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This is my second Art Nouveau piece (and probably my last as I'm ready to move on to something else). I based my version on a Henri Privat-Livemore poster from around 1896 or so.

 

As I mentioned in my previous piece, I normally don't use the "effects" in Designer because I normally work only in pure vectors but the effects worked so well with shading on the skin in my last piece that I decided to recreate this piece as well adding my own little touches along the way. I chose this poster because I liked the composition and it had a lot of shading on the skin tones and I wanted to see what I could do with it using Designer's effects. I was very happy with the results. I hope that you enjoy.

 

Thanks for letting me share my picture.

Hokusai

Absinthe_02.jpg

Outline_02.png

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Splendid work. Do move on, but keep the skills you clearly have from emulating Art Nouveau.

 

When you mention "effects," do you mean gradient fills, pixel painting, gaussian blur, etc? If you didn't use those, how would you approximate the same results from pure vector?

 

PS, you can see from my user icon that I had a period of gradient intoxication, which now is a little embarrassing, but it was such fun. 

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25 minutes ago, gdenby said:

When you mention "effects," do you mean gradient fills, pixel painting, gaussian blur, etc? If you didn't use those, how would you approximate the same results from pure vector?

gdenby,

 

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, those are the effects that I'm talking about. Gradients are okay and they can be used on purely vector pieces but if you use a gradient that goes from a colour to transparent, it normally rasterizes it so I usually just use only "regular" gradients but I didn't on this one. Normally I avoid anything that will cause my work to be rasterized but not with this piece. Some of the effects you simply can't reproduce (from my experience) using only vectors but you can do things that mimic the style and still keep everything purely vector. How well they work depends on technique and also on the piece itself. The gradients in your user icon are cool, nothing embarrassing about it! When I first got into graphics, I went through a gradient phase too. 

 

Hokusai

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:o Astonishing. This is graphic art!

With your shading, the subject is no longer the earthy photo-realist artists' model of the original, but an ethereal nymph.

It seems she hasn't tasted the product yet...

Affinity Designer & Photo  :  Win 10

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Gorgeous. Very good work, and great choice.  :)

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
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Impressive piece of work!...'pure vectors' can have such stunning results.....like this one:)

 

Affinity Version 1 (10.6) Affinity Version 2.4 All (Designer | Photo | Publisher)   Beta; 2.4 1.2344
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Stuart_R,

 

I'm glad that you liked my piece. It was completely drawn using vectors but I did have to use some of Designer's "Effects" to get the skin tones looking like that so I don't know if this one would qualify as being 'pure vectors' but it is close. I normally avoid using anything that will cause rasterization when I export it as PDF but there are occasions when it is unavoidable. Are you a vector purist too or do you like to mix vectors and rasters? 

 

Hokusai

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1 minute ago, Hokusai said:

Alfred,

 

Very funny! You're quite the punster. 

 

Hokusai

 

Thanks, @Hokusai. I'm afraid I can't claim the credit for that one, but I do confess to being more than averagely fond of a bit of wordplay.

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1 hour ago, Alfred said:

 

Thanks, @Hokusai. I'm afraid I can't claim the credit for that one, but I do confess to being more than averagely fond of a bit of wordplay.

 

...and euphemism. 

 

J/K  !  This forum wouldn't be the same without that wordplay of yours...  ;) 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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45 minutes ago, Hokusai said:

Stuart_R,

 

I'm glad that you liked my piece. It was completely drawn using vectors but I did have to use some of Designer's "Effects" to get the skin tones looking like that so I don't know if this one would qualify as being 'pure vectors' but it is close. I normally avoid using anything that will cause rasterization when I export it as PDF but there are occasions when it is unavoidable. Are you a vector purist too or do you like to mix vectors and rasters? 

 

Hokusai

It's an impressive drawing....like a lot of the artwork that has been posted in the forum....It's like watching something powerful evolve! over a relatively short period of time.

 

I appreciate both and actually and like mixing raster and vector together. It can create some fantastic effects. You just need to look at Frankentoon, Agata, Monez, Robert Harris and Paolo for the that. I think the ability to combine vector/raster in the same software is a considerable advantage and adds to the versatility of AD/AP and superiority over it's rivals.  

 

The drawings I have been attempting for the past couple of months have however, been just vector. It's quite time consuming and I suppose in reality just been experimenting with  vector textures and patterning. As I just can't leave those textures alone....

 

It can be difficult to mix complex colours like skin without mesh tools. Vectors alone can be limiting without resorting to effects. Initially (a year or more) I was using Gaussian blurs inside objects to mimic highlights and shadows but I have found..much to my annoyance that you can achieve better results using a combination of layered flat tints (opacity), the transparency tool, colour and subtle graduations. Creating grouped overlapping objects with varying opacity/colour worked well for me..but can be a slow process...but once you have the objects it can be fun to play around with.

 

 It is an advantage for me personally as consequence of creating raster brushes (Texture Painters) I have a lot of seamless vector patterns which have been used a lot recently (like Letracet!....if anyone remembers that!:))   

 

Affinity Version 1 (10.6) Affinity Version 2.4 All (Designer | Photo | Publisher)   Beta; 2.4 1.2344
OS:Windows 10 Pro 22H2 OS Build 19045.4046+ Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0
Rig:AMD FX 8350 and AMD Radeon (R9 380 Series) Settings Version 21.04.01 
Radeon Settings Version 2020
20.1.03) + Wacom Intuous 4M with driver 6.3.41-1

 

 

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3 hours ago, Stuart_R said:

It's an impressive drawing....like a lot of the artwork that has been posted in the forum....It's like watching something powerful evolve! over a relatively short period of time.

 

I appreciate both and actually and like mixing raster and vector together. It can create some fantastic effects. You just need to look at Frankentoon, Agata, Monez, Robert Harris and Paolo for the that. I think the ability to combine vector/raster in the same software is a considerable advantage and adds to the versatility of AD/AP and superiority over it's rivals.  

 

The drawings I have been attempting for the past couple of months have however, been just vector. It's quite time consuming and I suppose in reality just been experimenting with  vector textures and patterning. As I just can't leave those textures alone....

 

It can be difficult to mix complex colours like skin without mesh tools. Vectors alone can be limiting without resorting to effects. Initially (a year or more) I was using Gaussian blurs inside objects to mimic highlights and shadows but I have found..much to my annoyance that you can achieve better results using a combination of layered flat tints (opacity), the transparency tool, colour and subtle graduations. Creating grouped overlapping objects with varying opacity/colour worked well for me..but can be a slow process...but once you have the objects it can be fun to play around with.

 

 It is an advantage for me personally as consequence of creating raster brushes (Texture Painters) I have a lot of seamless vector patterns which have been used a lot recently (like Letracet!....if anyone remembers that!:))   

Stuart_R,

 

I agree with you, there are some amazing arts posting some incredible pieces of art here. I've seen most of the ones that you listed and they are fantastic, and there are two very talented users that you didn't list that I recommend you check out if you haven't already, IsabelAracama and Retrograde. Very nice stuff.

 

You're completely right about the gradient mesh, especially if you are working with skin tones. I hope that when the Affinity team adds a gradient mesh it works better than Illustrator's. Illustrator's gradient mesh is okay and I know a lot of people like it but I never could get it to work the way I wanted it to. Maybe I wasn't using it correctly but whatever the reason, I felt it had the potential to be greatly improved upon and I hope that the developers here can offer something better and easier to use. 

 

 Pure vector pieces do take longer for me to make too but most of the time when I make a piece I prefer to spend a little extra time and keep it all vector if I can.

 

Hokusai

 

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1 minute ago, Hokusai said:

Stuart_R,

 

I agree with you, there are some amazing arts posting some incredible pieces of art here. I've seen most of the ones that you listed and they are fantastic, and there are two very talented users that you didn't list that I recommend you check out if you haven't already, IsabelAracama and Retrograde. Very nice stuff.

 

You're completely right about the gradient mesh, especially if you are working with skin tones. I hope that when the Affinity team adds a gradient mesh it works better than Illustrator's. Illustrator's gradient mesh is okay and I know a lot of people like it but I never could get it to work the way I wanted it to. Maybe I wasn't using it correctly but whatever the reason, I felt it had the potential to be greatly improved upon and I hope that the developers here can offer something better and easier to use. 

 

 Pure vector pieces do take longer for me to make too but most of the time when I make a piece I prefer to spend a little extra time and keep it all vector if I can.

 

Hokusai

 

Absolutely!...There are so many it would be a long list...one that I think is going to grow significantly...I have watched some of Isabel's tutorials..the dragonfly on Behance is amazing! and Retrograde's isometrics are outstanding..and the giant blue rabbit!. I completely agree with you:)

 

Yeah! the gradient mesh was never my favourite tool. It is too 'sensitive' if that's the right word..requiring a lot of patience...and easy to break/destroy your efforts. But it does have some neat tricks of being able to extract the mesh shapes from the parent mesh...and if you keep it simple can be quite useful. AD is evolving into something quite special and looking forward to getting my paws on 1.7.

 

I am sort of pleased your vector pieces take a long time.. makes me feel better having just spent 5 days working on one drawing.:)

 

Affinity Version 1 (10.6) Affinity Version 2.4 All (Designer | Photo | Publisher)   Beta; 2.4 1.2344
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Rig:AMD FX 8350 and AMD Radeon (R9 380 Series) Settings Version 21.04.01 
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20.1.03) + Wacom Intuous 4M with driver 6.3.41-1

 

 

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Stuart_R,

 

I too am very pleased and excited about how nicely Designer has been evolving and I can't wait to see what they'll add with 1.7 too! With each update it keeps getting better and better. 

 

Normally I take a couple weeks to a month to work on a single piece. This piece (Absinthe) took me only a week but that is a little fast for me (but I do them in my spare time so I'm not working on them full time). My longest is 6 months or so. 

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