affinity designer Drawing Attempt with just a Square and Gradients (AD)

[VectorVonDoom]

Messing around again... Not that anyone will be interested but I'm still posting it. I was wondering if you can draw something with just one object and its gradient fills. So these are just squares with a gradient fill then a fx colour overlay and a fx gradient overlay.  The gradient overlays were conical with a blend mode of glow, the colour overlay was grey with blend mode of reflect. Then the main gradient was linear, normal, and that made the shape as depending on the colour it also varies the width.  I tried the storm trooper a couple of times, still failed.

 

So the the answer is you sort of can and if you spent more time perfecting the best way of doing it then they might look quite good.

 

[peter]

Hey Marc,

 

don't be too hard on yourself, as I'm sure that this lil'ol blending exercise is gonna be on someone's wish list one day. It has a vintage computer game style.

 

(sheer bliss)

 

[VectorVonDoom]

They're a picky bunch on here (only joking). I was doing something else and fiddling around with various gradients on it and my mind wondered as it does and thought I wonder if you can do that.... Didn't really think it through, just did it, so there might be a better way. Not that it's something I'm likely to be doing often. 

[GarryP]

I really like seeing experimental stuff like this. Messing around with the software can give you all kinds of weird - but sometimes also useful - things. You never know when this sort of strangeness is exactly what you need for a project.

@peter Starfox: Nice.

[VectorVonDoom]

Trying to draw things probably hasn't a practical use, it was just interesting to see if you could even do it, however crudely. But you can create some snazzy fill styles using strange combinations of standard and fx gradients and blend modes. They're not very easy to plan though, at least not for me.

[GarryP]

Here's something I did a while back - with other software - that only uses circles, blend modes and a little bit of blurring.
(Someone affiliated with the software project didn't think it was capable of it until I showed them the original file.)
Not practical for most things, and certainly not planned, but quite interesting all the same.

[VectorVonDoom]

Very spinny. I had to quickly try something like that and as I was doing it I thought if you fiddle it might make a good button/rivet thing and perhaps more realistic than just a radial gradient as it's not uniform. And it looks OK, bit of a blur at a large size large, but can probably get rid of that (that's probably just the radial) and it wouldn't be that big anyway.  They're just a main radial gradient, fx colour overlay and fx gradient overlay (plus added a shadow to the button one). I've attached the file.

 

Messing With Gradients 2.afdesign

[GarryP]

I had to use lots of circles because the software I was using didn't have a radial fill but offsetting those circles also gave the effect a bit of extra "motion".
I like the idea of using your technique for the button/rivet. As you say, the non-uniformity gives it extra realism.

 

[VectorVonDoom]

After some more fiddling.  Only having the horizontal gradient editor in the fx makes it a bit of a pain when you're trying to do conical gradients also not being able to use swatches anywhere in there.

 

Messing With Gradients 3.afdesign

[peter]

Wheel hub covers! There's plenty of fancy cars in this here forum, that these could grace.