Fill area within a custom shape

[ecce]

I've created a bunch of custom shapes in Affinity Designer to use as symbols. Normally these are a single color and very simple, image street signs for example, that kind of symbols. One look sort of like the figure 8 (an easy example). The two "holes" are transparent (as they are not part of the object). But in some situations I want to fill the two holes with a color. What's the best way to do that? Can I easily create a new shape within another shape and fill that? Or is there a better way?

[stokerg]

Hi ecce,

You could place a shape inside the 'hole' and fill this with colour.  Or if the rest of the sign doesn't have any transparency, you could fill a narrow rectangle or custom shape to fit (drawn with the pen tool) with the colour you want to show and send it behind the sign.  This way the colour would only show where the 'holes' are.

I'm sure if anyone else has other methods of doing this, they will post them  

[gdenby]

Its quite easy. Draw a shape that will enclose the "8" figure. Duplicate the 8, and move it above the enclosure in the layer hierarchy.

 <Select the upper 8 and the enclosure.

Perform a boolean subtraction. Select the results, and perform a divide.

 < divided

Delete the parts of the divided object not needed. Group them all so they can be moved and manipulated all together.

 

 

[lepr]

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[firstdefence]

Simpler still just make a shape that covers the white spaces and drag below the shape then group. Grouping just makes it easier to move and also to make a Symbol or Asset.

 

 

[JimmyJack]

2 hours ago, owenr said:

It's simpler to  just use one 8 and no extra rectangle: select the 8, do Divide, and then fill the three resulting pieces.

This leaves a solid "8" shape underneath the extracted circles. A pesky result of Affinity's divide....which I personally disagree with. I believe the OP wants to keep the negative interior and add the fill on occasion. So a copy of the 8 would come in handy .... then just delete the solid 8 generated from the Divide.

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

Simpler still just make a shape that covers the white spaces and drag below the shape then group. Grouping just makes it easier to move and also to make a Symbol or Asset.

 

 

In Affinity, though, I actually prefer this method (also mentioned by @stokerg) because it eliminates the eventual gap line produced when shapes abut .

[lepr]

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[R C-R]

3 hours ago, JimmyJack said:

In Affinity, though, I actually prefer this method (also mentioned by @stokerg) because it eliminates the eventual gap line produced when shapes abut .

But as @stokerg also mentioned, this is not suitable if there is any transparency that would allow any covered part of the lower shape to be visible. For that situation, I think we are stuck with using multiple shapes & dealing with the butted edge problem.

[JimmyJack]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

But as @stokerg also mentioned, this is not suitable if there is any transparency that would allow any covered part of the lower shape to be visible. For that situation, I think we are stuck with using multiple shapes & dealing with the butted edge problem.

You mean something like this? 

Edit: Ahhhhhhrrrgh. Still get a line. 

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, JimmyJack said:

You mean something like this? 

I mean anything like this not 100% opaque example.afdesign, where the upper shape (here a text 8 but it could be anything) is not completely opaque:

[lepr]

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