Digital Paper-Cut Illustration: Achieve a Realistic Look in Affinity Designer

1. Intro: Digital paper cut art style is a very fun and creative way to add interest to your social media posts. You can create cards for any occasion. You can print it, use it as wall art. Or if you run a business, use it on your blog or website, your inserts, ads, and even in your branding. What I love most about digital paper cut is the ease. If you mess up, you don't have to start over, just tweak it a little. You always have an unlimited supply of papers and different colors and textures. It's less wasteful. Even if you're not a pro with the cutting tools that this craft typically requires, you can still create beautiful pieces of paper cut art. This class is suitable for beginners as well as more advanced students. You don't need any illustration experience to participate in it it and we'll be using a vector program called Affinity Designer. If you've never used a vector program or Affinity Designer before, don't worry, I will guide you every step of the way. You can take this class with only a mouse and a keyboard, but if you have a tablet and feel more comfortable using it, absolutely feel free to do so. Hello everyone, My name is Plami, and I'm a graphic designer and illustrator based in Bulgaria. Over the years, I've worked with clients big and small from around the world on projects such as packaging and label design, logo design, stationery design, and more. And in this class, I'll be sharing with you everything that I've learned about digital paper cut. We'll take a look at the defining characteristics of the paper-cut such as layering, light and shadow, and texture. We'll plan our illustration using mood-boards and thumbnails. Then we'll apply what we've learned to the actual illustration and tie it all together and bring it to life with a texture. Let's get started. 2. Class Project and Goodies : Your class assignment will be to create a digital papercut illustration. You can recreate the one from this class or pick a different subject from the list of prompts that you can find in the Project and Resources tab. In there, you will also find a list of keyboard shortcuts for both Mac and Windows, a thumbnail template, as well as my Affinity assets: the color palette, the vector shapes, and the paper textures. Just drag and drop the assets into Affinity to import and use them. I encourage you to start a project and share with us the thumbnails, your mood board, your process, what you found difficult and how you overcame it, and keep updating your progress as you make it. This is also a great place to get your questions answered. Don't be shy and come join the party. [MUSIC] 3. Papercut Studies: Light: [MUSIC] There are two components to the paper cut effect. One is light and the other is paper. All of the following aspects I'm about to demonstrate have a compound effect and will produce different visuals in different combinations. It sounds a bit more complicated than it actually is, so let me explain. First on my list is the light sources direction. With this example, our light source is the sun. It's important to note which direction it's coming from, as it will be illuminating our objects from a specific angle and will be casting a shadow on the opposite side. This angle needs to be consistent throughout every element in our illustration, so I always like to keep a visual reminder of where it is exactly. Let's start breaking down the highlights and the shadows. A highlight is formed when the surface that is facing a light source is directly illuminated by it. The shadow is absence of light and... there is so much I can tell you about the shadows. One variable is how close to the surface is the object that is casting the shadow. The closer the two are to one another, the more narrow, intense and sharp that shadow will be. This type of shadow, usually sits very close to the object itself. The greater the distance, the less intense and blurred that shadow will become until it melts into the background and disappears. This shadow usually has a very large surface area and can spread a bit further away from the object. We will dive into the colors of the highlights and the shadows in a bit, but first, reflections. Reflections like this one are caused when some light is bouncing off one surface towards another surface. This can be light bouncing off the background towards the papercut shape, and vice versa. Note that these reflections can happen where there are shadows present and since paper is relatively low-reflective material, this reflection will not be bright enough to fully illuminate the shadow or make it disappear. It will only make it appear less intense. Highlight and shadow colors. For simplicity, let's assume our light is regular white daylight. The highlight color will be a combination of the color of the light plus the color of the object, but a very pale version of it. It can even appear white on a very bright object. As we previously mentioned, paper is low-reflective material, so the highlight color will mostly be a very pale version of the paper's color. On the other hand, shadow colors will be the same as the object that casts it, but a darker and less saturated version of it. If that object is sitting on a colorful surface, the shadow will be a mixture of both colors, but again, darker and less saturated. Reflection color will be a mixture of the highlight color and the color of the surface it's being reflected on. If it's illuminating a shadow, it can take on the shadows hue as well, but don't worry too much about this color because like I said earlier, shadows are less saturated color than the objects themselves. So in most cases you'll get away with a dark, almost gray shadow, just fine. OK, but what if the light is not regular white daylight? In this photo the sun is setting, so sits closer to the horizon and is illuminating our paper cut at a lower angle. We can see the shadows here are very long, the highlights are less noticeable and the hue of the entire composition is in warm, orange-yellow. In the previous photos, the light source, aka the sun was high in the sky. Illuminating our paper shapes almost from above. This gave them sharp shadows and bright highlights in reflections. The viewing angles are self-explanatory. As we change the angle from which we're viewing the paper objects, different parts of them become more prominent in our line of sight while other parts will disappear. But just to make my life easy, I prefer a top-down view on my paper cut illustration and that's what we'll be using today. [MUSIC] 4. Papercut Studies: Paper: [MUSIC] We've discussed light and how it affects the paper cut. But what about the paper itself? I'd start with its thickness. Papers with different thicknesses will behave differently in a paper cut. In this example, I've used two different papers. The red one is thinner, and the pink one is thicker. So when we cut a thicker paper, the edge will represent a bigger surface area that will catch light from the light source, if it's facing it, and will cast a bigger shadow if it's facing away from it. We can see that in this example as well. The highlight on the red is barely visible because it's thinner and has a smaller surface area compared to the pink one. Yes, paper can be transparent if it's thin enough and or the light source is strong enough. When light falls on a piece of paper, only a small portion of it is reflected back onto other surfaces while the majority of the light is absorbed or even transmitted through it. I don't think we will be using transparency in our illustration today, but I wanted to show you just for the science. Next on my list is adding details and embellishments. There are a variety of ways that we can decorate a paper cut shape and not just with other paper. We can use inks, pencils, pens, markers, crayons, or anything that can leave a mark. If we zoom in, we can see that there's a little texture going on, and we should keep that in mind when we want to emulate the medium being applied over the paper digitally. Another way to add information is with cutouts. If these cutouts are inside a paper cut shape, essentially making a hole in it, we need to look for one very important thing, and that is which planes are facing the light source and which ones are facing away from it. Even though these planes are parallel to this one, which is casting a shadow, they're highlighted because they're facing towards the light source. These here that are parallel to the highlight are actually casting a shadow, that's because they're facing away from the light source. Now let's look at folds. They are pretty simple, but there's one thing that tells us which way they're facing, and that is which one is lighter and which one is darker. In this case, this is the lighter side, and in this case, this one even though it's a very subtle difference. This means these planes are facing towards the light source and light is hitting them first. So in this case, the fold is facing towards the paper, whereas in this case, it's facing upwards towards us. Let's look at what happens if we fold a thicker paper. Look at the crisp. It's not as smooth and crisp as the one on the thin paper, rather it consists of many smaller lines going in the same direction. You can think of all these crisps as tiny folds. Again, the side that is facing towards the light source will be highlighted, and the one that is facing away from it will be in shadow with a sharp definition between the two. Paper texture. Paper texture is one more aspect that is self-explanatory. One thing to notice is that the closer it is to the light source, the less noticeable it can be, and the further away, some darker shadows become apparent in it making it pop more. So essentially we can have texture in one corner and almost none on the opposite side. Finally, the layering. The layering is pretty straightforward. We just need to pay attention again to which plane catches the light. In this case, the plane that is catching the light is the one that is casting a bigger shadow. We've already discussed how distance from the object to the surface affects the shadows. We can see another example of that here as well. That about sums it up. But with all of these variables, how can we be sure that we're digitizing something correctly if we're only working from imagination? The best advice I can give you is to get a paper shape in front of you, and start playing with it. Make a mental note of how different aspects of it change and make the connection, why it changed in that particular way. I hope the information I gave you will help you with that. When you find a scenario that really excites you, try to replicate it digitally. That's really the best way to learn. 5. The Idea: Now that we understand the key characteristics of the paper cut illustration, we need to come up with an idea to illustrate. There are a few good ways to do this based on a particular story, theme, observation, occasion, prompt list, challenges, et cetera. I'll actually use the prompt list that I created for this class to pick our subject. These can be any conventions at all. It doesn't need to be something rooted in reality. I'll do very quick scan and some things stand out, like the mountains, ocean, water fall, and I'm thinking a high mountain water fall going into the ocean actually, this will be our environment or an animal. Let's take a whale, and I'm actually thinking of this very cool creatures. I'll also marked down unicorn. It's a unicorn whale called narwhal, a very cute creature. You'll see it in a bit. Maybe some plants and maybe some seashells but we'll see about these two because I want to keep the illustration relatively simple. The vibe, I'm thinking, dreamy fantasy vibe that sounds good. I think that's it. Now that we know what we're making, we can start looking for inspiration and reference. 6. Mood-board: What exactly is a mood board? It's an arrangement of images, materials, pieces of text, etc., intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept. Designers most often use it in the beginning stages of a project. This helps bridge the gap between ideation and result. It can also be used for inspiration and the most convenient way to find items for it is to go online. But you could also draw from art and sculptures found in museums, books, magazines, street art, from history, folklore, nature, people, ideas are everywhere. We just have to look. There are plenty of tools to create and organize a mood board. Since we're doing an illustration, I prefer having my images directly into Affinity. But if you prefer a more aesthetic mood board or if you need to send it to someone else, feel free to create one in an external tool. The first thing we see when we open Affinity is this New document panel. On the left, we have a handy selection of dimensions and resolutions. I typically start with a Full HD 1080p canvas and actually change the DPI to 300 because it gives us the higher-quality on the effects. 300 will also make the file larger and it's a bit heavier on slower systems. If you find that your system is lagging, you may want to change this to 72 while you work. In the color tab, the color profile is set to RGB by default, but if you're planning on printing the illustration, change this to CMYK. I'll leave mine at RGB as this will be for digital display only. Next are the margins and the bleed menus and these are most useful for publishing or print materials, so I'm leaving them blank. Scale is if you want to make a billboard, but don't want to deal with the billboard on your screen while you're making it. Once you're happy with the settings, click "Create". We need to save our file. Open File and Save or use the shortcut Control or Command S. Give your file a name and save. If you need to change any of the documents settings, click here where it says Document Setup. Now let's gather some inspiration based on the keywords we selected. The most convenient way, of course, is online. I'm looking for photos of the narwhals that will serve as reference for the shape and proportions. I like this one. I'm grabbing a screenshot. This is Firefox's native screenshot function. But you can use whatever you have. You can also download, but for now, I'll just copy, go to Affinity and paste using Control or Command V, copy this one and paste it in as well. I've also pasted this image of a mountain waterfall that goes into a lake. These are all the images I need for the environment and the actual narwhals and now we need something for the dreamy fantasy effect. I'll be looking for images with colors that evoke that sense. I went ahead and this time I downloaded the three images that I'll use for the color scheme. Now I need to place them inside Affinity. With the first file selected, left-click anywhere on the file, drag and drop to place. The next file is automatically loaded. Just left-click, drag and drop and do the same for the third file as well. What you see here is the stock panel inside Affinity that you can use to search for stock images from both Pixabay and Pexels. Just make sure that if you download something, the license will be appropriate for your needs. Now, let's get our colors and there are two ways to extract them. A manual with the color picker and an automated one right here in the swatches panel menu. For the automated one, there are two options. One will pull from all colors that we have in this document right now, and create a palette. You can create a palette just for this file or for the entire application that will be accessible always. But I actually prefer the second option, create palette from image because I have more control over the amount of colors. Now let's load our first photo. Down here, you can see the default amount is five, and the default location is application. You can change this number with the slider by typing it or by scrolling the mouse wheel up and down. When you're ready, click "Create". You can see the palette is created and it has the name of the image we used to create it. But you can rename it if you'd like. To add the colors of the other images into the same palette, change the location from application to currently selected palette. Then import the image, adjust the amount of colors, and create. If you want to have a particular color in there, but don't want to rely on the slider to get it, then use the manual approach with the eyedropper tool. Left-click and drag over the image. When you're happy with the color, release the mouse button. In order to apply the color, click this little circle here, and then click this icon to add it to the palette. You can rearrange the colors by left click and dragging them. Or if you're not happy with a color, right-click on it and delete it. For now, I'm happy with this palette, so I'm ready to move on to the next step. That is making the thumbnails. 7. Thumbnails: The next step is to sketch some thumbnails. Thumbnails are small, rough sketches used to plan and visualize a composition before creating the final artwork. They help us explore different ideas, plan the layout, and spot any potential weaknesses, but without the time and effort it takes to finish an artwork. It's easier to skip this step, but I like to think of it as a tiny time investment that saves a ton of headaches down the road. There is no established role for how many are needed, but most people will tell you the minimum is five. For me, I've discovered, the more I push, the bigger the chance to come up with an unexpected idea. I must warn you though, this will be ugly, and that's absolutely fine. The goal here is to spend no more than two minutes on a thumbnail. I'll be using just lines and simplified shapes. I'll need some empty squares. I've exported this as a separate file, so you can simply open the file called thumbnails and start sketching. For this, I'll be using the Pencil tool. I need it to be just the stroke and no fill. Make sure the fill is selected and press "Forward slash" to remove it. I'm activating the stabilizer, I like having the role pretty short, and I'll disable auto close. Feel free to play with these settings and find the one that you feel most comfortable with. Draw the first thing that comes to your mind. It doesn't need to be the same as mine or anyone else's, this is your art and your composition. The great thing about doing this digitally is that we can easily edit them. Right now, I'm switching to the Move tool, selecting the shape, and I'll just resize it. I don't want this horizon line anymore, so I'm just pressing "Delete" key to delete it. I also want the waterfall to go the other way. I'm selecting the first line, holding down "Shift", and selecting the other two. Then come up here where it says flip horizontal. Now, press "N" for the Pencil tool, and I'll just draw a basic representation of the narwhal. Hold down the space bar, click anywhere on the canvas, and drag for quick navigation. Looking at this first thumbnail, what can I change? Maybe have the mountain like an inverted iceberg, because narwhals are arctic creatures, and the waterfalls will pour out of the clouds. Maybe the narwhal can be jumping out of the water instead of diving. What about some simpler? This one will be very focused on the narwhal. Now, I'll use the same idea but add some more details. [MUSIC] What if we make them underwater? [MUSIC] With this one, let's have them enjoy the view of the waterfall. I want to focus a bit more on how high the mountain is, maybe add a river. For contrast, I'll make the narwhal small. [MUSIC] For this last one, I want to have just a close-up of the narwhals, and maybe they are jumping in the air and enjoying the sun. This one is bugging me, I need to give it a tail. Press "A" for the Node tool, select the node you don't want, and press "Delete" to remove it. Press "N" for the Pencil tool and enable the sculpt option. This will let me edit the shape with the new lines that I draw. Now, we need to decide which one we will be making. I'm just making a quick red cross that I'll be using to mark the thumbnails that I like the least until I'm left with the one that I like the most. I'm using the Square Start tool, and I'm adjusting the sides to four. When I'm happy with it, I'm converting it to curves. Just hold down "Alt" and drag to copy the shape. I can't decide between number 2 and number 8. I'll copy these to narwhals. What if I add a mountain on number 2? With the Move tool enabled, I'm selecting the clouds, group them, and hide the group. That way, I can easily bring them back if I want to. Then now, I'm still hesitating between two and eight, but I think two has more story to it, so that's our winner today. Now that we have our thumbnail, we can start fine-tuning it and making it into a beautiful illustration. [MUSIC] 8. Base Illustration: Ice: The first thing that I need is a clean art board. Select the Artboard tool and click ''Insert Artboard'', press V for the Move tool. Drag over your sketch to make a selection. Hold Alt, and drag onto the empty artboard. I'm resizing the sketch, and I need to make all of my strokes black, and I'm giving them a one-point width. [MUSIC] I'll also reduce the opacity to 50 percent. That's it for the preparation. On the left-hand side, I'm selecting the Ellipse tool, and I'm drawing a big ellipse over the canvas. Click ''Convert to Curves'', press A for the Node tool and start editing the nodes. We're trying to imitate something that is cut by hand, though it needs to be curvy and wiggly. Play with the position and the handles until you're happy with the shape. Now, I need to do the icy structure below it. You can use the Pen tool, the Triangle tool, the Polygon tool, or what I'm using today, which is the Diamond tool. Click and drag to get a diamond shape, and then adjust the profile by sliding this red dot up and down. Alt and drag to make a copy, resize this shape. Alt and drag to copy again. Actually, I'll make some layers. Let's take this shape and resize it to fit the entire width of the ellipse. Press Control or Command Shift and open bracket to send this shape to back or just drag it with your mouse in the layers panel. Let's give it some color. There are no rules here, just put you like the most. [MUSIC] Let's bring the sketch group back on top by pressing Control or Command Shift and close bracket, or just drag it in the layers panel. Let's give this stroke a different color, and color the icy spikes as well. [MUSIC] Alt and drag to copy. Then come up here and click horizontal. I'm selecting all of the shapes and resizing them to fit better on the canvas. Control and mouse wheel to zoom in. With the stroke selected, hit Forward slash to remove it, and let's pick a color for the icy top as well. Control or Command close bracket to move this shape up until it's above the other blue shapes. I'm continuing to tweak, copy and adjust the shapes as I go. You can see that even though I have a sketch and I have an idea in my mind, I'm changing things constantly. In fact, the creation process involves a lot of push and pull of backs-and-forths. It's a search for the right shape, the right proportion, the right color, and every object on the canvas is interacting with the other objects. One change will most likely lead to another change. The secret is to know when to stop, and that is when you can no longer make it any better but just make it different. [MUSIC] What I'm making now is uniting the three shapes into one. Hold down Shift and select the shapes that you want to be united, then come up here and press this icon where it says ''Add''. Let's move it back. Control or Command open bracket. [MUSIC] Let's unite the second row. I like to tidy up my nodes because they tend to get in the way later. I'm selecting the ones that I don't want, and pressing Delete key to delete them. Okay, I don't like this blue, I feel like it's too blue, and the other icy shapes have some green in them. Double-click on this field to open the color chooser. Much better. [MUSIC] We can now edit the nodes with the Node tool. Shortcut, A. What I'm looking for is some separation between the spikes. I don't want them distributed evenly, and I don't want them overlapping each other. With the Node tool, press anywhere on the curve to add a new node, and adjust it. I feel like it needs more triangles on top, so let's duplicate them with Alt, drag. Select all of the shapes and add. With the Node tool, I'm dragging over the nodes to make a selection, and I'm deleting them. I think that we have it. I'll make the waterfall in the next chapter. 9. Base Illustration: Waterfall: [MUSIC] This is my mountain waterfall reference and I'll be using it to get the overall shape of the waterfall. I'm using the pencil tool shortcut N, and I'm outlining some basic geometry shapes. I'm marking the waterfall in three segments, top, middle, and bottom, where it meets the lake. I'm using different colors to differentiate them visually. With the move tool enabled shortcut V, I'm dragging over the waterfall shapes to select them and pressing "Control" and scrolling down with the mouse wheel to zoom out, and I'm holding down spacebar and dragging with the mouse to the left to navigate the page. I'm resizing them and flipping them using the flip horizontal option. [NOISE] Control and mouse wheel to zoom in. The topmost shape resembles a polygon so let's grab one. Rotate it and adjust it. I'm converting it to curves and switching to the node tool shortcut A. I'm adjusting the shape similarly to the outline that I've picked up from the photo and I'm changing its color to blue. Next, I'm selecting a trapezoid tool and hold down "Control" if you want to move both points simultaneously. I'm converting it to curves and switching to the node tool shortcut A. Let's adjust the node. I'm clicking on the curve to add a new node. But right now it's an angular shape and I need it to be smooth. I'm selecting that option from the menu above, and I'll do the same for the other side. [NOISE] Double-clicking on the fill color, to open the color chooser. I'm making the color a bit darker. I'm also moving it up to above the polygon shape, shortcut "Control or Command Close Bracket" or drag it with the mouse. Now I want to remove some of the angles, and I'm pressing "C" for the corner tool, the red circle is indicating the arc that I'll see when I release the mouse button, switch to the node tool shortcut A to edit the node position and handles. Now for the bottom part of the waterfall. I'm again selecting the trapezoid tool and I'm rotating it 180 degrees. I'm converting it to curves, pressing "C" for the corner tool and I'm dragging a selection over the nodes that I want rounded. Pressing "V" for the move tool and I'm arranging it below the second shape, leaving a small gap for the form. I'm holding down "Alt" and dragging three more copies of the trapezoid. I don't want these to be identical, so I am making small changes to its shape. If you're having trouble moving a node, try disabling the snapping. That's the magnet icon in the top menu. Now let's make some foam. I'm selecting the ellipse tool and I'm placing a few different ellipsis. I'm looking at the outline of the shape. When I'm happy with it, I'm dragging a selection over all of them and I'm clicking on "Add." This makes them one shape. I need it to be white. I'm placing it below the topmost trapezoid, which is the fourth on the layers panel, I'm using Alt and drag to make a copy. Flip it vertically, and move it below the second blue trapezoid, which is the third in the layers panel. I Alt," drag it one more time, move it below the second trapezoid in the layers panel and flip it horizontally. Doing some quick adjustments. I'm "Alt" dragging it to make a fourth copy, flipping it, and moving it below the first trapezoids in the layers panel. I'm selecting the node tool, shortcut A and I'll start fine-tuning the node. I'm deleting all of the nodes that are outside of the blue trapezoid, and I'm also removing the curves. Place the mouse over a curve and when you see a wavy line next to the cursor, hold down "Alt" the wave will become a minus, and "Left-Click" to remove the curve. I'm also editing the visible nodes to get some variation with them and you can make them as perfect or as cute as you like. I'm toggling the visibility of the sketch waterfall in the layers panel and now I'm ready to make the mountain. 10. Base Illustration: Mountains: [MUSIC] For the mountain shapes, I'm using the same approach as I did for the waterfall. This time I'm using the Pen Tool, shortcut P. I'm making a geometric shape representing the different planes of the mountain, and I'm again filling them with different colors. I don't want an exact copy of the photo, so I'm building my shapes for this one as well. Starting with the Polygon Tool, I'm converting it to curves, and I'm editing the nodes with the Node Tool. I'm quickly resizing the composition to fit on my canvas. Next, I'm taking a Trapezoid Tool, drawing my shape, changing its color, converting it to curves, and again, adjusting the nodes with the Node Tool, shortcut A. For the third shape. I'm Alt, dragging a copy of the second shape, changing the color and adjusting the nodes with the Node Tool. I'm doing the same for the fourth shape. Now, I'm just adding some small irregularities and curves into the shapes to help with the illusion of being cut by hand. This mountain needs some more planes so I'm grabbing the Trapezoid Tool and then making a new one. I'm rotating it, converting it to curves and editing the nodes with the Node Tool. When I'm ready, I'm clicking "Control" or "Command J" to duplicate the shape and then flipping it horizontally. I don't want an exact copy of the shape so I'm editing some of the nodes. For this last shape. I'm grabbing the Pen Tool, shortcut P. I'll make a triangle shape, then edit the nodes with the Node Tool and fill in some color. Then I'm duplicating it with Control or Command J, and I'm flipping it horizontally. I'm holding down Shift and selecting both shapes. Then I click "Add" to unite them, and I'm fixing some of the nodes. I'm doing the same for the two shapes above, keep in mind that the two shapes need to have some overlapping in order to be able to be united. I'm adjusting the nodes to overlap first, and then I'm using the add operation. I'm arranging this middle shape to be above the one on its right. Now using the Trapezoid Tool, I'm drawing a big shape over the mountain layers. I'll no longer be needing my color for references, so I'm deleting them. I'm arranging the new trapezoid below the waterfall group and I'm holding down Shift, clicking on the first layer below it and clicking on the last one. Then with all of the layers selected, I'm dragging them to the right of the shapes icon, and you can immediately see the result on the Canvas. The mountain layers are now only within that trapezoid shape. This is how we make masks in Affinity, and I'll be using this feature a lot in this class. This is non-destructive, and if I end up not liking it, I can easily go back to my previous mountain layout. Next, I'm clicking on the trapezoid shape, removing the fill and converting it to curves so that I can edit the shape. I'm adding some irregularities and fixing some of the nodes on the inner layers. I'm moving the sketch group on top. Now I'm going to make some clouds. I'm using the same method as I did for the foam on the waterfall in the previous chapter. Starting with some ellipsis, and I'm overlapping a few different sides and dimensions. I'm once more looking at the silhouette and when I'm happy with the shape, I'm selecting all of them and uniting them using the add operation. I'm editing the nodes, making them a bit less rounded. Then I'm Alt dragging the first cloud, flipping it horizontally, pressing "M" on the keyboard for the Ellipse Tool. I'm adding some more over the shape. I'm Alt, dragging another cloud, and this time I'm just resizing it. I add some more clouds, and now that I'm happy with how this looks, I'm ready to illustrate the narwhals. 11. Base Illustration: Narwhals: [MUSIC] I'm using the sketch as a preview of the narwhals and I'm adjusting its position in proportion to my liking. I'm looking at my reference and trying to determine what are the big shapes that make up this creature. I see a tear for the body, a heart for the tail, and a long triangle for the tusk. I'm grabbing the tear tool and I'm drawing a big shape on my canvas. I'm rotating it and adjusting the shape using the red dot sliders. I'm converting it to curves and adjusting the front of the shape as well using the node tool. I'm again looking for a handmade silhouette. [MUSIC] For the tail, I'm grabbing another tear tool, and I'm adjusting it to resemble the bottom half of the tail. I'm again converting it to curves, switching to the node tool, and I'm continuing to adjust what I couldn't do with the sliders. I'm duplicating the shape using "Control" or "Command J," and I'm flipping it horizontally. With both shapes selected, I'm moving them to the tail of the narwhal, and I'm trying to achieve the same perspective as the reference photo. A quick tip, if you want a preview of the shape without the vector curve, hold down "Spacebar." Zoom out if you need to. With both shapes selected, I'm using the add operation and I'm continuing to adjust the shape. [MUSIC] Now, I'm adding the other half of the tail to the narwhal. Switching to the node tool, I'm adding some more nodes to help shape the narwhal as if it's moving. I'm using the tear tool again to make the fins. I'm adjusting the shape and position, [MUSIC] and I'll give it a different color so that it's easily visible. I'm moving in behind the narwhal shape "Control or Command Open Bracket." I'm duplicating it with Alt-drag, and I'm adjusting its shape and position. Let's grab a triangle tool and make the tusk of the narwhal. But this is too sharp, so I'm converting it to curves. I'll zoom in, switch to the node tool, and I'll just add another node. When it's ready, I'm adjusting its placement, and with the move tool shortcut V, I'm dragging the selection over the narwhal. Now, let's drag it onto the canvas and adjust the size and position. Next, I'm alt dragging a copy that I'll be using as a starting point for the second narwhal. Using the node tool, I'm grabbing the nodes of the head and flipping them horizontally. I know, but trust me. With the node tool, just make the bottom nodes up, and the top nodes bottom. Then continue to adjusting the shape. [MUSIC] Now that I'm happy with the result, I can switch to the move tool shortcut V select all of the shapes, "Control or Command G" to group them, and move them to my art board. In the layers panel, I'm toggling the visibility of the sketch and adjusting my composition. Join me in the next chapter where I'll fine-tune the colors, and I'll use the shape builder tool to make the mountain shapes permanent before moving on to applying highlights and shadows. 12. Fine-Tune: [MUSIC] Shape Builder tool was introduced in Affinity Designer 2.0. If you're running an older version, you can use the Boolean operations divide, then add, delete what you don't need, and recolor your shapes. I personally think it's more convenient with the Shape Builder tool, so that's what I'm using today. I start by removing the mountain layers from the trapezoid mask. I'm selecting all of the layers, then I'm dragging them down into the left until I see a horizontal blue line indicating the drug possession. With all layers including the big trapezoid selected, I'm switching to the shape builder, shortcut S. On the top-left, I'm selecting the Delete option first, and I'm clicking and dragging over the unwanted bits. They are indicated in red. I'm switching to the Create option and I'm dragging my mouse over the shapes that I want united until I have them all. Now, I want to do the same for the waterfall and the form. I'm selecting each pair and I'm just uniting this extra bit to the bottom. I'm selecting the next pair, the third one, and the last one. Now, I'm ready to start adding the lights and the shadows. But before that, I want to clean up my workspace. At this point, I'll no longer need my references and thumbnails, but I don't want to just delete them. Instead, I'm saving my file, Control or Command S, then I'm making a new copy going File, Save As. I'm giving my file a name and now any further changes will be done on this new details file. With the move tool, I'm drawing a selection over these images and I'm deleting them. I'm selecting Art board one and pressing Delete and yes, delete, please. I'm also deleting the sketch from the layers panel. Now that I have my illustration done, I feel like these proportions are too narrow and too wide. I want to give it some breathing space on the top. If you come here to document settings, you can see that this is grayed out. That's because I have included an art board into my file. Instead, I'm selecting the art board and I'm coming down here in the Transform menu and disabling this link, and I'm changing the height value to 1,200. I'm selecting all of my layers and I'll just make them a bit bigger. I'm holding down Shift to constrain the proportions. Now, I'm grouping my layers using Control or Command G, and I'll just group to the center. Then I'm ungrouping them using Control or Command Shift and G. Or you can right-click on it and ungroup. Now let's give it a background. I'm using the rectangle tool to draw a shape over the art board. I'm using Control Shift open bracket to send it to back, or move it with the mouse. Let's change the color. A small tip, start with a gentle color because you'll be looking at it for some time, and bright colors are very harsh on the eyes. You can always make it bright at the end. I'm looking this layer and now I'm ready to start adding some lights and shadows. 13. Highlights And Shadows: Vector: I've included a circle and some lines to indicate my light source and light direction, and I'll hide this for now. The fastest and most convenient way to add highlights and shadows is to use affinity squeak effects to add a drop shadow and the highlight, then duplicate the layers and blur them. But I have several problems with that, it's too uniform and ends up looking artificial indent. The effects overlap and I can't edit them. The blur is not directional, so it tends to bleed over both sides of the shape. Here's what I do instead. With all of my layers selected, I'm pressing "Control Shift G" to ungroup everything. Then with that same selection, I'm pressing "Control Command J" once, this will create a copy of each layer, and I'm changing the blend mode to multiply the color to gray, I'm pressing Control or Command open bracket, send them back ones. I'll disable the snapping, which is the magnet icon on top, and I'm just moving the shadow to be very close to the shape. I'm still holding that selection, I'm pressing "Control Command J" once more, but this time I'll change the blend mode to screen and the color to white. This will be my highlight there. The next step is to make adjustments to the layers, I want the illusion of thickness, so I just hold the layers closer or further away from the layers. I like to work bottom to top in my layers panel. For the bubbles, I've made them, and their highlight will not be distinguishable, so I'm deleting them. I'm just making sure to check that the blend mode is set to screen before hitting delete. I'm continuing to work and tweak either the entire shape or individual notes. For the clouds as they're all the same, ''paper'', I'm selecting all of their highlight layers and moving them simultaneously, and then I'm doing the same for the shadows. I think that's all of it. Now, let's fix the colors of the highlights and the shadows. Starting at the bottom, I'm selecting the shallow layer first. With the color picker, I'm sampling the color of the layer it belongs to, I'm applying dark color, but I need it to be darker and less saturated. You can do it via this style, but I actually prefer setting my colors panel two sliders and changing the slider to HSL or huge saturation and lightness. I'm reducing the saturation and the lightness, and I'm also reducing the opacity of the layer. I'm selecting the next layer, which is a highlight. I'm applying the main shapes color and then I'm reducing the saturation and bringing the lightness up. Let's recap. For the shadows, I'm reducing the saturation and lightness, and for the highlights, I'm reducing the saturation but increasing the lightness, I'm reducing the opacity as needed. Since this judgment will depend on the colors you choose and how they look on your monitor, the best advice I can give you is if it looks too punchy, reduce it. The difference in appearance is very subtle, but that's subtleness is what's attributing to the realistic effect. I'm going up on my layer's list, and I'm also changing the colors on my mountain because I don't feel like the contrast and the harmonies are working well with dark ones. What I'm looking for is bringing the hues closer together. That's it for the vector work. The next layer of highlights and shadows will be in the pixel persona, which is where everything [inaudible] happens. If you need to resize something on your illustration, now is a good time to do so. I will see you in the next chapter, to add the second layer of highlights and shadows. 14. Highlights And Shadows: Pixel: [MUSIC] On the top right, select Pixel Persona. I'm selecting the Brush tool, shortcut B. On your right is the brushes panel. I'm in the basic category, and I'm selecting any round brush. I'm navigating to the bottom of my layers panel, and I'm adding a new pixel layer. I'm giving it a name and moving it below the first shadow layer. Now, from the top menu, I'm changing some of my brush settings. Hardness, zero percent, flow to about 20, opacity, 20. Don't forget to set this shadows layer blend mode to multiply, and make sure that you have the right color for the shape. [MUSIC] Now, place your brush right on the shape's edge, and draw. You may need to play with the opacity and the flow until you're happy with the mark you make. Even with the rope, these diagonal strokes are far from perfect, but that's why we have the Eraser tool. [MUSIC] You can start the tool from this menu or press E on the keyboard. Check to see that the opacity and the flow are low, and the hardness is set to zero. I'm not looking to erase everything, just right on the edge of my brush stroke, and I want to blend it with the background layer. If you need to bring some of that shadow back, press "B" for the Brush tool, and add some more color, then clean up with the eraser. Now, let's continue on to the next ice shape. I'm adding the new pixel layer and I'm bringing it onto the right edge of this icon to make a mask. I'm changing the blend mode to multiply, and I'm giving it a name. Now, everything I draw will only be visible on that mask layer. [MUSIC] I'm still using the same color, and I'm making the shadow of the layer above. Switching to the eraser, and I'm blending the shadows in. [MUSIC] I'm switching between the Brush and Eraser tool, and I'm making the shadows darker in the corner and lighten them towards the edge of the shape. [MUSIC] Now, I need reflections. I'm creating a new pixel layer, giving it a name, and I'm setting the blend mode to screen. I'm changing my color to light blue, and I start placing my strokes on the highlight side. [MUSIC] I think this is too harsh, so I'm changing the blend mode to lighten, then I'm going in with the eraser and cleaning up some of the excess color. Less is more with the highlights. Moving up, I'm expanding the new layer, selecting the shadow layer, and I'm adding a new pixel layer for the highlight. The addition happens above the layer that is currently selected, so that's a neat way to save some time masking additional layers. Switching to the Eraser tool, shortcut E, and I'm softening them. Still too harsh, so I'm also reducing the opacity. I'm expanding the next ice shape group, clicking on the shadows layer, and I'm adding a new pixel layer for the highlight. I'm giving it a name, changing the blend mode to lighten, and reducing the opacity to 40 percent. [MUSIC] I continue adding shadows and highlight as I'm moving up in my layers panel. [MUSIC] For every shape that is sitting on the background, I'm making a layer at the bottom. I like having the different colors on different layers so that I can tweak their opacity, blend mode, and even color individually. Make notice of how many layers are between the shape and the background. In this case, the cloud shape is sitting on a mountain, so its shadow should be larger than the mountain one. On the left, I'm not starting the shadow right at the edge of the shape, but a bit towards the left. [MUSIC] I'm making sure to pick the corresponding colors and reduce the saturation and lightness if I'm drawing a shadow or increase it if I'm drawing a highlight. [MUSIC] For the mountain shapes, I'm following an imaginary arrangement where the top shape is overlapping the bottom one. I'm only having a small shadow below and no highlight on the bottom two pieces. I'm also observing the pieces that are sitting on top and adding a highlight and a shadow appropriately. For this cloud, I've added a bit more shadow right at the left edge, and that gives it an illusion that it's curved upwards. I'm not adding a fold, just the slightest bend, so I don't need to adjust the color of the shape itself. [MUSIC] For this narwhal, I am not adding a mask player as I would need to do that eight times in total to make a shadow. I'm just adding a new pixel layer below the creature, and I'm careful where I am placing the shadow. [MUSIC] If you're having trouble drawing the diagonal lines straight like I am, you can Alt and scroll the mouse wheel to rotate the canvas. I'm not doing this right now because of the recording, but just keep that in mind and use it if you need to. [MUSIC] That's it for the brushwork. I'll see you in the next chapter where I'll add the paper textures. 15. Texture: First, let's give the narwhals eyes and a smile. I'm using a default brush called low absorption ink from the ink brush category, but you can use anything else that you like. I'm working on a mask layer and I'm using a bigger size brush for the eye and a smaller one for the mouth. I'm reducing the opacity and I'm changing the blend mode to multiply. I no longer need the light source reminder so I'm deleting it. Now, it's time to start adding the paper texture. If you haven't already, download the paper cut assets for this class resources and drag and drop them onto your affinity software to import. I'm dragging a paper from the paper textures category and then dropping it on the Canvas. I'm sending it to back using Control Shift open bracket, and then I'm arranging it on top of my background. I'm dragging it into the background to mask it, and then I'm changing the blend mode to multiply and lowering the opacity. I have a lot of layers in my layers panel, so I'm selecting the ones that are completed, grouping them using Control or Command G, and renaming the group. I'm moving to the next layer in the layers panel, and I'm placing another texture on the Canvas. I'm again changing the blend mode to multiply and nesting the paper to be masked by the ice shape. I want to use the same paper texture for the other ice shapes as well, so I'm selecting the layer, I'm pressing Control or Command J to duplicate it, and I'm sliding it into the next shape. I'm moving and transforming the paper texture so that it's not continuing from the previous layer. I'm pressing Control or Command J to duplicate it again and I'm sliding and masking it into the next ice shape. I keep adding more paper, changing the blend mode to multiply, and masking with the shapes as I'm going up in the layers panel. For the shapes that are the same color, I like making one mask, and for that I'm moving to the designer persona. I'm holding down Shift and I'm selecting the layers I want to unite, Control or Command J to duplicate them, and then I'm using the add operation. Then remove the fill. I'm duplicating this paper texture, then Control or Command V to paste it above the waterfall mask. Now, I need to bring the foam above the texture, so I'm selecting all four foam layers, uniting them using the add operation, and then placing them above the texture layer. I'm uniting all of the mountain shapes as well, selecting them first, then Control Command J to duplicate, and then add operation. I'm removing the color and setting the blend mode to normal, then I'm dragging a paper and masking it to that shape. I'm grouping the mountain layers and naming them. I'm selecting all of the cloud layers, duplicating them, and uniting them. Then I'm removing the fill and I'm using that shape as a mask for the texture. I've not included the cloud that is behind the mountain, and I'm adding texture to it individually. I'm grouping the cloud layers and naming them. I'm selecting both narwhal shapes, duplicating and uniting them. Then I'm removing the fill and adding a paper texture. I'm setting the papers blend mode to multiply. But as this paper is changing my narwhals color, I want to give it an adjustment. Navigate below the layers panel, open adjustments, and select black and white. The default settings are fine, so I'm closing the panel. I'll also reduce the opacity to where it looks more subtle. Next, I'm selecting the top fins and both tusks, I'm duplicating them and adding them to the new shape. I'm removing the fill and adding the paper texture to that shape. For the bottom fins, I'm just pasting the texture using Control Command V and nesting it individually. A bonus tip. If you want to add text to your paper-cut, here's how to do it. Using the text tool, shortcut T, I'm placing my text on the Canvas. The font that I'm using is a free font from Google Fonts called slackey, but you can use any chunky font that you like. With the Warp tool, I'm quickly adding a mesh then Control or Command Enter to convert the text to curves. It's now a group, and each letter is now an individual layer. I'm pressing Control Command Shift G to ungroup, I'm duplicating the layers using Control or Command J, and I'm uniting them. From there, you can add a shadow and a highlight layer like we did in the previous chapters. Then go to the pixel persona and add the pixel shadows and highlights, and finally add the paper texture. 16. Final thoughts: Thank you for giving me your time and watching my class, I really appreciate it. We looked at some real paper shapes and learned how light affects them, we learned about color and reflections as well as the different ways to add information with paper and other mediums, we planned the illustration using a prompt list, a moodboard, and thumbnails, then we made our illustration. First, the base then we added highlights and shadows and finally we applied paper texture to it. I'd love to hear back from you so please rate and review this class and share your experience with it. If you have any questions, ask them below and I'll be sure to answer. If you enjoyed this class, follow me for more illustration and design classes in Affinity Designer. I'll see you in the next one.