bumper's smooth curves as it winds around (left to right) the object delineating the shape and also how the horizon line appears on the curve of the bumper as the top plane curves (top to bottom) down towards the ground. To add to the realism you can add subtle reflections as indicated with the headlight ridge reflections and optional small sunbursts.

I do a lot of pixel persona painting in Designer and it would be nice to consolidate the above steps into a single "merge into raster layer" command. Pretty please! :-)

That's not the expected behaviour and nothing I've experienced in other software. It may be technically correct on some level but to someone using a certain brush for digital painting, resizing is just something you do, a lot, and your brush selection highlight in the panel shouldn't disappear. I believe it's breaking convention, whether intentional or not.

No, the highlighted brush in the brush panel. When you select a brush it's highlighted. If you resize the brush the highlight disappears. Making it difficult to visually know which brush you have chosen. Repeated from above... "I think ideally it should be sticky and just remain highlighted until you pick a different brush, even if you use a different tool then go back to the brush tool. That way you can visually see what the last brush was you were using. Would be a great help in the painting process when you have a ton of brushes in your brush panel that have similar thumbnails..."

Thanks Dan C!

Here's a situation I've come up against a few times of late and thought I'd share it here. See images attached. I select a few nodes on a larger shape to move in node mode but I also want to move some unconverted shapes that fall within the selected nodes. In other words I want to move wheel well nodes of the car shape with a couple of unconverted shapes, the 3 circles representing the hubcap and rim inside the tire shape in my example - in one move. There are times when I'd like to be able to do this kind of thing. Currently I option (lasso) drag just the nodes I want and if I surround the other unconverted shapes as I select those nodes, the unconverted circle shapes appear to be selected but they will not move. I guess I'd like an option to be able to maybe shift select those unconverted shapes to include them in the move... there was another example where I wanted to extend the cars hood (bonnet) and grabbed the appropriate nodes but some of the shapes I wanted to include in the move were unconverted shapes (license plate and grill) and didn't come along with the move... I can just convert everything but I like to leave certain shapes unconverted in case I need to make adjustments.

Looking good! It's ironic how you're painstakingly recreating this image in Affinity Designer that for years was the iconic face of Adobe Illustrator. Something weirdly satisfying I bet.

A funny thing happens in designer pixel persona and in photo with brushes. Select and brush and if you resize it the highlight disappears. (Seems to work as expected in designer vector persona though.) I think ideally it should be sticky and just remain highlighted until you pick a different brush, even if you use a different tool then go back to the brush tool. That way you can visually see the last brush was you were using. Would be a great help in the painting process when you have a ton of brushes in your brush panel that have similar thumbnails...

A similar thing happens in designer pixel persona and in photo with brushes. Select and brush and if you resize it the highlight disappears. Seems to work as expected in designer vector persona though. I think ideally it should be sticky and just remain highlighted until you pick a different brush, even if you use a different tool then go back to the brush tool. That way you can visually see the last brush was you were using. Would be a great help in the painting process. I'm going to start a separate thread on this but thought I'd mention it here because it was sort of related and a fix for both might be connected somehow... (?)

Is that a simple noise texture on the face? That should do the trick no? It looks good.

In my experience, the smooths shouldn't be too smooth and the details shouldn't be too sharp. Just look at all of that grain in the original, that stuff is where the magic happens, at least for me. It's the 'surface' and its a big part of what makes a piece feel tactile.

Nice job on this. I've seen a few similar pieces like this in the forums and it seems designer is up to the task. Great job on that cable! One thing I might suggest on the metal box itself is a bit of a subtle gradient to add a sense of depth and lighting along the front face maybe dark to light diagonally from top left to bottom right.

+1 here guys.

Nice job on the leaves, it's going to look amazing! It reminds me of when they cleaned the Sistine Chapel and all of Michelangelo's original colours came back out of the darkness.