affinity designer Bruni Character

[Yolanda]

Big learning curve: how to organise elements, color choosing, pentool in Designer and drawing excersize. And a big thank you to Stuart RC for all his contributions to this forum. As you can see, I used a lot of assets and his latest Dinosaur brushes, Poison brushes en vegetation brushes. It helps to look at the brushes how they are developed, it helps to look at the assets of leaves and plants and how they are build up. One day I can do it myself, but for now, I am using Stuarts Designs. So again, THANKS.

Mostly done in Designer with Vectors. But the final touches are done in Photo. 

Yolanda

[StuartRc]

What an impressive second effort!.. I like the character you have recreated.... well done! It can be a steep learning curve.
Good to see the assets and brushes being put to use!...The Dinosaur and Organics from Camouflage are my favourites!... I added a couple of suggestions below that may help you:

A. There is a tutorial/instruction sheet for creating assets for Camouflage II which help you with the breakdown of objects. here
B. For the next one...add a bit more depth to the background. You can do this with shading between objects like the plants. When I first started I made the terrible mistake of adding all the shading as vectors to each object separately..after I had completed the image (layout)..it is slow and a pain!. SO  over time I evolved the process such that objects were stacked in layers (even as embedded files (as you can still edit them)) with intermediate layers added for the shading.. This made it a lot easier!.
C. Consider the light direction on all objects not just main character.. If you breakdown some of the assets a lot of them contain 'shader' elements to add highlights and shadows. Set up a few of these and just re-use them. (A simple shape with a light/dark colour and a directional transparency setting)..you could also apply this as a style...so that the texture beneath shows up...
D. Play around with compound paths for textures inside objects.. This will reduce significantly the number of vectors contained/visible in the layers. Also can create interesting blends....and you can stack them inside each other (I do this a lot with brush base layers).. 

 

[Yolanda]

@StuartRc  This is so helpfull. That is why it is still flat. Since English is not my main language, I do not understand D : compound path. Sorry.

B : I do use a pixel layer for shading. But in each layer. Each vector shape, so I do not go outside the lines. As I understand: you shade multiple vector layers at once with 1 pixel layer for shading?

😄 Yes,  I did NOT shade the plants. Why didn't I think of that? And now I see that some of your plants have lightsources from the other direction.

MANY THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT.  Yolanda

 

[StuartRc]

1 hour ago, Yolanda said:

@StuartRc  This is so helpfull. That is why it is still flat. Since English is not my main language, I do not understand D : compound path. Sorry.

B : I do use a pixel layer for shading. But in each layer. Each vector shape, so I do not go outside the lines. As I understand: you shade multiple vector layers at once with 1 pixel layer for shading?

😄 Yes,  I did NOT shade the plants. Why didn't I think of that? And now I see that some of your plants have lightsources from the other direction.

MANY THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT.  Yolanda

 

Compound paths, just joined vector objects really but can be done in a number of ways, Say you had 2 vector shapes that you wanted to be one like a circle with hole inside as a single vector shape
There is a video tutorial here
and info in the help here
I use them a lot now to create textures

Not really I moved away from raster shading to using vector shapes. For Painting with pixels you are correct.. To use that method for multiple objects I would use a vector mask. 
Using vectors for shading gave me a lot of advantages including using a single layer for the shaded areas.
 

 

[StuartRc]

Hi Yolanda,
I thought my previous explanation regarding your questions on compounds and meshes was a bit weak so I spent some time creating a new information sheet. rather than clutter this thread with your fantastic drawing I added it to the Camouflage II resources bit...
Compound meshes and textures
 

Hope it helps!

[Yolanda]

@StuartRc  well goodmorning to you. Many thanks for your explanation. That is really, really nice of you. I will study it and try to replicate it to figure out how it is done. Yesterday evening I was trying to shade and highlight with textured vector brushes, but I do not have the hang of it yet. I do use vector shading with the fill and tranparancy tool as a basis, the vector brushes sometimes behave odd. Using pixel brushes seems more natural. I will be busy the next couple of days. THANKS.

Yolanda

 

[StudioJason]

Very Nice! Rich and playful...makes you want to visit or keep as a pet!