affinity designer My first image using Affinity Designer

[PBMc]

 Not only my first Affinity Designer image, but my first forum post, as well. So, you know, HI.  I purchased Designer a while back, but my computer gave up the ghost shortly after. Other than trying to familiarize myself with the software, and watching a few tutorials, I never had the chance to create anything with it, until now. I wasn't an Adobe Illustrator user, but until yesterday, I was a Photoshop user. After using Designer, I decided to switch to Photo.
I have a thing for Mid Century Modern, so I thought I'd try something similar with Designer. Because it is mostly a bunch of simple shapes combined it was a good first project to give me a feel for the software. It's nothing compared to some of the other creations I've seen on here but I had fun with it.
 

Edited May 12, 2021 by PBMc
Just wanted to add a tag

[dannyg9]

Don't sell yourself so short. This is hardly "nothing." I agree with just about everything else you said. I've been "adobe-free" for almost 4 years. I NEVER liked Illustrator (it seemed it was always fighting against me). To me, Designer feels much more like natural drawing. Back to your illustration, I love the mid-century modern motif and that Siamese cat is brilliant. I've not tried to complete a drawing in Designer, but for a first effort, this is beautiful. Perfect proportions on everything. That Siamese could become your trademark. Great job.

[jmwellborn]

Welcome to the Forums @PBMc 😊  The Siamese cat is indeed charming, but for pure fun the black cat has my vote.  And the grey cat definitely has suspicions about the black’s next move.  The entire piece is delightful.   Your animals are alive!  

[PBMc]

5 hours ago, dannyg9 said:

Don't sell yourself so short. This is hardly "nothing." I agree with just about everything else you said. I've been "adobe-free" for almost 4 years. I NEVER liked Illustrator (it seemed it was always fighting against me). To me, Designer feels much more like natural drawing. Back to your illustration, I love the mid-century modern motif and that Siamese cat is brilliant. I've not tried to complete a drawing in Designer, but for a first effort, this is beautiful. Perfect proportions on everything. That Siamese could become your trademark. Great job.

I appreciate the kind words. I realize I have a ways to go before I get completely comfortable using Designer but learning is part of the fun. Btw, the cats were an afterthought. Even though I was just playing around, trying to get a feel for Designer, I thought the work looked kind of flat and lifeless. I know cats were a big part of Mid Century art so I created the three in the pic based on my three former stray cats.
Again, thanks for the comment. I really appreciate it.

[PBMc]

4 hours ago, jmwellborn said:

Welcome to the Forums @PBMc 😊  The Siamese cat is indeed charming, but for pure fun the black cat has my vote.  And the grey cat definitely has suspicions about the black’s next move.  The entire piece is delightful.   Your animals are alive!  

Thanks JM. The cats are based on my three cats and they are pretty accurately represented in the pic. The grey cat is a 15 year old who spends his days relaxing and does not like the black cat at all. The black cat is only 2 years old and is a holy terror who climbs up on everything. The Siamese is a small female who actually does sit like that in the middle of the floor. I do like how the black cat turned out but I'm realizing he looks way to similar to the old Eveready battery cat.

[William Overington]

I like the clock. Is it based on a real clock or is it your own novel design?

William

 

[PBMc]

44 minutes ago, William Overington said:

I like the clock. Is it based on a real clock or is it your own novel design?

William

 

Hi William. Living room clocks like that were pretty common back then. I'm an old guy and I remember these types of clocks. They all had something like rays emanating from the clock. Most seem to have triangular pieces, giving a sun ray or compass kind of look but they also had clocks similar to the one in my pic called ball clocks. A long worded answer to say it's based on a common mid century design.

[William Overington]

Going off-topic, but something vaguely related, some years ago, maybe around twenty-five years ago, I saw a rather stylish clock on the wall of a small independent pharmacy business.

It was white plastic and I think square, about 8 inches square, quite possibly with an electric mechanism, with pointers. Instead of ordinary digits, there were twelve alchemical signs, moulded and raised and with a gold look, maybe 96 point or thereabouts. I remember that instead of the digit 4 there was the symbol that looks vaguely like a figure 4. It looked very stylish.

This is not it, but does give a general idea.

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/aswvnd/obviously_this_clock_has_something_to_do_with/

William

 

 

[jmwellborn]

On 5/13/2021 at 3:28 PM, PBMc said:

I do like how the black cat turned out but I'm realizing he looks way to similar to the old Eveready battery cat.

So do I.  He is a keeper so please don't tell him he is a possible replica of any old battery cat.  His personality leaps out of the image!

[PBMc]

9 hours ago, William Overington said:

Going off-topic, but something vaguely related, some years ago, maybe around twenty-five years ago, I saw a rather stylish clock on the wall of a small independent pharmacy business.

It was white plastic and I think square, about 8 inches square, quite possibly with an electric mechanism, with pointers. Instead of ordinary digits, there were twelve alchemical signs, moulded and raised and with a gold look, maybe 96 point or thereabouts. I remember that instead of the digit 4 there was the symbol that looks vaguely like a figure 4. It looked very stylish.

This is not it, but does give a general idea.

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/aswvnd/obviously_this_clock_has_something_to_do_with/

William

 

 

I'm wondering if it was a variation of this clock.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/pharmacy-wall-clock-alchemy-symbols-vintage
It doesn't say who the manufacturer was but I'm guessing it could be the same company (Richard A, Klein, inc) that made the one in the pic you linked to. They made advertising display items and the ones they produced for Pharmacies used a lot of alchemy symbols. They produced clocks, barometers, mortar & pestles that were given out by pharmaceutical companies to pharmacies that sold their products. 

[William Overington]

Not exactly. The one I saw was white and did not have the fancy shaped pointers, but otherwise was very much like it.

Thank you for posting.

William

 

[William Overington]

I have now found the following.

https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F700.pdf

Please note 1F729

and

https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf

Please note 2643

William

 

[William Overington]

Looking at the two images, I find that they appear to use the same symbols as each other for each of the hours.

William

 

[PBMc]

15 hours ago, William Overington said:

Looking at the two images, I find that they appear to use the same symbols as each other for each of the hours.

William

 

I had noticed that they use the same symbols to represent the same number on the clock, as well. I'll have to do a little digging to see if there is some reason a particular symbol is associated with the numbers.