Thinking of possibly buying Christi's Comix Toolbox while it is at 50% off

[William Overington]

Today I received an email from the Affinity Team informing me that the 50% off offers will end on 30 June 2021.

So I had a look at what is available.

I already have the three Affinity programs. I did not use Affinity Designer for a long time but now use it a lot, since I found that I can get good quality prints in the form of one-off greetings cards at what one might call a 'realistic consumer price'', rather than some prohibitively priced large quantity for a large 'running-a-business' price situation.

At a 50% offer some time ago, I got the DAUB watercolour brushes but found that I needed to use them in the pixel persona so large files not really suitable for web pages for me. Though now that I am making the greetings cards, perhaps I shall try to have a go at using them.

So looking through what else is there at 50% off I found the Christi‘s Comix Toolbox.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/store/product/christis-comix-toolbox/

Well, put off by the illustration, I don't want to do that sort of image, I did however look more closely and as far as I can tell, that image is not included. It seems to be just tolls that one can use, provided one has the necessary skill, to produce one's own artwork. Sort-of-like typesetting one's own novel or poem using a font that someone else has designed.

So I remember comics from when I was young, back in the 1950s, which were printed on off-white paper in black and red with lots of halftoney effects as if to produce an ersatz attempt at what would these days be full colour printing. Say, one character might always have a red halftoney shirt and another character might always have a solid red shirt.

I remember the painting WHAAM! that caused a stir. I don't remember the details but there was some discussion.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lichtenstein-whaam-t00897

That article has reference to Ben-Day dots, so maybe Ben-Day dotted is a better description than halftoney.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Day_process

So I am wondering if anyone reading this thread has used the Christi‘s Comix Toolbox and if so for what purposes please? What can it do that one cannot do with Affinity Designer? Can it be used with Affinity Designer - I ask because the package includes '11in x 17in comic paper template (.afphoto)' and 'Sample illustration (.afphoto and JPG)'.

Can the pack, all of it, some of it, none of it, be used in vector persona or does it necessarily need pixel persona please?

I like the idea of getting the four 'varying density screentone sheets.'

Is it possible to do things like fill a circle with blue dots? And things like have a solid-filled circle on a background that has filled dots?

William

 

[Alfred]

7 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Can it be used with Affinity Designer - I ask because the package includes '11in x 17in comic paper template (.afphoto)' and 'Sample illustration (.afphoto and JPG)'.

The “What’s included” list says:

Quote

36 raster brushes for Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer’s Pixel Persona

As for the *.afphoto files, the filename extension merely identifies the originating app. Thanks to the shared file format, any *.af* document can be opened in the latest version of any of the apps on Mac, Windows, or iPad.

[William Overington]

>> 36 raster brushes for Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer’s Pixel Persona

So it does!

I checked it out, wondering if old age is catching up on me, but I think it was because, bearing in mind that grey on black is not easy to read, at least for me, that I looked at the lines that started with a large dot and did not really notice the undotted line of text above it.

Now is that just me or does that page need a bit of redesigning?

William

 

[Wosven]

20 minutes ago, William Overington said:

if anyone reading this thread has used the Christi‘s Comix Toolbox and if so for what purposes please?

It's like pens, pencils, brushes, etc. there's no manual when you buy them, and the result depend mostly of your skills and your ideas. The most important is to have fun.

[Alfred]

39 minutes ago, Wosven said:

It's like pens, pencils, brushes, etc. there's no manual when you buy them, and the result depend mostly of your skills and your ideas. The most important is to have fun.

The Affinity Spotlight article (linked from the product page in the Affinity Store) gives a good overview of the contents of the the toolbox and what you can do with it.

[uneMule]

 

 

[Wosven]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

The Affinity Spotlight article (linked from the product page in the Affinity Store) gives a good overview of the contents of the the toolbox and what you can do with it.

It's more about use of textures and some type of brushes, an giving an example, than preventing to do other type of works than comic illustrations. At least that what I had in mind writing the sentence. Like a lot of people using pencils and doing different styles of drawing.