Ros

Hi Affinity forum
 
I made my first entry to a Threadless challenge and of course i used Affinity Designer, so I thought i would post it here.
 
Found the sentence in my old sketchbook along with some other weird stuff about animals doing questionable policework... so thought I would give it a go.
 
If you like the design and have a Threadless account, feel free to vote.
 
https://www.threadless.com/designs/cheese-21?utm_source=notification&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Design-Approved
 
God day to all of you and GOOO Affinity Designer for iPad!!
 

This is my profile picture for this forum in a larger size. Hope you like it!  #DesertFox Oh, and critique is welcome!
 
 

This is a DS-01 unit, manufactured by a guy named Benidub.

Stitch - Experiment 626 / Flat Character Design
 
This is my first project I created with Affinity Designer and the first time I worked with vectors. 
https://www.instagram.com/p/BiuT84ehHH-/

Erm... I found a decent quality reference photo but it wasn't quite head on, which is weird as it was a studio shot, and I didn't like that so I drew it straightened up. That made things easier as I could often draw bits for one side and then flip and modify them rather than doing them from scratch. But trying to move the reflections was a bit of a pain.
As for actually drawing things it's basically breaking it down in to lots of parts, then it's no harder than any other drawing.  In a way using blurs makes things easier.
Batman and Robin were low'ish poly ones I'd done. With it being behind the screen it hides most of the polygons so it wasn't worth redoing them properly.
The background's pretty simple, it's based on a low res photo, couldn't find any decent quality ones. But the rocks turned out OK, I used gradients on those then a couple of my vector textures.

I am speechless. 
 
Please, could you tell us more about the process?
 
Thanks.

This is my other v2 drawing I've been working on. I did a side view a time back but quite liked the front view too, looks more aggressive. To start with I was just going to do the car as a studio shot but I thought try adding Batman and Robin.  Then when I'd done that I thought I may as well add a background too. The background's pretty simple partly because there aren't too many decent quality pics. I also toned it down a bit as the batmobile blended in a bit too much otherwise. I'll go back over it in a few weeks, perhaps change some of the reflections and possibly darken the back end of the car but I'll see then.

Kudos, amazing piece.

Poison
So impressed with AD....had to resort to embedded files with this one but handled 1000's of vector objects brilliantly..
Again based on a sketch from 2017 Inktober Project
All vector
420 x 200 mm 300dpi 
 

This is a DS-01 unit, manufactured by a guy named Benidub.

This is a DS-01 unit, manufactured by a guy named Benidub.

This is a DS-01 unit, manufactured by a guy named Benidub.

I agree with everything said here. You are good.
 
I also thing the girl would stand out better if the background were cleaner.
 
 

I'm astonished at the very generous compliments AD users are giving my Saxophone work in progress. I really do not deserve it. I'm surprised that nobody as asked me how I created the first layer, saxophone edges?
I can assure you that my drawing is not as clever as many think it is. Let me reveal how I created the first layer.
1 I first found a suitable photograph of a saxophone.See attached pjeg.
2 I then opened it in 'Photoshop' and converted in into greyscale mode and then used the filter 'Find edges'. This give me my first layer in AD. From then on I just used the original jpeg as a reference for all the different shapes and shading.
This is not a work of original creation but more an exercise in using AD for producing an accurate copy.
This is how I create my canvases when I do a painting from a photograph. I create a 'Find edges' jpeg and get it printed onto a canvas and then paint on top. It may be cheating but it saves me a lot of time in drawing.
This link will take you to my website.I http://www.classiccarartist.co.uk/
 
 
 

Saxophone_WIP.afdesign

This is a DS-01 unit, manufactured by a guy named Benidub.

A combination of vector brushes, textures and "real" pics.
 

 
I think this sequence explains it better:
 
 
During the time I was working on this I was trying Envato Elements 3D feature, which allows users to rotate a pre-rendered graphic and download it as a layered psd file. I don't use it anymore because it is ridiculously expensive but I certainly enjoyed playing with it to make that big hole:
 

 
I hope all this is helpful.
 

Hmmm...
Hi GabrielM. I like the care you have taken to add the colour. In the dim and distant past I used to hand paint photographic dyes onto monochrome 8 x 10 inch film negatives. The subjects were often bridal or family portraits, during a time when large format monochrome negatives required slow imaging techniques which often resulted in studio images. 
 
Take a look at the famous image below; by Yousuf Karsh. As a photographer with a keen interest in documentary photography, it is difficult to avoid seeing and knowing about the documentary images produced by Yousuf Karsh, Don McCullin, Eugene W Smith, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Doisneau et al. One could categorise Karsh's image in different ways but the techniques used to create his image below could be described as chiaroscuro. The depiction and interplay of highlight and shadow detail is crucial to the image formation. Chiaroscuro photography is a powerful and sparse technique which is frequently seen as being difficult to master. It is an unforgiving technique that uses light and dark as the principle graphic elements to describe the subject matter and remove any unnecessary detail from the gaze of the observer. 
 
The attached image catches the subject at a moment in time which portrays power, alertness and strength. These qualities lend Churchill a gravitas which suits the image and says much about him. The shadow detail has been suppressed and only a small amount of back light has been allowed to outline the main subject. The important detail of the face has been given the maximum opportunity to describe the person/man/statesman/Churchill. The observer has nowhere else to look and we are in no doubt about what the image portrays and says about this great leader of men.
 
For me, in contradistinction to Karsh's image below, your image created an ambiguity that looks a little false. The increased shadow detail added little to the man. The colour distracted me from the person. The following apposite quotation is ascribed to the documentary photographer, Ted Grant. “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”
 
Your careful colouring work is excellent. I thought that the subject was ill-chosen because it detracted from much of what is known about the person. Possibly history has been written and re-written about Churchill for so long, we are all used to the idea that he was a strong and ideal leader. It does not dwell on his bad temper nor his taste for alcohol. Had WWII turned out differently, we may have had another image to absorb and feel over many decades.
 
I guess that my take on your image overall is the small cautionary note: you could try to choose the subject with a view to how the additional colour affects the image portrayed. Keep on colouring images and look at as many as you can. Better yet, take as many as you can and view them in colour and monochrome and extract the essence of what is portrayed when you view the same image in colour and monochrome side by side.
 
 
 
Well known documentary images that probably will never work in colour:
https://karsh.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Yousuf-Karsh-George-Bernard-Shaw-1943-1561x1960.jpg
https://d5wt70d4gnm1t.cloudfront.net/media/dorthea_lange/migrant_mother_nipomo_california/dorthea_lange_migrant_mother_nipomo_california_1024x768.jpg
https://karsh.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Yousuf-Karsh-Ernest-Hemingway-1957-779x980.jpg
https://www.artfund.org/gallery/800x450/assets/what-to-see/artist-rooms/2014/don-mccullin/ar01184-dmc.jpg
http://www.documentingmedicine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/williameugenesmith1971minamata.jpg

I guess you have read the q&a of Marina? She uses Photoshop the old school way (nothing wrong with that of course, it's the way I learned it 20 years ago lol). But now we have Affinity with more powerful tools. I can't remember the last time I used a pixelated layer for colouring. I now tend to stick on using masked adjustment layers with the advanced blending settings. Almost the same as luminosity masks in Photoshop but without turning the document into massive file sizes. Most of the time I leave the layer in normal blending mode. Darken, average colour and colour dodge are used from time to time as well. 

Nice work.
This http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/html.php?file=bbcolorcharts.html is a good place to find sample skin and hair tones.

I've been thinking about doing some vector drawings of my local area so was looking at old photos. I fancied trying to colourise a couple to see if you can do it more simply and quickly than tutorials tend to show.
These are done more like a colouring book, you probably managed not to go over lines when you were about 5 and this isn't a lot different and if you do then that's what undo's for. So rather than selecting and masking each area I just used a soft brush and two layers, one with blend mode of soft light, which I did most of it in, and the other with a blend mode of colour. Then you pick your colour and paint and sometimes go over the area with a different shade and low opacity. The soft brush means you don't have to worry about edges quite so much. Finding a decent skin tone is the trickiest as you notice straight away if it's wrong but the more you do the more of a library of colour you have. Of course you can use more layers or use selections and fill but a lot old photos are bad enough quality that it takes longer to select the area than just painting it.
So if you fancied doing so colourisation but the tutorials made it look like some sort of magic and like too much  faffing about then try it this way.

Hello everyone!
 
I've been working as a motion designer for 10+ years and I used Illustrator as a side software, mainly for pulling out usable bits from stock vectors to use in After Effects. Both Illustrator and Photoshop got bulkier and less responsive as they age, so I got used to drawing inside After Effects using the limited tools it has. Tried my luck in drawing with Illustrator a few times over the years to no avail, I don't have a single finished artwork from it.
 
Luckily I saw one of the artists Serif commissioned while I was searching for some inspiration for my upcoming self project. I checked his other artworks, read the interview about Affinity Designer, then read some more  reviews and user comments from Reddit. Installed trial, everything was buttery smooth and so much practical in comparison. Price was a bargain but it was even more so with the regional pricing in Microsoft Store, so I ended up buying it the next day.
 
Long story short, I finished this piece yesterday for my debut illustration in Dribbble. I know it is not much and I definitely got influenced by the initial artworks where I discovered AD, but know that I'm an animator who couldn't draw a proper looking vector piece before. Really looking forward to drawing more in AD. I just wish there was a straightforward solution for importing inside After Effects with layers, just like the .ai files.
 
Keep up the good work Serif!
 

Going old school for a personal side project.
 
You can check it out at Mixcloud if you are into funk basslines, caribbean rhythms and some disco decadence.
 
https://www.mixcloud.com/CasaMalaya/afro-caribbean-disco-funk-extravaganza-5/
 
 

 
 
 

Hi everyone,
 
This is from a year ago or so. I'm now doing something else with this brand so I thought I should share the older ones. 
 
I hope you like it.
 

 
Some older iteration: