affinity designer Puzzle with liquid design

[Andreas Scherer]

Earlier this year during the second lockdown in Germany, I played with the contour tool and multi-contoured objects to create some images of puzzles with photorealistic effects.

This is a two-layered approach in Affinity Designer:

1. First, I created the “image” with the group of pentagons and added multiple contours. This image was exported as a PNG file.
2. Second, I created the frame of the puzzle by merging horizontal and vertical lines into single closed loops. These contours were “extended” and cut into a group of rows and these into groups of individual pieces. Pouring the PNG image as “bitmap filling” for the group-of-groups nicely splits the individual parts on top of the puzzle pieces, i.e., in the final product, each piece can be handled stand-alone. The 3D effect and shadows were added as appropriate.

With the “frame” done, any bitmap image can be used as the motive of the puzzle.

You can find this and other images created by my colleagues with Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo on https://mouseart1.tumblr.com/

[Ashcat]

Well done! Years ago I had a shape tool for the puzzel pieces. I thought it was in Photoshop. Since I use the iPad for drawing I switched to Affinity and didn’t regret it for a moment! 

[GarryP]

Just in case anyone is interested, here are some jigsaw puzzle shape resources:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/99299-sheet-of-simple-jigsaw-pieces/
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/126210-jigsaw-puzzle-ii-free-puzzle-assets-pack-affinity-photo-tutorial/
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/17461-puzzle-seamless-pattern-and-brush/