Can I turn this into a brush?

[jaybray]

Hello Affinity community,

I am brand new to both Photo and Designer. I have an effect I will need to apply to several photos in the near future. It seems as if this should probably be achievable via a custom brush, but I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to configure the initial set up. 

Note the right side panel that has the stars/bolts/arrows surrounding the female subject. I am trying to turn those elements into a scatter brush so when I need to apply them to a photo I can just wipe the mouse across the image a couple times and have all the elements present.

I've been playing with the brush settings in a custom image brush, but I can't get that scattered look which means I'm probably configuring the brush incorrectly in the first place.

I do have the individual shapes in vector form, and I'll need them to be the blue/green/yellow colors seen below.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @jaybray.

To get ‘that scattered look’, set the scatter and rotation dynamics to allow some variation from the basic spacing and rotation settings.

[jaybray]

Thanks Alfred!

I thought that would do the trick as well, but I'm not getting the expected results. I'm attaching the PNG file I used to create my brush. I think this needs to be set up differently. Using this to create the initial brush doesn't get me to that scattered look no matter how far  I push the scatter/rotation settings.

 

[firstdefence]

What type of brush are you choosing in Affinity Photo or designer are you in Pixel Persona in designer?

 

[jaybray]

An image brush.

Since I need to keep those exact blue/green/yellow colors, I was thinking that was the best choice, but I'm probably wrong and happy to try something else.

Thx!

[firstdefence]

No image brush is probably the best option for colour retention, I would export each shape as its own png file and add each one as a texture to the main brush. I'm not totally up on brush creation but I'll have a go at creating a brush for you to play with the settings

Scatter brushes.afbrushes

[jaybray]

Cool, thanks! That makes sense. I didn't exactly understand how that Texture panel worked, but now this gives me more ideas to try.

Thanks for building that quick brush. I think I'm headed in the right direction now.

Have a good one!

[StuartRc]

You could try an experiment with scattering using an Intensity Brush

1. Create the shapes separately as PNG (transparent)+ in uniform Square

2. Create new Intensity Brush and add your nozzle shapes

3. Brush General: set large size; ACC 100%;HD;100%;Spacing100%(to start with adjust for effect);Flow (100% in this instance)ignore shape and rotation

4. Dynamics(Here is the fun bit); No accumulation(it blurs) I believe you want solid;Size Jitter(set low and random);Rotation (50% random);Scatter X + scatter Y (200% or +- for effect)

This will give you a single changeable colour but allow you to stamp single elements

If you want a colour change in the same brush set the value of HUE to around 10% (others can be adjusted for effect)

I did a quick test using some very basic shapes:as attached

 

shapeScatterTest.afbrushes

[jaybray]

Thanks @StuartRc

I figured out a similar solution. I know you know how this works, but I'll type it out in case it benefits others.

• I converted each symbol to an individual PNG.
• Then I stuck with the standard image brush and created it using the first symbol.
• From there I double clicked on the new brush to open the Brush Editing panel.
• I went to the Texture tab and added all remaining shapes in the Brush Nozzle area.
• Then it was just a matter of experimenting in the Dynamics panel till I got to the scattered look I need.

Thanks for the help everyone! The rest of my client project will be a breeze now.

[StuartRc]

9 minutes ago, jaybray said:

Thanks @StuartRc

I figured out a similar solution. I know you know how this works, but I'll type it out in case it benefits others.

• I converted each symbol to an individual PNG.
• Then I stuck with the standard image brush and created it using the first symbol.
• From there I double clicked on the new brush to open the Brush Editing panel.
• I went to the Texture tab and added all remaining shapes in the Brush Nozzle area.
• Then it was just a matter of experimenting in the Dynamics panel till I got to the scattered look I need.

Thanks for the help everyone! The rest of my client project will be a breeze now.

Yep! that also works very well....