affinity designer Artwork for an unusual clock

[William Overington]

Here is an image that I produced as part of an ongoing attempt to design, and hopefully eventually commission the building of, an unusual clock. This is not some huge ornamental clock, it would be about the same size as a typical wall clock.

 

 

 

 

I am thinking in terms of the clock being made from a clock movement that costs £4.25, some clock hands that are a few pounds and a printed sheet of thick card that has a design that includes the clock face, the artwork of the card being produced by me using Affinity Designer, together with such other parts, perhaps an adapted picture frame, to hold it all together to produce a complete ready-to-use clock.

What some readers might find of interest is how I produced what I have thus far. It is all vector art, the background was produced using the Rectangle Tool, the rectangle being added last and then moved to the back.

The centre of the clock design consists of three stars.

The reason for three stars rather than two is because I wanted a star with sixty points, but at the time I thought that the Affinity Designer Star Tool only goes up to a maximum of forty-eight points for a star. So I drew a star with thirty points, then copied and pasted the copy on top then rotated the copy about its centre by six degrees clockwise. I then pasted another copy of the original star, changed it to twelve points for the star, reduced the radius and enlarged it about its centre point, precisely using the Transform Panel, changed the fill colour, then moved it behind the other two stars.

However, I have now been informed that on the desktop version of Affinity Designer, which is what I am using, that although the slider only goes up to 48 points on a star, typing a larger number into the box allows one to obtain a star with more points than forty-eight points.

Here is a link to a thread where there is more about the design of the clock for those readers who may be interested.

https://punster.me/serif/viewtopic.php?id=101

William

 

[AdamStanislav]

8 hours ago, William Overington said:

eventually ommission the building of, an unusual clock.

Omission should take no effort. 😜

[iuli]

On 3/21/2022 at 4:33 AM, AdamStanislav said:

Omission should take no effort. 😜

One needs to read The City & the City by China Miéville to truly understand (and appreciate) the effort of omission 😀

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4703581-the-city-the-city

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City

 

 

[William Overington]

@iuli

It is very interesting how a typing error by me, having been seized upon, has led eight days later to me learning serendipitously of an interesting novel of whichI was previously unaware. Thank you for posting.

Your post has also reminded me that I need to try to complete thr design of the clock and try to commission the building of the clock.

William

  

 

 

 

[William Overington]

The theme of omission reminds me of this poem.

http://inwardboundpoetry.blogspot.com/2008/03/629-railroad-station-wislawa-szymborska.html

How can we express omission in artwork produced using Affinity products?

Do we leave a gap for her in a queue of tickets?

Or do we use particial tranparency so that the background shows through?

Or what?

Can we have a thread about Artworks of omission?

William

 

[iuli]

1 hour ago, William Overington said:

@iuli

It is very interesting how a typing error by me, having been seized upon, has led eight days later to me learning serendipitously of an interesting novel of whichI was previously unaware. Thank you for posting.

Your post has also reminded me that I need to try to complete thr design of the clock and try to commission the building of the clock.

William

  

 

 

 

I’m always reticent to recommend Miéville (to friends, at least 😀); his style is not particularly fun to read (not Murakami-fun, anyway). 

(I apologize for derailing this topic. I understand that this is not the place to joke and discuss random subjects. Sorry!)

[William Overington]

I was interested to read of the novel.

Your post teminded me of the poem.

As remembering the poem is in this forum about producing artwork, that has inspired me to think of how artwork could imply that effect.

Have you noticed how people usually walk up flights of stairs, each foot omitting stepping on some of the stairs?

The left foot goes on alternate stairs and the right foot goes on alternate stairs, but the two sets of stairs are distinct. So they coul;d be shown in alternate colours, left for red and green for right.

But does each person put the left foot on the same stair each time?

If not, then maybe two colours that do not suggest specific directions?

If so, do some parts of stairs never get stepped upon?

That reminds me of s design for the stairs of a tower with two sets of stairs, each in a helix but each helix separate from the othet helix.

https://www.pariscityvision.com/en/europe/france/loire-valley-castles/chambord-castle/staircase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gnlKd4OMHc&t=170

How could such a staircase be expressed using Affinity Designer?

Maybe using an isometric drawing style approch?

William

 

[William Overington]

Ah, look where one keying mistake leads! 😀

This discussion of omission got me thinking.

So I made a small jpg file using Microsoft Paint. this to simulate a photograph that arives as a jpg, perhaps from a mobile phone, that is just "what arrives is what you have to use" image.

The file is test_jjp.jpg

So I wondered if I can make it partially transparent.

Here is a one third size png image of my test design producef using Affinity Designer.

I have not found a way to make the image in the centre and the image at the right partially transparent.

So, is it possible using Affinity Photo?

William

 

[v_kyr]

36 minutes ago, William Overington said:

I have not found a way to make the image in the centre and the image at the right partially transparent.

So, is it possible using Affinity Photo?

There should be different possible ways to do so. - One is, to select the wanted image portions and then apply a curves adjustment (LAB-alpha setting) on the corresponding selections.

[William Overington]

13 hours ago, v_kyr said:

There should be different possible ways to do so. - One is, to select the wanted image portions and then apply a curves adjustment (LAB-alpha setting) on the corresponding selections.

Thank you for your reply.

I a now going to try, making notes here as I proceed.

As I have almost nil experience of using Affinity Photo, I won't try linking through from Affnity Designer, but I will use Affinity Photo solo with the original jpg file.

Open test_jpg.jpg

Save as test_jpg.afphoto

How do I get to do a Curves Adjustment?

Look in the help file.

So i need the Develop Pesona

Develop Pesona chosen.

I need the Tones Panel

Where is it?

Ah, there it is, amogst other things lower right in the collection of other panels at the right of the screen.

Scroll the image over to the left and drag and place the panel onto the work area to the right of the image of the tree, sun and sky.

Choose Curves by checkig the check box

But I have only got a panel with a scroll bar, how do I get the whole panel?

Ah yes, I can drag the lower edge down to get the whole panel.

So, what do I do now?

Oh, I have managed somehow to get just a grey horizontal bar.

So, from past experience with the Transform Panel in Affinity Designer, I think I need to close it, then get it back and try again.

Good, I found it in View Studio Tones and it came back open.

I can't find the LAB part mentioned and I don't seem to be able to adjust the transparency.

So post this and I request help please.

William

 

 

 

 

 

[v_kyr]

28 minutes ago, William Overington said:

So i need the Develop Pesona

Develop Pesona chosen.

NOPE! - You just need the Photo Persona!

28 minutes ago, William Overington said:

I need the Tones Panel

NOPE! - You need just a plain Curves Adjustment, aka ...

• Applying adjustments (there see Curves)
• Curves Adjustment (ignore the where it is for Develop Persona mention there, we are not interested in the Develop Persona way here)

Quote

The following settings can be adjusted in the curves dialog:

• Select a colour mode (GREY/RGB/CMYK/LAB) from the first pop-up menu.

Aka generally, make first a rectangle selection of the wanted area to adjust, then access from the top menu:

• Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves... (Cmd-M/Ctrl-M)

... afterwards follow the above shown curves panel screenshot!