How do I go about making a 10 feet by 10 feet illustration in Affinity Designer on iPad?

[Estelle-]

Hi everyone,

I'm very much new here.
I've been using Affinity Designer randomly over the year, but I am using Procreate for my work 99% of the time. I'm an illustrator.

However, today, a client asked me to draw a 10 feet by 10 feet illustration. And of course, Procreate being a raster software can't do that. The highest setting I can get is 130cm by 130cm (that would be 4 feet). And I thought about doing the illustration in Affinity Designer using vectors. But here is my question, how do I go about doing such a huge illustration? Since it's vector I could take the illustration and scale it afterward, right? But my style has some texture in it, does AD scale the texture as well? Do the textured brush scale, are they vector based? (Yes, I'm a total newbie in need of help). I have done vector illustration in the past using Illustrator, but I've never used textures, so it never as an issue to scale the illustration. But here, I'm clueless on how to go about doing a 10 feet vector illustration with textures. I've been watching several videos on YT, and the FAQ, but I'm not sure that I have found the answer to my question.

Can someone help me?

Thank you very much.

[Alfred]

Welcome back to the Serif Affinity Forums, @Estelle-.

4 hours ago, Estelle- said:

But here is my question, how do I go about doing such a huge illustration? Since it's vector I could take the illustration and scale it afterward, right? But my style has some texture in it, does AD scale the texture as well? Do the textured brush scale, are they vector based?

You can create a document directly at the required size: even if you’re planning to export to PDF, you would only need to consider scaling if one or both sides were more than 200 inches. (Textured brushes in Designer have vector paths, but the texture itself is raster and therefore won’t scale nicely.)

 

 

[Estelle-]

Thank you for your answer! And even the pictures, that's very kind of you!

 

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(Textured brushes in Designer have vector paths, but the texture itself is raster and therefore won’t scale nicely.)

So, based on this, I won't be able to draw the illustration in a 5ft x 5ft and scale it to 10ft when I'm done with the illustration since the raster texture will probably look awful.
Then I should probably drop the texture then, which I am not happy with though.

Drawing on a 10ft wide canva takes a lot of ram and I don't think my iPad would survive the shock honestly... XD

I have no clue how to go about that apart from dropping the texture altogether. Aw man.

[Alfred]

22 minutes ago, Estelle- said:

Drawing on a 10ft wide canvas takes a lot of ram and I don't think my iPad would survive the shock honestly... XD

Try it, you might be pleasantly surprised! My iPad is an Air 2, an old model that only just meets the minimum spec for the Affinity apps, but I’ve never noticed a problem unless I’m trying to edit (or even merely load) a document that has a humongous number of layers with multiple adjustments and/or filter effects.

[StuartRc]

Hi

You can create large illustrations in Affinity Apps. I have worked on 2 x 1m images (300dpi) previously without any issues and mixing both vector and raster components. The brushes are also 300 - 400 dpi raster nozzles. Sometimes have had issues scaling back down in export persona!

What you are suggesting is around 3m. As previously suggested you could scale up or use a lower dpi.

What kind of texture are you using in the image? Could it be a vector representation? 

[Estelle-]

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Try it, you might be pleasantly surprised!

I shall, thank you for the encouragement!
Thank you so much for the information, it gives me hope haha! I will try it, thank you so much for your help!

 

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Sometimes have had issues scaling back down in export persona!

Wow!

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What kind of texture are you using in the image? Could it be a vector representation? 

in Procreate there is a brush called "Pencil" and it gives these pencil-looking lines, which I really enjoy. It gives a grainy texture as well, which I have no clue how I could achieve in a vector illustration other than adding a paper texture with overlay/multiply on top of the vector art, but the final wouldn't be as nice. Are there any vector brush in AD that would mimic a pencil and scale nicely? 

[StuartRc]

Ok

Well AD does not really have true vector brushes So even if you used a 'vector' brush it would actually be raster
Pencil Brushes.. Well I can sort that out!:

An overlaying vector texture is a good idea!. If you are looking for some type of grainy appearance :
a. you could add noise from Palette
b. Use a scalable vector pattern | texture and edit | experiment with the Layer Adjustments | effects to get a different result
 

There is also the new functionality of dragging assets from assets panel onto the Colour swatch and use a pattern (seamless if organised correctly!)...but this would also be raster.
 

[Estelle-]

Oh, so many options! This gives me hope as well, thank you!

Oh, are those brushes for free??? Wow, that's so generous!

 

I'll definitely take your guys' advice, and if the client is willing to go for the project, I'll share it here when I'm done and tell you guys how it went!
Thank you so much for your time and help, I really appreciate that you gave both to me. Thank you so much to both of you!