Hokusai

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Here is a new and improved version without white finger/toe nails. I also lightened the hatching strokes as well per dutchshader's suggestion. Hokusai

Alfred, I know it does look a little odd in colour! I used some shadows and blurs mostly. The thumbnails weren't supposed to be white, I'll have to change them later! Thanks. Hokusai

Here is my version of DaVinci's "Vitruvian Man". I have always thought that there should be a color version of it. It was all done in Designer and while I don't normally use any of Designer's "Effects", I decided to this time. I hope that you enjoy. Thanks for taking the time to view my work, Hokusai

I do agree that it is a feature that Designer should eventually have but keep in mind that the coding required to do this is incredibly difficult. There is a reason that it took Adobe 18 years to add it to Illustrator. There are other free alternatives that you can use in the meantime while the developers work on it. It is a nice feature to have but there are other things that I'd prefer to have instead. Hokusai

GarryP, Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give it some consideration. Hokusai

GarryP, Thanks for the kind words and I'm happy to hear that you are interested in not only my work but also my thought process while I'm making them. I wish I could make a video detailing them but unfortunately it would be way too long as I normally take a long time to make each drawing. This one is rather simple but even it took me hours to make. I'd say that it took around 8 hours to make this one. The Don Quixote picture I did took me 6 months to make. As well, I never sit down and do the whole thing at once. I work on pieces here and there, mostly to relax, as a kind of hobby. I enjoy making them and that in itself if fun. Even when a drawing is simple I sometimes I draw something and I'm not happy with it so I go back and redraw it. When I finish, I normally review it and if I like what I see, I'm done. More often than not though I see things that I don't like and I go back and redo them, sometimes three or four times so it would be hard to get all that in a video. Best regards, Hokusai

ronnyb, Good suggestions and I agree with you. I've inquired about your 1st request in regards to the colours ever since Designer 1.5 (that is when I noticed it) because as it is now, even if you set up a CMYK document, the colour palette that loads by default is RBG values for Black (under the "Greys" palette), which is confusing and can cause some big problems. I believe as it is now, the document settings (RGB or CMYK) don't affect the colour palettes that load. If you set up a document in CMYK, I would think it should present you with a CMYK colour palette by default (and then if you need an RGB or other palette, you can load it yourself) but as it is now you are always given a "GREY" - RGB values colour palette which I never use. Hokusai

Just wanted to share my take on what was originally a Hokusai ukiyo-e print (Hokusai Katsushika, 1760 - 1849, not me). I'm sorry I can remember the original name of this print but I thought Siren was a good name for it (but keep in mind that is the name of my version and not the actual name of the print that mine is based on). I saw it somewhere on my travels and I snapped a shot of it but the print was not in very good shape so I decided to recreate it using Designer. While Hokusai is most famous for his "Great Wave at Kanagawa" he made thousands of prints and there are many that are just as incredible as the "Great Wave". Thank you for taking the time to look at my work, Hokusai (not Katsushika)

SrPX, I can see how you would think about that image when you see my posts! I chose my screen name because I'm a huge Hokusai fan. Thanks for the offer of advice on drawing tablets. I'm not ready to make to move away from my mouse just yet. If I change my mind and decide to look into getting one, I'll personal message you first. Thanks, Hokusai

Keith, Hello and welcome to the forums. I'm sorry to hear that you are having problems and I wish that I could help you but unfortunately I don't know the answer. Someone else here might be able to help you out but you might want to mention what system you are on (Windows or Mac) and which OS version as well. Best of luck, Hokusai

Hilary, Hello and thank you for your nice comments. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who uses a mouse to draw. I know many serious artists use a pen and tablet but for some reason or another I just never did. I do a lot of my own artwork but even then most of the work that I do is more in the graphic design area rather than the pure artist side so a mouse always made more sense to me. I do draw with actual pen or pencil and paper when I do my own work but once I convert it to a digital format I always use the mouse to work with it. Many people here recommend a pen and tablet so hopefully I will get around to trying it sometime. I love drawing in Designer with the mouse and I can imagine that it is even better drawing freehand with a pen in Designer. Best regards, Hokusai

The Show All command (control + command + H) on Mac, will show all the hidden layers (and objects as well) in Photo but it doesn't appear that the "Hide" command that is found in Designer is turned on for Photo so there doesn't seem to be a quick way of hiding in Photo yet. I hope that helps, Hokusai

Michelangelo, Hello and thank you for the compliments! It did take me a long time to complete it. I've been doing vector art for a long time and to be honest with you, I've never had results from any vectorizer that made me say "wow". I didn't try this image with any vectorizer though but I'm guessing that it wouldn't convert well because of the large number of objects. Hokusai

SrPx, Thank you for mentioning this as it is an important topic of discussion that people should know about. I looked into this quite extensively years ago, as I've been making "new modern" versions of old artwork for years and when I got started I had two concerns. First I didn't want to infringe on anyone's copyright. From my understanding I don't because the works are clearly in the public domain (as A_B_C pointed out). You bring up a very valid point of a photo being copyrighted. You can't use someone's photo of a piece of art that is in the public domain because while the subject of the photo is in the public domain, the photo of it isn't (as far as my knowledge goes) and the person who took the photo maintains the rights to it until those rights expire (depending on the country). The thing is, I'm not using anyone's photos in my work. Everything that you see was draw by me and everything is completely vector, there are no images at all in the work. And from my understanding of the legalities involved, my version of the work is protected under copyright because I drew it (much like a photo of a famous work is protected) and as well, my versions are easily distinguishable from the originals. That is why I never use photos in any of my work unless the photos were taken by me. I also only redo art that is old and well into the age that puts them into the public domain (at least a 100 years old just to be safe). I also never recreated art that while in the public domain is being used by a company in their logo or corporate branding (like the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli). As well, I'd like to point out that I'm not a counterfeiter for those that might be reading to much into the fact that I said that I like to "remake" new versions of old art. Hokusai

Kasper-V, Thanks for the kind words. I wish I had the chance to see the original. I've always been a fan of Van Gogh. I'm not 100% certain but I think I saw it featured on the front page of Wikipedia one day when it was Van Gogh's birthday or something like that and I decided to try to make a coloured version with my own little touches. Hokusai

Ash, Thanks, I'm glad you like it. There are around 68,000 objects, give or take a few hundred. Hokusai

MEB, Thanks! It was a lot of work but it wasn't something I did recently. Don Quixote was my last project and it took me around 6 months to do. I did this drawing shortly after Designer was first released and I used it as a project to get my feet wet with Designer. I just didn't share it before but after sharing my Don Quixote I thought I would share this one too. It took me a long time as well but not nearly as long as Don Quixote did. Don Quixote was the most complicated picture I've worked on. It was very time consuming, this one was a walk in the park compared to it. Hokusai

Just wanted to share my version of a Vincent Van Gogh sketch of Sien Hoornik titled "Sorrow". I saw this sketch somewhere and I thought that I should make a coloured version of it. It is a rather simple sketch but it was very difficult to get it looking just right, especially the colours. I redrew this numerous times trying to get it to look a certain way and this is the one that I settled on (although it isn't quite as I had pictured it in my mind but it is close). The hair was the worst part and it still isn't quite to my liking but it is going to have to do as I got tired of it and decided to move on to something else. I hope that you enjoy. Thanks, Hokusai

SrPx, Thanks for the kind words. The computer that I used to make this drawing was a rather old computer. The computer I used to do this was a standard late 2009 model iMac. To me, the fact that I can run Designer on such an old computer is incredible. To make it even more incredible, that computer only has 4 gb of ram and Designer ran smoothly with no problems. Not even a single crash. Hokusai

Fixx, I completely agree with you about Blocs. It can create slick looking simple sites but it isn't very flexible. The templates look great if you are setting up a site for iPhones but other than that you have to fool around with the templates too much and some very simple things you simply can't do (or if you can it isn't easy). It seems to me that with many of the settings in Blocs you are stuck with whatever presets that come predefined and you can't change them. As well, moving and placing things found in the templates isn't so easy. The templates work great if you don't want to change anything but if you do, you might have trouble. Overall I wanted to like Blocs but as it is, it wasn't flexible enough to meet my needs. It has a lot of potential to mature into a decent program but it seems that the development isn't moving very fast so I wouldn't hold my breath. I too would love for the Affinity team to make a WYSIWYG web app but it seems that they have their plate full for the moment so maybe sometime in the future! Hokusai

Gnobelix, Hello thanks for the kind words. The time depends on the work but this one took me around a month or so but that is only working on it here and there. Normally after work, I'd work on it for an hour or so and a little more on weekends so it is hard to say how many hours are involved but it is a lot. I don't use very many layers, normally between 4 - 8 layers. It takes a lot of patience and a little bit of a creative streak when you have to create things that are too badly damaged or missing. Ambiroa, Thank you too for the kind words. Yes, normally I do it all by "hand" stroke by stoke but some pictures have places where I can use basic shapes like the circle or square. It helps because then I can just use the circle or square tool in Designer but sometimes those pre-built shapes look too perfect and it causes them to look out of place so I have to draw the shape myself so it doesn't look too perfect. I didn't use any sort of raster to vector tracing with this picture and I normally don't. Best regards, Hokusai

Just another drawing similar to the Don Quixote drawing that I posted recently but it is much simpler. This is a drawing that I had done probably not long after Designer was released and I forgot that I'd done it. I used this picture as my first real project to get myself used to using Designer. I am a big fan of Albrecht Dürer and I hope that you enjoy it. I've included the outlines as well. Hokusai

MEB, Thanks for the kinds words. It is my hope that my dedication and persistence can make up for any lack of skill that I have. Hokusai

Thanks for the kind words Matt. It isn't that I've been hiding in the shadows on purpose. There are just so many talented people who post some amazing things here and it is a little intimidating to post something. I'll try to post some more things sometime in the near future. Thanks again, Hokusai

Thank you all for the very kind compliments. Dutchshader - I'm glad that you liked my logo or crest (Japanese kamon) that I put on the shield. Alfred - I don't really know how long it took me but it was a long, long time. Probably about 4 - 6 months but I only worked on it sporadically. I worked on it in my free time as a way to relax and to challenge myself. A_B_C - Thanks for the suggestion. I am hoping to print it out in a large size eventually.