CartoonMike

Hi all. I'm alive and kicking.The , um, recent unpleasantness is all over and I'm none the worse for the wear.  
 
And then there's this: here's good news and bad news.
 
Bad news, is that I have no freaking idea when the final part of the tutorial will be done. 
 
Good news, is that now that I'm hale and healthy (so to speak), I'm experiencing an unbridled rush of creativity and energy. And it's all directed at my comics. Unfortunately, the art is strictly raster and not vector. So my use of AD is limited. And since it's comics, I'm using Manga Studio and not AP -- as I enjoy having my entire story open at once (from 24 to 130 pages) and being able to effortlessly go from page to page. Again, it's that using the best tool for the job at hand thing. 
 
Over the past two weeks, I've written and laid out a 130 page Graphic Novel. The longest sustained narrative I've ever done, btw. It's a story that's been clamoring to get out of my mind-maze for some time and I just let loose and let it out. It's one of those things, artistically, that I cannot let go of and it is all-consuming until I finish it. All. 130+. Pages. Of. It. 
 
If I could be excused, this once, and post work not done in an Affinity product, I'd like to share a bit of the work with y'all. This is from what I plan to use as a back cover of the story and (maybe?) as a promo piece for the Graphic Novel (it's title is Hard Rock Candi, btw). The art is still WIP, but the text is "golden" as in finished. 

 
Going just a titch current-event-y, I began writing this story before the brouhaha in Indiana, US began and as time passes, the story becomes more relevant. Art should always strive to shake up the status-quo, whenever possible, ya know. 
 
Anyway, backing away from completing the tutorial is not a decision I made lightly. I gave it much thought. It would take about 2-3 weeks to complete (and some time to catch up with the changes in AD and the introduction of Affinity Photo) and at this time, it would be time that needs to be used to work on the graphic novel and two other stories that I'm con-currently working on. IOW, my heart's in doing my comics and not in the tutorial. 
 
I'm sure most here understands how the creative river flows and understands my decision. And if you don't, my sincere apologies. I do suggest checking out everything Ronnie McBride's doing. His tutorials are really good and he's worked up a good backlog of stuff on his YouTube channel that every one should get caught up on.
 
I'll still be around, but not to the extent I was last year.
 
See y'all around these parts, fellow pixel-pushers!

Having lived though the "dark times" of the Mac (around the late '90s), I cannot count the times the Mac (and Apple) were left for dead and the heralds of doom and "don't trust Apple" crowd were proven wrong.
 
The OP seems to be just stirring up a bunch of FUD* and, IMHO, has absolutely no place in this forum. It's a distraction and a bit of ephemera to entertain me over a bout of insomnia. 
 
 
-----
*Not Elmer, silly wabbit, but Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A practice a certain maker of an OS and office software perfected the practice of in the 80's. 

Having lived though the "dark times" of the Mac (around the late '90s), I cannot count the times the Mac (and Apple) were left for dead and the heralds of doom and "don't trust Apple" crowd were proven wrong.
 
The OP seems to be just stirring up a bunch of FUD* and, IMHO, has absolutely no place in this forum. It's a distraction and a bit of ephemera to entertain me over a bout of insomnia. 
 
 
-----
*Not Elmer, silly wabbit, but Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A practice a certain maker of an OS and office software perfected the practice of in the 80's. 

Okay all, here's what I've been up to: it's 35 pages, almost 100 images, tutorial on beginning to use Affinity Designer. It one of my "In Action" tutorials, where we start right off creating new documents and learn all kinds of stuff along the way. It's not just a "How to do this" tutorial, it's a "How to do this because..." tutorial. Sometimes it's good to get the whys of things as much as the how. Hopefully, this tutorial begins to do it.
 
Here's the link to the box folder where all the files live:
 
https://app.box.com/s/gltgu7u2wscuxxra1e1y
 
It contains the PDF and PNG file and the ZIP file, which contains the pdf and png, incase somebody doesn't like to download ZIP files from an unknown source.
 
this tutorial was written for newbies, but old-hands at Vector apps may find it good.
 
I"ll be working on finishing it as the week progresses, but I gotta get working on my comics. Daddy's gotta make money.
 
 
Any comments or such, post 'em here or send me an message via this board. 
 
thanks!
 
 

Ronnie, go to frenden.com or do a search on "frenden" on YouTube. Ray Frenden has done a lot of reviews and such with other brands (read not-Wacom) of digital tablets.
 
Myself, I wouldn't use a Cintique if I was given one. I like drawing on a tablet and having full view of my art without my hand/arm blocking part of it. 

Okay all, here's what I've been up to: it's 35 pages, almost 100 images, tutorial on beginning to use Affinity Designer. It one of my "In Action" tutorials, where we start right off creating new documents and learn all kinds of stuff along the way. It's not just a "How to do this" tutorial, it's a "How to do this because..." tutorial. Sometimes it's good to get the whys of things as much as the how. Hopefully, this tutorial begins to do it.
 
Here's the link to the box folder where all the files live:
 
https://app.box.com/s/gltgu7u2wscuxxra1e1y
 
It contains the PDF and PNG file and the ZIP file, which contains the pdf and png, incase somebody doesn't like to download ZIP files from an unknown source.
 
this tutorial was written for newbies, but old-hands at Vector apps may find it good.
 
I"ll be working on finishing it as the week progresses, but I gotta get working on my comics. Daddy's gotta make money.
 
 
Any comments or such, post 'em here or send me an message via this board. 
 
thanks!
 
 

Every graphics app is like a dialect of a language. It is up to the user to learn and discern the differences between them. 
 
1-- snapping and aligning is a bit different from other apps, true. But once one gets their head around the concepts as Designer does them, snapping and aligning are very elegant. They may not be perfect, this is an initial release, after all. It's important to let the developers know of any issues and then provide feedback on how it could be improved. In this sense, users are part of the development process. If we get invested in the development of AD, it will be the app we want and need.
 
2-- The crop button is mysterious to me, too. Since I rarely use it, it's a non-issue for me and best left for those who use it to ask questions and such. I have no qualms about manually entering in numbers for canvas/document sizes. Most of my work needs to fit within specific parameters, so I make sure my stuff is usable by making sure the size is correct.
 
3-- Having imported art be "un-editable" at first is a viable thing. Manga Studio (a comic creation app), won't let me edit PNGs, PSDs, TIFFs and such unless I "rasterize" it. For the most part, when I import graphics they are either going to be Logos, reference images and other kinds of uses that I don't want to edit. So having them be "locked" (so to speak) is good. If I import an image that I want to edit in the app, then rasterizing it is a trivial step. 
 
4-- The lack of a Magic Wand has been addressed (see https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/1466-magic-wand-german-zauberstab-missing-in-affinity/  ) and will be added in time, so a bit of patience is required. For the present, if I need to use the magic want tool in an imported raster image (or on a pixel layer) I'll just edit the source file (or export the pixel image from AD and edit that and then import the edited version back in). Sure this is a work-around, but after years of "round-trip" image to vector and back again, it's not new nor novel for me to do.
 
----
 
When learning a new app, it's important to discard previous notions of how "they" did things and grasp how the new app does things. I used to think that Illustrator's pen tool was the pinnacle of design and UX. Until I started using the Node tool in Designer. A quick read through of the Help files and some messing around with it, and I found that the node tool is so much better than any other vector tool in other apps. If I had fixated on how the Pen tool worked in Illustrator, then I would be one frustrated puppy. 
 
When I first started inking with a Winsor-Newton series 7 no. 2 brush, I didn't expect my work to be stunning out of the gate. I had to learn how to use it. It wasn't a dip-pen, quill pen or technical pen. The basics were the same, tool to apply ink on paper, but the "how" was very different. Same thing with different apps. Especially with an app still at version 1.x. We are seeing a work-in-progress and with the rapid deployment of betas and a new version 1 month after the first release -- we are in for a great ride!

Peter, I think you're right on all notes.
 
And about Serif and Affinity, this is one of the very few software vendors that actually get how to use and maintain a user site while leverage the new paradigms of interaction that the Internet has made possible. I've never used an app that had such a good forum and where the developers actually interact with the users. And on top of that, the honesty and straightforwardness of all on the Serif side is not only refreshing, but I feel it's about time somebody realizes that the Developer-User relationship requires a bit of give and take along with the occasional bit of plain talk without the usual talking points bland-speech. I think that engenders a lot of trust and on our (users) end a sense of "ownership" as you said. 
 
BTW, when I upgraded to Yosemite, I also opted to upgrade Java RTE, and now Illustrator whines about not having the older version of Java. And you know what, I've not used Illustrator since. Don't miss it at all. AD does most of what I need to do and I've figured our temporary work-arounds for what it doesn't do (yet). I suspect when Affinity Photo gets released, I'll have the same feelings about PS, too. :)

Having lived though the "dark times" of the Mac (around the late '90s), I cannot count the times the Mac (and Apple) were left for dead and the heralds of doom and "don't trust Apple" crowd were proven wrong.
 
The OP seems to be just stirring up a bunch of FUD* and, IMHO, has absolutely no place in this forum. It's a distraction and a bit of ephemera to entertain me over a bout of insomnia. 
 
 
-----
*Not Elmer, silly wabbit, but Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A practice a certain maker of an OS and office software perfected the practice of in the 80's. 

Fun thread to read, but basically nothing more than a wouldja-couldja collection of opinion posts. 
 
Here's mine.
 
IMHO, Affinity Designer being Mac only is what it is. If the usability and feature set (even in its 1.x incarnation) is any indication, a metric ton of thought was put into the app and the direction of development. Right now, anything outside of feature requests (which doesn't include OS migration/porting) or bug reporting is just idle speculation and not really productive at all.
 
I'd rather see AD develop into a killer vector drawing app and then expand its range. Having a sound foundation before adding on that extra bedroom, so to speak. 
 
But then my vector drawing needs are modest, lettering comics, creating art for fliers, stickers, posters and such. I'm sure that, in time, AD will excel at a lot more than my meager needs. At that time, it's Affinity's call to port to another OS or not. 
 
We have a newborn baby here and this thread is all about which degrees and colleges he/she will go to. It's too early. Let AD grow up a bit and then see where it (Affinity/Serif) wants to go.

@MastroPino: saying that ComiCraft's YaddaYaddaYadda or Blambot Casual is like ComicSans is like saying that The Last Ship TV series is like the Titanic Movie because they both take place on ships.  While I'm quite aware that studies have shown that sans serif fonts don't have the retainability of serif fonts, I chose the fonts I used because:
I'm a comics guy. Love me good hand-drawn comic styled typefaces It fits my "voice" and the visual style of the tutorials. I did try a few other typefaces: Berkeley Oldschool, Cason 224 and others. I kept going back to the ones I used because it just felt better to me. On the next to last page of the tutorial document there's a colophon that lists all the fonts I used. The tutorial is meant to be read while working on the exercises, so the goal is to build up "muscle memory" in the exercises. The text is merely an end to a means, so the actual retention of its contents isn't important compared with the practice of the contents.  The basic style and font choices were based on my illustrations I did for my book, Manga Studio 5 Beginner's Guide published by Packt Publishing. My editors loved it and encouraged me to use it throughout the book. When I showed my editor the basic format for my "In Action" series of tutorials (of which The Pumpkin Tutorial is just one of a few I've done so far), He really liked it.  ​The fonts I use have excellent Kerning and Leading along with other OpenType features that just blow ComicSans out of the water. I would suggest that you duplicate some of my text in ComicSans and actually compare them. You'll see right off that there's major differences between them.
 
While I'm normally a relaxed guy there's subjects that'll get me riled up. ComicSans is one of them. I absolutely despise that font with a passion that is totally out of proportion to any logic. The thing I hate most about ComicSans is how it has made a lot of typographic "sins" acceptable to those who don't really understand typography and, especially, comics. So while I do admit I made my font selection to be different than most other tutorials, I did spend hours picking and choosing the specific fonts I used to make the tutorial look the way I wanted it to. 
 
So that's that. Let's not speak of this specific subject again, 'kay? 
 
Glad you liked it and I'm planning on completing it in the next few weeks. 

Okay all, here's what I've been up to: it's 35 pages, almost 100 images, tutorial on beginning to use Affinity Designer. It one of my "In Action" tutorials, where we start right off creating new documents and learn all kinds of stuff along the way. It's not just a "How to do this" tutorial, it's a "How to do this because..." tutorial. Sometimes it's good to get the whys of things as much as the how. Hopefully, this tutorial begins to do it.
 
Here's the link to the box folder where all the files live:
 
https://app.box.com/s/gltgu7u2wscuxxra1e1y
 
It contains the PDF and PNG file and the ZIP file, which contains the pdf and png, incase somebody doesn't like to download ZIP files from an unknown source.
 
this tutorial was written for newbies, but old-hands at Vector apps may find it good.
 
I"ll be working on finishing it as the week progresses, but I gotta get working on my comics. Daddy's gotta make money.
 
 
Any comments or such, post 'em here or send me an message via this board. 
 
thanks!
 
 

Okay all, here's what I've been up to: it's 35 pages, almost 100 images, tutorial on beginning to use Affinity Designer. It one of my "In Action" tutorials, where we start right off creating new documents and learn all kinds of stuff along the way. It's not just a "How to do this" tutorial, it's a "How to do this because..." tutorial. Sometimes it's good to get the whys of things as much as the how. Hopefully, this tutorial begins to do it.
 
Here's the link to the box folder where all the files live:
 
https://app.box.com/s/gltgu7u2wscuxxra1e1y
 
It contains the PDF and PNG file and the ZIP file, which contains the pdf and png, incase somebody doesn't like to download ZIP files from an unknown source.
 
this tutorial was written for newbies, but old-hands at Vector apps may find it good.
 
I"ll be working on finishing it as the week progresses, but I gotta get working on my comics. Daddy's gotta make money.
 
 
Any comments or such, post 'em here or send me an message via this board. 
 
thanks!
 
 

Having lived though the "dark times" of the Mac (around the late '90s), I cannot count the times the Mac (and Apple) were left for dead and the heralds of doom and "don't trust Apple" crowd were proven wrong.
 
The OP seems to be just stirring up a bunch of FUD* and, IMHO, has absolutely no place in this forum. It's a distraction and a bit of ephemera to entertain me over a bout of insomnia. 
 
 
-----
*Not Elmer, silly wabbit, but Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A practice a certain maker of an OS and office software perfected the practice of in the 80's. 

Okay all, here's what I've been up to: it's 35 pages, almost 100 images, tutorial on beginning to use Affinity Designer. It one of my "In Action" tutorials, where we start right off creating new documents and learn all kinds of stuff along the way. It's not just a "How to do this" tutorial, it's a "How to do this because..." tutorial. Sometimes it's good to get the whys of things as much as the how. Hopefully, this tutorial begins to do it.
 
Here's the link to the box folder where all the files live:
 
https://app.box.com/s/gltgu7u2wscuxxra1e1y
 
It contains the PDF and PNG file and the ZIP file, which contains the pdf and png, incase somebody doesn't like to download ZIP files from an unknown source.
 
this tutorial was written for newbies, but old-hands at Vector apps may find it good.
 
I"ll be working on finishing it as the week progresses, but I gotta get working on my comics. Daddy's gotta make money.
 
 
Any comments or such, post 'em here or send me an message via this board. 
 
thanks!
 
 

Fun thread to read, but basically nothing more than a wouldja-couldja collection of opinion posts. 
 
Here's mine.
 
IMHO, Affinity Designer being Mac only is what it is. If the usability and feature set (even in its 1.x incarnation) is any indication, a metric ton of thought was put into the app and the direction of development. Right now, anything outside of feature requests (which doesn't include OS migration/porting) or bug reporting is just idle speculation and not really productive at all.
 
I'd rather see AD develop into a killer vector drawing app and then expand its range. Having a sound foundation before adding on that extra bedroom, so to speak. 
 
But then my vector drawing needs are modest, lettering comics, creating art for fliers, stickers, posters and such. I'm sure that, in time, AD will excel at a lot more than my meager needs. At that time, it's Affinity's call to port to another OS or not. 
 
We have a newborn baby here and this thread is all about which degrees and colleges he/she will go to. It's too early. Let AD grow up a bit and then see where it (Affinity/Serif) wants to go.

Purpose: Improvements, Features, Fixes
Status: Beta
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not submitted
Download: https://s3.amazonaws...stomer Beta.dmg
 
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
Documents made in this version will not be openable in older versions of Affinity Designer. This change was necessary in order to ensure a consistent baseline for our file format for the upcoming Affinity Photo Beta. When we update the Mac App Store version it will upgrade to this new archive version number too so will not be an issue in the future.   Improvements, Features, Fixes   - Preparation for Affinity Photo Beta - you will need this beta version of Affinity Designer if you intend to use the ‘Edit in Designer’ option in Affinity Photo Beta when it is released
- Added top-level ‘Force Pixel Alignment’ mode to help UI/Web designers and removed some of the overly-complicated options in the snapping setup
- File -> Export can now export just the selection, if desired
- Slice export can now export SVG, EPS and PDF formats
- Improved SVG import and export
- Added CMYK JPEG option for slice export
- New welcome screen has downloadable samples (and a couple of new samples from Neil Ladkin)
- Added Spanish translation (first phase)
- Added language chooser in Preferences
- Improved accuracy when blending objects with masks and also removed artefacts when blending low opacity layers with blend modes
- Fix for some panels having strange transparent glass backgrounds in Yosemite (snapping, for example)
- Speed improvements with bitmap brushes
- Fix for brushes not appearing in non-English locales
- Resizing your document should now be more reliable
- Fix for issues appearing when attempting to close an unsaved document
- PDF import improvements
- Added shortcut for File->Export (Shift+Cmd+Option+S)
- Improved opening of interlaced GIF images
- Fix for current brush occasionally losing its highlight state in the Brushes panel
- ’Show All UI’ now moves the view correctly rather than adding a strange offset
- Guides now become visible if they were hidden and the user creates one
- Small tweak to placement of nodes in the pressure profile flyout window
- Docking studio tweaks
- Miscellaneous panel tweaks to cope better with large fonts/translations
- Improved performance when trying to copy a small piece of a large raster layer
- Fixes for scrollbars not working properly
- Numerous other fixes and improvements.
   

One more thing :D --
 
Please have the different page presets be shared by all other Affinity apps. This way once a custom page is saved, it can be reused with no fussing around. For Example: in Manga Studio ( an app I really like and is my go-to for comic art; Heck I wrote the book on it -- Manga Studio 5 beginners guide published by Packt), I create a custom page (they call it presets this revision, previously it was a template) and then in the SAME app, renamed by the owners to Clip Studio Paint, every.single.preset has to be re-created. No way to import just the settings. 
 
BTW, the new document dialog in MangaStudio/Clip Studio Paint is textbook on how not to organize a dialog box with many options. 

Please, no Illuminaughties here, @cartoonmike! those clowns are making a mess of the world....

Peter, I think you're right on all notes.
 
And about Serif and Affinity, this is one of the very few software vendors that actually get how to use and maintain a user site while leverage the new paradigms of interaction that the Internet has made possible. I've never used an app that had such a good forum and where the developers actually interact with the users. And on top of that, the honesty and straightforwardness of all on the Serif side is not only refreshing, but I feel it's about time somebody realizes that the Developer-User relationship requires a bit of give and take along with the occasional bit of plain talk without the usual talking points bland-speech. I think that engenders a lot of trust and on our (users) end a sense of "ownership" as you said. 
 
BTW, when I upgraded to Yosemite, I also opted to upgrade Java RTE, and now Illustrator whines about not having the older version of Java. And you know what, I've not used Illustrator since. Don't miss it at all. AD does most of what I need to do and I've figured our temporary work-arounds for what it doesn't do (yet). I suspect when Affinity Photo gets released, I'll have the same feelings about PS, too. :)

I would love to see a few more "photo" teasers... hint hint...

Great shared palettes! Thanks very much!

Affinity forums: come for the topics, stay for the drift. :D

Course he will! Same goes for
Ronnie for the soundtrack and planetary sequences Rui for the 3D work, blood, sweat and tears aka coding Sunset for the cuteness and textures denironaut for the individual creatures and the AD team for almost seeing the affinity logo @ 4:56 not forgetting the late Douglas Adams, as his big monolithic computer Deep Thought gets what looks like a cameo role. and me for all of the above.  
Nice Pink Floyd style in the evolution stage.
Shunsuke is definitely going places.

Hi all,
 
Here is a colour palette i've made. It has the Hex and RGB values of each colour included. 
I have another colour palette project in mind, but its going to be a while as its a lot larger than this one and i need to rest my eyes for a bit, i see hexagons everywhere i look, lol
 
 
 
Hexagon_Hex_RGB_Colour_Palette.afpalette.zipHexagon_Hex_RGB_Colour_Palette.afdesign.zip