Two shapes sharing one side in Affinity Designer

[Unleavened Tech]

Hello!

I have just purchased Affinity Designer yesterday, so I am new to this. I have watched some tutorials, but none of them seems to cover what I want.
I have two objects, as seen on picture picture [1]. What I want, is for object [1] and [2] to share one side, like what it looks like they do on picture [2]. Now the side that looks like it belongs to both of the objects only belongs to object [2]. Therefore, object [1] is not a closed shape, and if I try to color it, what happens can be seen on picture [3]. Putting it one layer above does not work, as seen on picture [4], but it would not be a nice solution anyways. I want to be able to color both shapes to different colors. For this I need two shapes, that share the same side, or to copy that side over to the other object as well, and put the copy on top of the original one. So basically I want it to like what it's on picture [5]. Please note that picture [5] was done by editing the screenshot in Paint, and not in Affinity Designer, but what I am wanting to be able of is to do that in Affinity Designer.

Thank you.

 

Picture 1:

 

Picture 2:

 

Picture 3:

 

Picture 4:

Picture 5:

[John Rostron]

No, Affinity Designee does not have this facility. It is present in some speciality map-drawing software where shared boundaries are important. You can emulate it using the geometry options. I cannot remember the details and I am currently on my tablet. What the geometry options do is create identical but separate boundaries for each item. This would allow you to create distinct fills for each

John

[dutchshader]

dividing the shape with a single line won't work.

you would have to make the red shape and paste the yellow shape inside the red shape.

 

see attached file.

untitled.afdesign

 

[Unleavened Tech]

1 hour ago, dutchshader said:

dividing the shape with a single line won't work.

you would have to make the red shape and paste the yellow shape inside the red shape.

 

see attached file.

untitled.afdesign

 

That would indeed work in this situation, but what if I want to do something like I attached to this comment. It must be just me being stupid and new to the software, I just want to draw a simple eagle. I have two weeks, if I can't achieve what I want, or can't work with the software, I might return it. But I think I am just being stupid.

 

[Alfred]

8 minutes ago, W z said:

That would indeed work in this situation, but what if I want to do something like I attached to this comment.

 

That’s just a variant of the same scenario. Create a large red shape and paste a smaller yellow shape inside it (or create a large yellow shape and paste a smaller red shape inside it).

[gdenby]

Hi, W z,

 

Once you get the hang of it, its really simple. Attached, a file that took maybe 2 minutes. It all started w. the large head shape. repeated copy, and reshape the parts in a stack. The eye parts are nested in it.

 

 

FastHead.afdesign

 

[Unleavened Tech]

You both talk about one shape, another shape in the first shape, but I don't want my second shape to be inside the first shape's borders.

[firstdefence]

I don't get why you want to construct the beak like you do, maybe the reasoning behind it would help but in the meantime, check out the design I did, this is simply making the top part of the beak like the bottom part of the beak.

 

To get a neat edge I just used geometry to remove the bottom beaks top curve. Sometimes you have to work with the app to get a similar result. 

 

Eagle Beak.afdesign

 

Watch this.

 

[Unleavened Tech]

I have already done the beak with the previous method (the one where you put it inside another shape), however I don't know how I could color the head of my eagle brown.

 

The pen tool is also for some reason curving the nodes, I want those to be sharp, and I have to deselect then select the node again with the node tool and switch to the pen tool to be able to have a sharp corner, while continously clicking on the convert to sharp button. How can I fix that?

Sorry, but I am really new to this, and the tutorials I find do not cover these topics, only the really basics like where you can find the tools, etc. which seems obvious.

[Unleavened Tech]

Here is the file

eagle.afdesign

[A_B_C]

Pen Tool Shortcut Tutorials:

 

https://vimeo.com/112930017

https://vimeo.com/107567054

 

Hold down Alt (Option) with the Pen Tool to create a cusp node. 

[A_B_C]

You cannot fill a complex of four open contours (paths) with a colour. You will have to create a closed path instead. 

 

[firstdefence]

8 minutes ago, W z said:

I have already done the beak with the previous method (the one where you put it inside another shape), however I don't know how I could color the head of my eagle brown.

 

The pen tool is also for some reason curving the nodes, I want those to be sharp, and I have to deselect then select the node again with the node tool and switch to the pen tool to be able to have a sharp corner, while continously clicking on the convert to sharp button. How can I fix that?

Sorry, but I am really new to this, and the tutorials I find do not cover these topics, only the really basics like where you can find the tools, etc. which seems obvious.

 

You got to start somewhere W z, 

 

[firstdefence]

Another tip is to use a trace image, to get realistic shapes. This will familiarise you with the shape of an eagle head, if you would like I can make a short video to show you what I mean. The results can be quite effective.

 

original Trace image of a bald eagle.

 

and quickly vectored.

[Unleavened Tech]

Okay, so I will have to create shapes inside shapes. This means that at first I need to make the a shape, which is the whole eagle, and than inside of that, make other shapes, which are parts of the eagle? Does this mean I can't work in any order, or am I getting something wrong here?

[dutchshader]

you wil not allways have to create shapes inside shapes. most of the time you can place the shapes above each other..

made a quick example.

 

hope you can figure it out from the designer file.

 

eagle.afdesign

 

[Unleavened Tech]

It is a bit weird technique but I will try to adjust myself to it.

Thanks.

[dutchshader]

it's not realy weird, it's just how verctor drawing works.

 

[gdenby]

4 hours ago, W z said:

It is a bit weird technique but I will try to adjust myself to it.

Thanks.

 

FWIW, in traditional media, there is a guide that says for transparent media, work from light to dark color. For opaque, do the opposite. The color strokes are layered. So too in vector work, but the opacity can be changed at any time.

 

In your specific case, trying to match contours, its easier to start w. a large shape, and re-work the boundaries of that shape to make the different colored parts. They end up being stacked. And then other shapes can be stacked on those. Think of it like glazing layers in oil painting. A big plus is that the blend modes change how the glazing effect works.

[firstdefence]

@W z Get into the habit of naming layers, it can get quite messy if you don't. Having named layers helps keep track of what you are doing.