Creating Vector Mandalas in Affinity Designer

1. Introduction: welcome to my class on creating vector mandalas in affinity. Designer. My name is Jenny Cole and I am a designer, illustrator, creator, maker all sorts of things, but I do love to teach on. This is a class that I have designed for making mandalas of various different sizes and doing them as vectors. I found him procreate. As wonderful as it is, all I could do was create mandalas of certain sizes and I wanted to be out to do multiple degrees. So in this class I will show you how to create a vector mandala. Using affinity designer, we will learn how to set up the canvas. Andi used basic shapes, lines, images as well as adding color on also how to change your basic shapes into more complex shapes. So you will learn all these things. Andi. Hopefully, it will give you an idea. Awful. The wonderful things that you can do included with the course as a mandala degrees sheet that you can download, which will give you an indication of all the different size mandalas you can create, and the degrees that you need to put into the program at the end with your class project. It would be really wonderful to see some of your mandalas. They could include various different techniques. So lines, shapes and images, or maybe just do images or lines, for example. So any variety you like and it be nice to see you master a couple of different sizes, So I would love to see that. Thank you very much for taking my class. 2. Choosing your Mandala size: So before we get started, we need to decide on what size Mandylor that we want to use. I want to create. So here is a variety of mandalas that I've created using various different degrees. This one is a 16 sided mandala. This is a five cited mandala. This is a 10 sided mandala, says nine side it. So there's all sorts of different once you can dio on in order to know what the degrees are , work them out for you. So to create a two sided, I mean, you wouldn't want to do a two sided mandolin necessarily. But it's 180 degrees. If you want your nine sided Mandalay, it would be 40 degrees you need to put in this 16 sided mandala You want to do 22.5. You can have this. This will be on the project resources for you to download and keep 3. Setting up your canvas: it's time to set up a canvass. So what we need to do is we need to open affinity designer, and we're going to click on the plus sign up at the top. Now what I have done, you could even do it from here. Or I have created a folder already with all my mandala designs so that I can organize things. So I'm gonna add from there I'm gonna press new documents on. I'm gonna leave all these elements here saying, but I do want to change the dimensions. The reason I want to change the dimensions is to make it a lot easier toe workout. I'm going to do a 2000 square. You could easily do our 1000 square or 3000 if you wanted to, but because we're working in vectors, we don't actually need it to be too huge, so I wouldn't do it bigger than 2000. I would say that's the max. Really? Um, I don't need to do anything with the orientation because it works that out on its own theme . Cree transparent background. I do want and I want the option of having an art board. So sometimes, having an outboard is is helpful. I don't often use it. At least I've got the option here to do so. So I'm gonna click, OK, and there we go. This is Allah. Countless. So now there are various different things we need to do, So I will try and go as slowly and carefully as I can. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna set up awkward lines. This makes life so much easier for, especially for the original positioning. So if you click on the little fire like icon at the top, click guides and then down the bottom Here you will say horizontal on add vertical, and I'm gonna click both like that. And then I'm going to go to the rectangle score CO option here. If your rectangle is not selected here, there is a little arrow on. It will be in this menu here. I think it depends entirely on how, on what ships use the most mines nearly always set to rectangle. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to drag a square can, of course, use this with your So I did too many lens so wanted to finger tap toe go back a step. You can, of course, use your pencil, which I've got here but for this. But I thought I would just use my fingers. So down this side here, if I press, it'll information thing, you want the transforms to D I I'm gonna kick on the transform studio while this is still selected, and I'm going to choose to make it the same size as my canvas. Now, what I could do is I could drag it said it covers my campus, but I like to make sure it is the exact because it there is an element of needing to be exact when creating your mantle of background. So those are both 2000 which is great. Next thing I need to do is I'm going to remove the color, so I'm gonna have a clear background, which would be ideal for when we do the mandala. If we're gonna do is a vector, because then we can layer it over something we won't see the background on. The next thing I'm going to do is I'm gonna change the width of the line. So the next button down is the brush stroke or the stroke width, and I'm just going to reduce that to barely visible anyway. Go so you can see it. But it's no do a little bit higher matchmaker, but it's not very, very clear. The reason I wanted thin is because the thicker it is, the more misleading is when you come to doing your Manulis. So now I'm gonna select the move tool at the top, and I'm gonna snap this into the top corner having the guides. There really does help because it snaps it for you. So I know it's exactly the right place. Another option is to go to the Transform studio. Andi changed location to minus 1000 minus 1000 on its position on the X and Y axes. Right now, I'm gonna make sure I'm just gonna go to my layers. I'm gonna select that rectangle and what I'm gonna do is turn it into a symbol turning into a symbol. It means that whatever I do to that one square, it's gonna happen toe all of them. So I'm gonna go down to the symbol If I press on this again, you can see single studio. So click on simple studio click on three lines at symbol from selection. Now you can't see in there because I have no background. If I had it white, you'd be able to see it. But I don't want to have it white. I need to have it clear so that I can see the layers all underneath. Now, the next thing I need to do is I need to make sure that this square is going to rotate in the way that I needed to. And you will see why, in a bit. So down on the bottom here, you have so got this selected, by the way. Okay, there was a little target shape on when you press it, you can see that the middle of the square that you created has the little target shape. That's because that is where the box rotates at the minute. So if I rotated it, it would go around that point there. But what I wanted to do is go around this point here, so I'm going to drag that to the middle corner on because we've got the snapping on on because we've done the guides it again snaps to that spot. Right? I've got my target right in the middle, and this will help the square rotate. I've also done my symbols. So now what I need to do is I need to create all the symbols for each part of the mandala. I decided I'm going to do a 16 sided mandala, which means I'm gonna need 16 symbols. I have this symbol selected. If I click on here, you can see the symbol is collect selected. If I were to click on the rectangle that will not work, it has to be the whole symbol that is selected on. I am going to go to the three dots. Go on Jupiter Cuts. And then if I go to transform studio again, there was a rotation option, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on it. And so I wanted to be a 16 sided manned alerts. I'm going to click on rotation, and then I'm going to put in the degrees from my hand out that you'll find in the class, um, resources on its 22.5 degrees. So I'm gonna click. OK, and as you can see, it's moved the symbol round 22.5 degrees on that's has been its central point. Now, if you don't touch it, okay, then go to the three dots and get duplicates. It will move it to the next position for you, so it's still going to rotate it around. And you can keep doing that 16 times until you get to the end. If you accidentally touch it, a new press duplicate and all it does is stay in the same place. Okay, I was just show you. So if that's the last one, So I'm gonna click Duplicate, as you can see, has it moved anywhere? So what I'm gonna do is go back in my transform studio. I'm gonna click on rotation and I'm gonna click, plus 22.5. And as you can see, it's moved on again. Now, if you don't touch it again, it should duplicate that. You go keep moving around and you want to do that until you've got all the way around until you get to the point where you started. But don't go over the point where you started. So I have done 16 going all the way around on. That is mostly my board sorted all are going to do now is go. I'm gonna find my first single that I put down, which is this one here, and I'm gonna drag it to the top so I will be put up. Sorry, I will be predominantly working in this this section here and you'll see why I like to run . Why you can't if you can't always just go all over the place, especially if you're introducing color and shapes. So last job very quickly is we're gonna go to the plus sign up here and we're gonna add a vector layer on. We are going to hold that letter and put it into the first symbol and you can see it's got the orange line. If it doesn't have the orange line, it won't show up on all of them. So that's how I have set up my canvas. We're all ready to go with a 16 sided mandala 4. Using basic shapes: right. So now how to use shapes. So I've got my mandala set up. I have got my layer highlighted. Here I'm gonna do is go over to my shape over here. I'm tennis and I missed it. I'm going to select a shape. He doesn't really matter which party. I think I'm gonna go for the teardrop. First on again, working in this section. I'm going to push the shape down. Now you can see what's happened is the shape has gone every single symbol using. And it's going around this central point so I can move it around. You select it like that, I can make it sinner. I can also thicken the line slightly. I like the mandala to be in a thicker line than than the grit refused. And now I can go in and I could make alterations, so I'd like it to be a little bit more central. For example, if I click on the note tool up there and then click on it, I can do things like alta also the pre the red nodes that they have, which have fun so I can do all sorts of things like that. But I think what I will do is no worry too. There we go and have a bit more central like that. Now, I'm still gonna work from this area here, but I'm going to add another shape. In fact, I think long and do is add another teardrops I'm gonna press duplicate on making sure it's selected. I cannot add it like that. Now. What you can do as well is you can convert it to curves and then change all sorts of elements about it. So if I show you that now So we've got this teardrop selected. I'm going to go to the three dots, convert to curves. Press that and then make sure I'm in the note tool. And if you aren't, you can ask nodes as your, um on only edges Didn't average that note. Let me go like that. That's a little bit more like a flower petal. There we go. I could I would need I do need to do that through converting it to curves. So but have a play around and see what you come up with. What's the next thing I'm going to do? It's under choose a different shape. I think on. I'm going to go for the present. Who has Prism? Actually, I don't hitting in there. So what? I'm going to It's going to take it around this quadrant here like that. If you ever get stock, you make sure you're working in this first symbol here so you could always track things around on. You will be keeping all your shapes will be going within this layer that we've got going on here on. And it all has to be orange down aside again. Otherwise it won't shock on each one. So I'm going to rotate this slightly. Every guy I think it could do is okay. So now I've made a circus. All of you so far is to teardrops on day One present on I've already made a really nice person. If you wanted to. Do you repeat patterns like a bit like when we did the mandala shape in the first place. Then put that there, right, And then I'll show you. So I've got mine in the place that I want it. I'm going to click Jeep the cuts, and then I'm gonna on the move it and then Jupiter again and you can see it's moved. If I were to move it down slightly, depending on where you place it, the possibility is that it will go around the circle for you, which is quite handy. Here we go. Now. I'm not so happy with those. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna group them together. Andi, try and make them fit a little bit smaller because I'm gonna ungroomed this one. I need to move. We can remove this one up, take off the snap, and then it's a little bit easy to do. There we go on. Now we've got a circle around the outside. All we put down with four dots on that's it. So that is adding shapes to your mandala using the shape tool here. Andi, I've also shown you how to convert to curves so that you can alter the shape of it to, um, to create a new a brand new shape so that we get 5. Adding colour: Now I'm gonna show you have out color. So we've got ah, following on from where we were before. I have literally just stand the group of circles around the outside. But I think I'd like to add some color. Now, If I was doing a drawing page covering Patriots sample, I would leave it black and white on. I would take away the grid lines, which we will do at the end. But I would like to see what it is like colored first. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select one of the shapes, go up to the color picker and then maybe choose a swatch I like. Now I want to keep the black outline, but I think I'm going to to a nice lilac inside. Now, if I go back to my layers, go to the next one, I think I will alternate them. That one and then the last one. So now I've got a pattern going all the way around. So remember whatever we do to our objects in our symbols for good to the layer. If whatever we do on this layer that's on this symbol, you will see It's exactly the same on the next symbol. If you want to delete something from this symbol, for example, it takes it from all symbols. So it doesn't really matter what symbol you work on as long as you are consistent and work from that symbol. Well, at least that's how I find it easier. So I'm just gonna put that one back. I'm gonna collapse this menu cause it's a bit big, right? So let's work on the crescent this time, so I'm going to add a color. I think I might do a Grady in this time, So I'm gonna go over to the left hand side and pick the Grady into all I'm gonna make sure that I've got this one selected on. I'm gonna create my great aunt. So what you do is you lay your radiant path down like that, and then you click on one of the end circles. So I'd like that one to be light. And then this one, I think I'm gonna do blue. Maybe a green. Now this look. Oh, I moved it then disasterous like that. Now, if you look here is a little bar and you could move up and down to show you the difference how steep the Grady is going to be. So I wanted to be quite yellow with, like, a hint of green over the top. And then you go, it's done it to a with, um So let's try this petal one next. So if I call it if I select the Patil and I think I will do a Grady INT again and I would like it to be darker on the inside, So I'm gonna click Select the one that's on the inside on Don't have a dark purple for that , I think go to slightly. No, I don't think that would be all right. And then on the top one, I think we'll have, I think, actually, the grace quite knifes so you can play around, See? See what you fancy. Okay, I'm gonna go with that. And then if I click on my last one on, then I could do a great and again, But this time I'm going to do it going this way. So from side to side on and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna tap in the middle and add another one. So the middle one. I want to be nice and light, so I'm gonna have a nice light. I think we'll have a light, really light color there. And then the outside won. I'm going to choose a blue and then on that one and choose a blue as well, and you'll see that the inside has become water. And it Now you have two different guides here, so you can change. Um, the density of your radiant. So they began. That's my very simple little mandala on its colored in. And I have used the radiant tool on the filter All Don't forget to have a go with your class, um, class practice and see how you did. 6. Using lines: Okay, so the next thing we're going to look hot is lines. So this is the image. Always working one. A second ago, I'm going to go back to my main menu. I'm going to click on three lines here, and I'm gonna kick cheaper Kate. Andi. So I've still got that one left. I'm also going to rename it. So this one I'm going to call, um six Dane Mandala because it's a 16 edged mandala, and I'm gonna put shapes that Okay, so that one save now. So now I'm gonna open this one, and in order to clear it really, really quickly, the advantage of using symbols is that whatever you do toe, one symbol is gonna do to all of them. So I opened up the layers menu, gonna click on that vector layer there, and could you see you've gotten if I expand it? There were all the shapes that was done. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna select all shapes. Don't slip too quickly. Otherwise you de select it. But they go that selected all of those. See, that isn't even the one I was working on. I was working on this one. But when you're deleting, it really doesn't matter on oppressed. A late and they've all gone. And now I'm left with my 16. Great once more. So I'm gonna go back to my first. Uh, let's put that back in a way that got down there. All right. Okay. So my first single that I put down Andi, Um, when it comes to saving, incidentally, you will need to get rid of these lines. Okay, I'll try and explain that at the end. So next door was begun to work on lines. Okay, so we've done shapes. Now we're going to do lines, so make sure you've got your vector layer in there and selected, and then you've got three difference drawing options. Here. I find I like a rope stabilizer on mine. Although I like it. Question, um, the reason being I like a rich stabilizers because it just stabilizes the brush all the way through. You know, I'm not an expert with these things, so it's, you know, if I I'm predominantly working again from that one. Um, can you see this section here? So is quite fun. You could do a whole variety of things. I'm just gonna improve my let's see, you see how much straighter that is, that the higher there. The point is there's also window stabilizer. She's a similar soul thing, and you can really just, you know, have great fun doing lines. It doesn't even matter if it's just lines. You can just go all the way around. It doesn't really matter the only time it becomes a problem by going around all the symbols like that, um, is when you come to color it. But if you're gonna could produce a black and white vector image that isn't going to be color or could be colored separately but isn't gonna be colored in this program, and then it really doesn't matter. So I just quite like just playing around, You know, it's just it's just a wonderful effect. So that's solved with squiggly lines. Okay, so the next one is the vector brush tool. So this is this one here. Hey, on with this one, you can choose different brush type, so if you click on the little brush there, you can select. Can you see how that's faded? And you can see the brushstrokes so you can choose a whole variety of different things You don't forget. You can also change colors if you want to. Okay, that's like a crayon type one. I think I'm going to go back to black purely because I want to create an outline that I can color in at a later date. So, uh oh, these ones are quite fun as well. He's got multiple layers, and if you increase the brush seen, get lots of lines. Um, there are also other options with this particular brush to say If I say if I go to just a plain, um, brush again, like that one, okay? And then I click on the brush size. What I can do is click on this button here, and then I can change the Sorry, only it's not doing it. Okay, Northup it right. So now I'm going to do is show you this one. So this one is, um, a pen troll, and you do a dot on then another dots like that. You can adjust where it tapers, so there's no tape of their but that tape was at the beginning. You can see there that tapers at the end, so it disappears. You can pull up the middle so it tapers at the ends, bits quite thick in the middle. You can probably see better when I expand it. So I let around and well, looks like a pencil point ident. Okay. And you can change the grade Ian's as well. So if you want it as, uh, as a long fade in, I think Sorry. I think of the word a long paper on. Then you can ultra to there if you want it short at the other end. So there's lots of options without which is quite nice as well. Um, if you want to do more than that, can you see these two pistols selected? So I compress again on again, and what you can do is you can go in with a no tool that Iran, and you can alter them bearing in mind when you're doing the, um So I had to me to kick other When you're doing the tape. Oh, you will find that you'll get little lines with some of them because the air just its tapering in places. Not very comfortable tapering in for they go. That's using lines. If you want to dio color in a line. Okay, Weaken. Just go out and then re select. No, I think I do. I'll do the pencil Brush this again if you concede. But this I've also kept this this stroke option here on this tour on the pencil tool so I can I can have the tapering if I want to, But I'm not gonna go for the taper at the minute what I'm going to do. No. Keep the tape with so hard to decide. Um, but on this one, I wanted to be a flat line and I wanted to be solar on. And what I'm going to do is I'm gonna reduce the line. But if I go to color, what I can do is I can put in some color and can you see wherever it is enclosed, it will let me explain. So this line, if it was there, can you see that it is all enclosed, but I've opened out on it, has joined itself up there. I've opened up whether I haven't taken out and again, and then you can play around with shapes like that as well. So that's doing a line and sort of creating your own solid shape. Um, if you want to do a break in it, get the right thing. Okay, so I want to break that went up. And can you see our breaking up again? And it's now come to separate bits. Good. I was quite interesting playing around with the effects and seeing what you can get. So you, uh I sort of find it equally frustrating. Andi Fascinating. All at the same time so they would go. So that's using lines you can. Don't forget. You can do very traditional mandalas shapes very tiny ones, or be quite big and bold. It's completely up to you and your style. 7. Adding images: Okay, So I have now, Um, play of my great I'm still on my 16 sided mandala, and I'm gonna show you how to add images. This is the thing that I particularly like compared to procreate. Um, you can actually add photos, things and images. They need to be quite small on a 16 peace one because you need to primarily get it into that area there. Otherwise, we have overlapping problem that we have before. So I'm gonna go up a little far, like on. I'm gonna go to place image. I'm going to go import from photos, and then you just have to bear with me a minute while I just go through some of my images. Let's do some flowers, okay? And then I'm gonna drag it into that box I started with this is remember, this is the the primary symbol that we're working with. This is it's a vector layer. And this is its photo. We need to move around, look so that it's based in there a week. I've So as you can see, it's duplicated on all of them. If I make them big, this one will always be on top. Okay? So as you can see, this one itself a bit hard to see because it's so smaller. Eso so colored. But this one mm is the one that's on top. I really like it just like that. He is so clever, isn't it? But this one, as you can see his, is on top of all of these. You have to sort of fiddle around until you get to the point where it doesn't look obvious that it's on top. But if he doesn't value, it's not really a problem. So I'm going to answer another photo now. So place, image. Look at my photos. As you could see, some of these a hidden. So I'm gonna make sure that I am in my first symbol gonna make sure that selected, and then I'm going to He got around until I know that they're all on top. Okay, then I can rotated. Make it bigger with images. Like I said before is a case of just moving things around and trying to get them into the right, um, place. I mean, these are both in the correct symbol. But when I move that further down into this symbol because of where I placed the purple one . It'll, um, it'll be underneath or on top, you know, in a different way. But that's how you can insert images, and it just it's just so much fun. So I'll show you. This is another one I did with adding images. I place loads that Winnie the Pooh characters together. This wasn't all of 16. This 12345689 It's This is on a 15 1 and you can see that when it's an odd number, you don't The lines don't quite meet up, so that is how you had images. 8. Saving your mandala: right, So the next thing we need to do is be up to save our mandala before we save anything. What? We wanted to get rid of this grid lines because we don't want them unless they are part of your actual illustration. We just want to get rid of them. So if you cooking the first symbol, which is a section we're always working on, click on the arrow, click on the rectangle and then go to color. You'll see that it's still got a black outline. So if we make it clear, then you will see that all the guidelines have gone these guide lines, the blue ones, they're the ones would put in right at the beginning. They're not going to show up when you save the other ones that we had they would have saved because they were the outline toe our rectangle. So now we can do is we can save our board one. So if I go up to the file, go to export like that's and then I condemn it as an SD at SPG or eso. If I want to say, Is the vaccine going to say it isn't SPG like that But you could also say that as a PNG said, the background is gone on and you just have the line. So that would work as well. For a coloring book. It depends what software you're gonna load it into. Basically. But because we've been doing in vectors, I'm gonna load Aziz svg. I'm going to click, share, save image and then I'm gonna click. OK, here, Andi, I am going to save it like that's in my finish. He design fo. 9. Class project: right. So your class project is to create a mandala in one or two different sizes or every different size if you so wish Andi using either the line technique. So this is a line technique, all right. I've used dotted lines. The, um and I've also mixed in shapes and things like that. So using a combination, this one is, um I actually made this flower image, and then I I duplicated. It's This is this basic shape on this is a line image or using images that you have already done in a safety. Your file like thes Winnie the Pooh ones that had already done that saved. So at the end of it, I would love it If you do one or two man Delors on Shared in the class project section. I would love to see what you create. It doesn't matter how detailed or have a basic or simple or, you know, personally, I think was simply the batter. You can do a lot more with simple, um but do share your lovely projects with me. Thank you.