Drawing an Circle-X close icon

[boberto]

I'm very very frustrated by the difficulty I'm having just drawing out a simple circle with an X inscribed through the center. Yaknow, like the close button symbol (or the x-men logo), meshing together an X and an O?

I can make the ellipse, but when I try to use the pen tool to draw two lines, I am unable to use *add* to get the shapes to combine. If I do use add, one or both of the X lines disappear. Also, the lines will tend to stick out a bit and extend beyond the circle's stroke.

The only thing I can do that sorta works is to select all 3 layers and use the Layer>Geometry>Merge command in order to combine them, except, as soon as I do that, the path alignments change from what I had them set as (once merged strokes are on the exterior instead of interior, and my sizing is all off which makes the result useless for me). 

This is such a simple thing, can someone please help me and explain how to do it? Also, what is the difference between the normal "Add+" function and "Merge"?

 

Thanks

[boberto]

[firstdefence]

• Draw the ellipse with no fill and a stroke to suit.
• Draw both lines to form the X
• Select the ellipse and the two lines and use Layer > Expand Stroke
• While all the layers are still selected Geometry: Add 

Result shown in Outline View Mode

If everything will be the same colour you can also use Layer > Create Compound to retain edibility. (Affinity Designer only)

• Draw the ellipse
• Draw both lines to form the X
• Use Layer > Create Compound

[GarryP]

In addition to the methods above, here’s another technique which might come in useful using a single Cog Smart Shape.
You can alter the number of Teeth (in the Context Toolbar of the Move Tool) to change the number of segments.
(You can use the Expand Stroke method as shown above to get an outlined version.)

cog-x.afdesign