affinity designer Speed turtle

[EclecticArt]

This is my first time using designer. I just did this as a line drawing. It is a re-draw (though freehand from scratch) of a drawing I did many years ago when making a colouring book for kids I taught.  I would like to create a border evenly spaced a little way away from the drawing so I could have my friend with a laser cut it out,but I haven't figured out the best way to do that yet.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, EclecticArt said:

I would like to create a border evenly spaced a little way away from the drawing

Draw rectangle without Fill color. https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_rectangle.html

[EclecticArt]

29 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Draw rectangle without Fill color. https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/pages/Tools/tools_rectangle.html

I'm sorry, I don't think I explained what I'm trying to do well.  I want the border to follow the outline of the turtle, say 10 pixels from the outside edge. If you know Photoshop it would be as if you used the magic wand to select the edge and then adjusted the size and added a stroke. If you've had a vinyl sticker made of artwork, it is like the white border they put around the image for cutting. That may have made it even less clear, but I hope not.

[EclecticArt]

14 minutes ago, Hens said:

Duplicate the turtle(objects)>select the newly created turtle(objects)
Menu>Layer>create compound.
Use the contourtool to give the compound an outline
Move the outlined compound to the back of the other turtle objects

Ooh, ok, that sounds like it will do what I'm wanting, thank you.

[Pšenda]

30 minutes ago, EclecticArt said:

I'm sorry, I don't think I explained what I'm trying to do well.  I want the border to follow the outline of the turtle, say 10 pixels from the outside edge. If you know Photoshop it would be as if you used the magic wand to select the edge and then adjusted the size and added a stroke. If you've had a vinyl sticker made of artwork, it is like the white border they put around the image for cutting. That may have made it even less clear, but I hope not.

Thanks for the clarification - under the term "border" I just understand something else, here I would rather use the term "contour". Which, by the way, is a tool (Contour Tool) I would try to use in your case.

[EclecticArt]

Alright, I tried the create compound, and this is what I got.  I have made another layer that was a white fill so I can cover up the inner shapes, but that could become a bit annoying in future. I can't find (I have searched help) how to merge layers, which would probably fix this problem.  I had already tried the contour tool, but that was even worse.

[EclecticArt]

58 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Thanks for the clarification - under the term "border" I just understand something else, here I would rather use the term "contour". Which, by the way, is a tool (Contour Tool) I would try to use in your case.

I tried the contour tool before I posted on here, but that didn't seem to work the way I needed.  As I said though, this is my first time using the program, I am testing it out hoping I will like it. I could very well have done it wrong for sure. I've been doing digital art since '91 (started on a Mac classic with no hard drive, just b&w pixels, not even greys) and have had photoshop since version 5.0 so I'm really comfortable with that although I don't do my art the way you are "supposed to" since I taught myself.  I am betting I would find Illustrator totally natural to use, but I really don't want to have to pay essentially $200 a year forever! I feel a little lost in this program but first day using it so that is to be expected.  I try using the help files, but they don't seem to have anything related to what I'm wanting to do.  At least Affinity seems much more intuitive than Inkscape, or at least to me. I was making Inkscape work, but it was like pulling teeth for some of it.

[StuartRc]

Is this made of solid shapes or lines?

If lines it might be worth just drawing around the shape with a pen to create a solid object in the background (Separate layer or shift to back)
You can then just add a line to the vector (Expand stroke if you wish) or then apply the contour tool to expand the shape outwards.
 

or With the image shown (blue lines) Bake the result if need to and then apply divide to delete the lines you do not need

[AdamStanislav]

1 hour ago, EclecticArt said:

how to merge layers

You select them and click the Add button (+). But for what you are trying to do, you should duplicate them first and then only merge the duplicate.

The simplest way to do it would be to select everything (^a), make it all a group (^g), duplicate the group, select everything in the duplicate and add it.

[Pšenda]

7 hours ago, StuartRc said:

You can then just add a line to the vector (Expand stroke if you wish) or then apply the contour tool to expand the shape outwards.

... Since the whole drawing is drawn by hand, this method (manual completion of the contour line) came to me as more suitable, because its irregularity fits better into the character of the drawing than the machine contour.

[StuartRc]

36 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

... Since the whole drawing is drawn by hand, this method (manual completion of the contour line) came to me as more suitable, because its irregularity fits better into the character of the drawing than the machine contour.

Yep!...It just about planning really.. Useful to create a base shape/outline first before adding details..  do it all the time.. The blue lines have created the outline.. but with some extra bits that need deleting. The outline tool is really useful for enhancing patterns... as long as the separate elements are combined into a single curve | mesh.

[EclecticArt]

On 2/15/2022 at 5:38 PM, StuartRc said:

Is this made of solid shapes or lines?

If lines it might be worth just drawing around the shape with a pen to create a solid object in the background (Separate layer or shift to back)
You can then just add a line to the vector (Expand stroke if you wish) or then apply the contour tool to expand the shape outwards.
 

or With the image shown (blue lines) Bake the result if need to and then apply divide to delete the lines you do not need

It is all just lines, which I guess might be more problematic, but that is how I draw.

[EclecticArt]

Thank you everybody.  I think I am going to be able to make this work.  I am going to keep playing with it so hopefully I can get more comfortable with this. 

[StuartRc]

7 minutes ago, EclecticArt said:

It is all just lines, which I guess might be more problematic, but that is how I draw.

Drawing with just lines shouldn't be a problem...it is the cutting out the shape afterwards that presented the problem. If you planned for an outline shape  wit a line | stroke then draw everything inside it should be OK. as you can then duplicate the background for use as a cutter