From PHOTO to VECTOR with AFFINITY DESIGNER for iPAD

1. Intro: Hello, and welcome to this class from photo to vector with Affinity Designer for iPad. My name is Als Rats. I'm a graphic designer, I'm an illustrator, photographer, author, and I'm a skill share teacher. I love to share my creative knowledge with you. In this class, I'm going to teach you to start with a photo and end with a vector drawing. Vector drawing has the great advantage that the size can be reduced and enlarged endlessly without any quality loss. If you're used to working with, for example, Procreate, this is a whole new ballgame. If you've never done anything like vector drawing before, this might be a bit too much for you or a bit too difficult. And then I would recommend to look for a class about working with vectors. But if you are a little bit experienced and you want to do a bit more in affinity design or maybe try to turn a photo into vector art, then this is the right place. You're in the place where you should be. Oh 2. Assignment: Your assignment should you like to join is make your own vector drawing of a photo. You can use the reference photo that I'm using in the class, which I will put in the resource section somewhere down here. But of course, you're free to use your own material. Mm Export your image to JPEG or B&G and upload it to the project gallery so I can see what you've made. I'm very curious to see how you get along. If you have any questions, if something is unclear or you can't really get a giss of it, just let me know, and I'll see what I can do to help you. Mmm 3. What you need: So what do you need for this class? Well, an iPad, an Apple pencil and affinity designer for iPad. There's also an affinity designer for desktop. If you haven't got an iPad or you do have affinity designer, but only on your desktop computer, then still feel free to join me. I am using an Apple pencil, and when I work on a computer, I use a Huon tablet with a pen, and that is something that really helps drawing in vectors. But if you just have a mouse, then that's fine, as well. Do you need experience to do this class? Yes, a little bit. Not very much, but I'm not going into details about how to draw from point to point, what an anchor point is and what handles are. I assume that when you're taking this class, you already have basic knowledge of working with vectors. You don't even need to have affinity designer experience per se. If you work with, for example, Adobe Illustrator or with what is it called these days? I used to be called vectorator. Um, then that's fine, as well. As long as you know a little bit about how anchor points work and how connections are made and what handles do, then you're good to go. 4. Examples: To give you an idea, I'm going to start with a few examples. This picture of a boy, I haven't got the original photo anymore, but I liked it so much. The boy laughs and I like his hair and the way his glasses looked in his overall appearance that I tried to put these two vectors. And I succeeded. At that was when I really started to enjoy working with vectors from a photo. The second image is, let's see, a man who is drawing. And in this case, I used purely lines, nothing else. The only thing that I use fill for is for his beard and his hair and some small details. And that, too, is a very strong image. This skateboard girl was harder. I wanted to get that swish that feeling of movement in the vector image as well. So I used the ceiling from the bridge under which she is using her skateboard, and I made those long lines to give that idea of movement and speed. And as you can see, I'm not going into too much details because the image in itself is quite strong. Here are birds. I had different sizes of original photos when I was working on these birds. And well, here comes the great advantage of vectors. You can draw them despite a bad original or despite a small or a very big original and just make sure that they all end up the same size, more or less thanks to the well, the usability of vectors. And as you can see, by just going for the basic parts in a bird, you can really make those birds stand out. You don't need to have very specific images. And I would also recommend if you're starting, that you use a simple image like, for example, this shoe. First, I had a picture of the shoe. Then I made a pencil sketch, and I use lines, these pink lines in affinity designer to decide the form and shape. Then I turn that into this image, which is not bad at all. And affinity designer has a number of effects, which makes those shoe laces really pop out. So that's also a possibility, and you will notice as when you're starting to discover more of the possibilities of affinity designer, you can really get um three D effects in your images. So don't be afraid to try things. The one that we are starting on is this gymnast. I call her a ballet dance because you reminded me of a ballet dance. But this is, of course, a gymnast. I love this shape and the clear lines that you can make here. By the way, if you're trying to find a proper photo, don't go too much overboard with details. That's always possible in a later stage. First, look for simple images, an apple, for example, or cutlery from the kitchen. How do you draw that? Well, just start with simple shapes or simple objects and then slowly make it a little harder on yourself if you feel that you're mastering the technique. Well, let's go to the gymnast and see how we can make that image. 5. Setting up the outlines: Let's begin with creating a document. This is your artwork library to start where you are when you are opening affinity designer, and I'm going to make a new document. These are my live dogs. I'm going to make and document A four, which is the default size in my home country. I don't need to turn on the transparent background. That's always possible afterwards. And I can use 300 DPI, which is also not important at this moment, but should I be using some kind of stra effect, then it might be important to put that on. So I'll leave it like that. And I don't need any margins or bleeds. I'll just step okay. So if you've never worked with Affinity Designer before, here are your tools. Here are the studios, as they are called, and in the context sensitive menu, it changes when you are working. The first thing I'm going to do is import my image, and I'll just do that using place. I've called already the photo in my photos. Here it is. And I'll just add and drag and drag and drag and put it in. There it is. Now, that looks nice. I really love this picture. I think this girl is so agile. Is that the right word? I think these shapes can be used for drawing very well. Now, in my layer studio, I'm going to swipe to the left and lock that layer so it won't budge. The next thing I'm going to do is add a vector layer. And I'm going to call this one. What shall I call it? Let's call it body to start with. So first, I will do a body. I'll choose a stroke color, and I'll take a contrasting color. So, otherwise, it's so hard to see. I'm not going to use a fill just yet. I will do that in a later stage. So I'll have some kind of red. I'm going to the stroke studio and I'll set up the wit. You can just dab it. I'll set the weight to one point, which to me is the finest to work with. The caps are rounded, the joining is rounded, and the alignment of the stroke is in the center. So once you've set up a thickness, a width of one point, and a color, you can start drawing. You can choose, of course, whatever color you like as long as it contrasts with your image. Now, let's pick the pen tool. In the layers, I've already made body, and I'm going to start right here, let's say in her neck. I'm only going to use lines, so I'm not going to draw very detailed, like, for example, this fold in the back. I'm going to look for the shapes that I can easily follow. And we're going to cut out the leg just yet. We will do that in a later stage. If it doesn't fit exactly, that's okay. All right, that's good. I know this might look a bit weird. So just keep going, and I think it will look something like this. Now, this is ready. I can use the node tool, and I can very easily change the direction of the anchor point by dragging the handles right there. Or I can move the anchor point altogether. And I'm going to look for what is called the extrema. Extrema are the points like this one in the top of the back and in hollowness of the back. This one wasn't placed properly, so I'll just put a new one right here, and I can take the other one out just by pressing the bin. I'll just move this. Oh, she has an incredibly smooth back. All right. So that's quite good. Oh, maybe a bit further. And don't worry about the leg. It will be cut out in the latest stay. The same here. Always check very carefully what happens with the rest of your line when you're moving part. You can easily reposition your nodes. And if they jump too much, then you might just turn off the magnet. You can use that to turn it on and off. And you will see that you can move easier that way. Okay, I think this is quite right, maybe a bit more. If you want your anchor points to go in a certain direction, just tap them. It will give you two separate handles that you can move. Okay. That's that. Now, let me see right there. Good. Yeah, let's turn off the photo for a second. Whoo. I think it's good. That, of course, would be difficult when you're using a white background that in the white area, but it's okay. Let's call this body, and I'll change the top layer name. I'll rename, and I'll call that one girl. Oh, like that. Now I'm going to do the next one, and I'm going to do the back leg. So again, just start somewhere. And eventually, we're going to move the leg behind the body of the girl. Alright. Here's a knee. Just follow the lines, tap and drag to get your line in a certain direction. You can enlarge your screen to see better what you're doing. Since this part of the foot is behind the knee of the other leg, it doesn't need to be very precise. And then to the heel, make a slight curve, tap the point again to get a hooked point. That works best. Now drag and the handles will get taller and your line will get smoother. And again, just go on, go on and finish the leg. That's good. So we'll call this, of course, a back a leg. Let me see the fold right there will be done in a later stage. Don't worry. Maybe move the knee a bit more to get it more smoothly. Okay. Oh, well, here's what I wanted to do. I'll call this beg a leg. All right. Now, you don't need to rename those layers, but it's something that I always do and helps me to find things quicker and easier. Alright, let's do the front leg. As you can see, here's the cut of the leg in the suit. And let's move it all the way up there. Oh, she's so agile. How can she just be here like that and also look very relaxed? It's a great picture. And then the ankle, the foot, the heel. As you can see, you can just tap as well without dragging and then whoops, sorry, and then drag your points later. Making curves from straight lines is easy and the other way around as well. Now, finish and close and zoom in to refine the drawing that you just made or the lines that you just made. As you can see, the straight lines and the points, they are all really easy editable. There are three different ones. I get a corner, a smooth anchor point, and the one on the right is the smart anchor point. The program will try to determine what kind of point you want. So I'll just leave it at that. Let's go back to my Noe tool and make a sort of a visual of what the toe should look like like that. And I want this to be rounded more smoothly. If you find it hard to grab anchor points, just enlarge it a little. So you can select the anchor points better. The same here, as you can see. Oh, well, here's the problem. And now the handles are visible very well, and it's easy to drag them. And using those Smart points right here, you can see that it understands pretty well what you want. So those smart anchor points are really useful. Let's see. Let's refine this a bit then knee. Alright. Knees are pretty nice. Okay. Let's add a little of a dent there. I might move that a bit. See the leg is not going as I wanted, so just add another point by tapping and then moving that point to correct location. It's very easy to do affinity. Same here. Okay. So let's call this. Oh, hang on. Just let me do the ankle. Yep. That's good now. Okay. Let's call this original front leg. I like that. Yep. Alright. Now, I'll just make sure that I can't move those. Um, swipe to the left and look them. Let's look at the next item. And that's the What shall we do first? I think we're going to do her head first. So I'll use the pen tool again and I'll move over the areas. I told you earlier not to go in too much detail where the folds in the clothes were concerned. But for her face, of course, it's a little bit different. So make sure that you get the nose right and the fold of the lips and the chin, as well. Don't forget that if you're struggling to get the points in the correct way, you can always add points later or just move them around. Look at the hair. Okay. That's nice. Now, just make this a bit round like that and close the line the stroke a little bit more details, which are, of course, necessary in the face. Alright. That's her head. Yep, that looks good, just a bit more. Near the eyebrows, Whoop. And maybe the nose like so. Yep, that's good. A bit more of a point. And let's the lip a little bit more. All right. Yep. And I'm going to rename that layer to head. Well, that's original, right? Okay. Now, let's do, um, the back arm. I can just use the pencil tool again and do that quite roughly. It doesn't need to be all that precise. Yep, which is behind the other parts of the body can just be done roughly. Like so. Okay. Those points and, of course, rename it too. Arm All right. And the inside sleeve is something that I want to use drawing the pencil tool, which I think is easy in this case. Turn on clothes always and just draw the shape of the inside sleeve. It might look a bit strange, but you can leave it like that because it will be behind the sleeve and the arm will be inside it. All right. Let's rename this to inside. A sleeve. Okay. And move it behind the arm. Okay. Now, let's do the hand in the back. I'm using the pencil again, and I'm just going roughly over it. Most of it is hidden behind the girl's face. Like so. All right. And that's the and in the back. Let's rename the layer. You will thank me later when you have to look for things, I promise. And we'll move it behind the face. And the next thing is the arm in front, I think, like that. Again, don't go overboard with the details, but try to find the correct angle and like here, the roundness Avoid all those faults. They're not necessary and they'll only make your work look messier, so you can just smoothen that out. And it looks good. We'll call that arm front. My sleeve. Okay, SarmFront I noticed. Well, now, the hand is quite easy, as well. Just go. Take the rough outlines and then use the node tool to add a bit more of the knuckles and the top of the hand. Like so. As you can see, I'm just dragging those handles to get things in the way where I want them to go. Very easy. Oh, okay. Move it down. Well, rename it to hand front and move it down, I think. Oh, no, let's leave it where it is for now. Um, what we're going to do now is make a face. So I want to do the hairline. And I'm using that with the pencil because that's a flu line. Who. Oh, it's still closed. Turn closing off, and just do it like that. And now draw. That's very easy. And that's it. We call this hair. Or maybe hair line. All right. I'm also going to draw with the pencil tool, her ear. I like so. Once again, don't be too detailed. That's not necessary. And just swipe to the right to combine those three curves by using the edit menu and then merge curves. Right there. So now it's one curve instead of three separate ones. Call this. Here. Okay. Last but not least, we're going to do here. Now, we're going to do something new and that is using the shape builder tool to cut off the excessive parts. The shape builder tool is this green, round square thingy. And you tap on the minus and you tap exactly on the parts that are overlapping and that you do not want to overlap. It's okay in this case, but it should not be there in the bottom. So okay. I've got that. I'm going to select those three, go to the edit menu and merge the curves to make them one. I will rename that curve. I'll call it some very original stuff, the I. Okay. And then maybe the last bit is the brow. The great thing is that if you want to change the width of the brow stroke, you can use this particular stroke width tool. And you can move it outwards or inwards, and you can see that it gets wider now here than it is on the other side. Look, you can tap anywhere on your stroke to get those stroke width controls, and then you can give that stroke a certain shape. So that's really nice. Now, I'm going to leave it like that, and that's the brow. I think it is about time we're going to put this to color. So let's go on to the next part. 6. Fill the drawing: Okay, on to the next part, we're going to make colors. We've got the image ready, and we've brought it down to pretty basic shapes. Let's see what happens if we turn off the image. Well, it's still very recognizable. I think that her neck is a bit thick, so I might just make that a teeny bit lighter. Where is it? The head? Where is the head? There it is. Okay. I think that's that. Let's swap this color. And now we've got her in a very nice suit. Okay, that's one. So that's very easy. Just swipe from left to right, and the color of the stroke and the fill will swap. So that's one. I'm going to the back leg, and for the line, I'll just change the color into a nice skin tone. I think this might be right. And Yep, like that. And I'm going to swipe from left to right to turn the stroke into a fill. That's a bit orange, bit yellow. Okay, change it a little bit. Okay, I think that this is right. Now, we'll change the other leg, the front one. I'll just look it up in the layers, and I'll change the stroke to my skin color, and I swap it and it's filled again. The first thing I'm going to do now is move the back leg behind the body. Who, not in the body, but behind the body. If this happens to you, then you might have turned the body inadvertently into a clipping mask. You've just put the leg in there. It's not a problem at all. Just move it out and do it again. So and then next one is the hand. The hand is red. Okay, and just swap and change the color into the same skin tone. Um, okay, the head can also be changed. As you can see, you can also first swap and then change the fill collar. That's not very different. Let's see what is next. I'm going to the hand in front. Same here. And I think it's about time to do the sleeve. Let's see. Where's the sleeve? Oh, that's nice, right? Nice bright red collar. And I would like to make that a little darker. So I think I like that collar. Of course, it is important that the arm moves behind the back. Okay, not in the body. Not in the body, but behind the body, right? Just move it, and now it's behind the body. Now, it's time to change the color of the ear and the eye. Select them. By swiping to the right, you can select multiple lines. And I'm going to the colors, but I want the same color as the skin. Only darker. So a good way to do that is by using an HSL setting. First, I added the current fill to the palette, keep it for future reference. And then in the color wheel, I'm going to the HSL slider. And what I can do now is just change the luminans. And as you can see, the entire head is changing, and I only want the lines, sorry to change because the head was still selected. Now, go to the slider. And the HSL, and then make that a little dark. So you have the same color, only a different luminant. I add the current fill to the palette so I can use it for future reference, and I can move on to the next part. Now, we need to add a bit more depth like the face is not showing. You can't see where the hand ends and the face starts. So what I'm going to do is make a copy of the head. That's right here. I'm going to turn that into multiply. That is the blending option. Now, that looks odd because that's not what you want. I'm going to pick it up and put it on top of the hand in the back. Still, nothing is visible because it's exactly beneath the face. But when I take the arrow tool, the move tool and I start moving it, I can see it appearing right there. Now I can change the opacity a bit, and I have a hand right there with a clear face. The same way I'm going to do something like that with the arm, let's pick the arm in front. I let's make a copy of that arm to the edit menu and duplicate it. Turn the opacity into multiply or the blending option, I should say, into multiply. It's also possible to give the different color, but to me, this is a very logical way to work. Just move it to the back, and it's below the arm in the back and move it a little. Now, look, there it is. It's probably a good idea to turn the magnet on right now. Now, that looks nice. I would like it to be a little less conspicuous. It can be done quite lightly. The leg in the back also needs to have a bit of collar. So let's take the body and make a cop. Same way. Edit, duplicate. Fill the body. Turn that to multiply and just move it over the back leg. Like that. I might choose a different color because that red is probably a bit too much. Ah, that's. I can pull it a bit further and a bit back like that, and Okay Alright. Of course, I need to make the back leg a little darker as well. So I make a copy of the front leg. I move the front leg also inside the back leg. I turn it into multiply or I use the darker color, and I just move it like. Whoa, sorry, this should not move. Let's turn this to the side a little bit, and now it will be joined like that. It's great. Now I will select both the body and the back leg shadow, and I will join them using this Boolean search, and they're at it and I have one shape. The next thing I'm going to do is change the hair. Okay, let's look for the hairline. And I'm going to do something which is quite extraordinary, and that is used a flood fill tool. I'm going to pick a nice color. Let's say, Oh, maybe I should use the color wheel. I like that. Maybe a very deep dark brown. I'm just going to tap this. La. Your hair is done. So now let's turn off the image for a second. Oh, that looks quite nice, doesn't it? What I'm going to do now is turn the line of the head a bit softer. I'll go to the effect, and I'm going to give it a slight gaussian blur. Gausium bottom right there and just move the slider a little. And well, that's great. That's a lot more subtle, isn't it? I'm going to do the same for the arm. Let's go to the effects panel, tune on the gaussian blur and move the slider up a little. It's perhaps a bit hard to see with all that red, but you will see it in your screen definitely. And next, those features can be worked on right now. First, I'll select the head. Like that. I'll go to the edit menu and I'll work inside the head. Use a pen tool and a stroke, and you might say, h. Is that a lip? Well, not just yet. Let's pick a color. I'm going to use that red again. And I'm going to use Well, let's make this a little bigger. That looks terrible. And I'm going to use the stroke Wits tool, and this gives me control over how I can start and end a line thickness, stroke thickness. I can still move those independently, and I can change the thickness anyway that I like. Well, it looks a bit range, but we'll fix that in a later stage. Now, let's go to the I. And I'm going to use the vector flood fill tool to turn the white of the e into white. Just step and done. Next, we're going to draw the iris. So I'll use an ellipse and I'll pick a color, let's say, a dark color like this. And in the layers panel, I'm going to drag this dark color in the eye white, and now it is inside, and the eye white has turned it into a clipping mask. It's nice, but it should not be so dark. I should have a different color. Let's make this dark brown. And I still need to add a pupil. So what I can do is duplicate that specific circle or ellipse I made. Make it a bit smaller, move it around and just make sure that the eye is done. That's right. Now, remember that I turned these curves into one curve. But the problem is that when I make this darker, the top curve also gets dark, and that's very strange because that's part of her eyelid. So you can also separate those curves, which I'm doing right here. And now we can pick the top one, turn that into that brown, like, brown color again, and move it down a little. So it's behind the eyelashes. I'll use my nodes to change the shape of the eyelashes a little bit like that. And I'm using the stroke width tool. And I can make the stroke smaller or wider at the point where I tap and I move to the inside or to the outside like that. It's a very nice feature, and you can just apply pressure to a certain point and make it bigger or smaller. Just to change the shape a little bit, and the eye is done. Now, this elbow is a bit sharp, so I would like it to be a little more blood, drag on the handles to make the shape them a little better. And I think that I want to change the hair as well. So I'm going to the hair, but when I try to draw, I can't change it. Look, it stays inside the head, and that's logical because the head has formed the clipping mask. So the first thing I'm going to do is drag out the hair now. And now, if I take a point and I use no tool, I can actually change it outside the shape of the head that I used to have. Otherwise, it will seem glued, stuck to her head, and now it's getting more free. So this is already looking quite nice. Now that we've got all the big lines ready, I think it's good idea to add a bit more dimension in the clothes. The body is really one big red form shape. But if I add a gradient, I will get more definition, more depth. So it's always a starting point, the color that you're using, and it gets darker as you move away. I can do the same thing for, for example, the arm, use a gradient tool and make it a little darker at the bottom. If you double tap on the end marker, you can change the color to any color you like, by the way. The arm and the back can have a little of that gradient, as well. All right. And I'm going to do the same with her head. Now, you need to be subtle with this. If you do this too wildly, it will look weird and unnatural. Like that, I'm going through the parts that I want to change. The legs can have a little bit of this nice extra color, and the back leg as well. Just move until you're satisfied with what it looks like. Alright. I'm going to make cheeks. So I'll pick just some standard color. This still had the fill from the previous version, use that very, very bright red. And now just move it down so that it'll be a bit more pink. Then I'm going to the effects panel and add a Gorgon blur. So that this lovely rosiness is subtly part of her cheeks. I'm going to move that inside the head. That's good. Now the next thing we're going to do is refine the lips a bit because they look strange, don't they? So first, I'm going to expand the curve, and now it is a shape instead of a curve. I can use the no tool to move points or remove anchor points. And I can use handles to change it. I can use the pencil to sculpt. This is sculpt, and sculpt will give the line a different form. As you can see him just moving over the existing anchor points to replace them or even remove them. That's a very nice way to work when you have something set up. So I'm moving this outside the head, otherwise, it'll be suck inside the edges of the head. And look, those lips are very strange like that. So I can just use that pencil to change the shape a bit better. And as you can see, I only have a few anchor points left while they used to be quite a lot once I changed the stroke into a curve. Alright, make it a bit more subtle. That's a lot better. Some refinements, and then I also want a bit of a gradient to make that look more natural. A darker lip is always on the top. It's a very strange bump here, so I'll just move the anchor points and I'll drag at the handles to get the right shape. Okay. This is looking so much better. And just deselect, and I think that my image is almost on. It's time, I think, let's see if I can what it looks like when I turn off our artwork, it should have a little bit of a background. A shape with a shade will do nicely. So I'm using the pencil. I'll pick a gray stroke like that, and I'll just roughly draw a shape All I need to do is just change the shape a little bit. And then I'm going to the fill color. I'll swap it as I've done before. I'll drag the handles and the anchor points and make it a shape that could be the shape, the shade that she is forming with her body. All right. First, let me just smoothen out those lines a bit by using smart or rounded anchor points. And then I'm using the transparency tool, which lives next to the gradient tool to get a nice, transparent shadow like that. And I think that our girl is almost ready. Just fiddle a little bit. Okay. Maybe with the effect, add some Gugen blur to the shadow. Come. Yep. Sometimes it is a bit hard to get it. And now the image is done. 7. Final result: Here's the final result of the gymnast. I added some more details in the arms and the body of the suit, and I refine the details in her face a little bit. I added her hair band, and I added shoes because I like those belly shoes very much. So this makes the picture complete, add some background, and we're done. It's ready to make a nice cart, for example. Mm hmm. 8. Thank you and see you next time!: You made it to the end. Congratulations. I hope that you managed to make a decent vector drawing from a photo. If you want to practice more often, or if this is a bit too difficult for you, then find your own photos that are a bit easier perhaps. Look for simple shapes like the shoe that I showed you, and then you can just expand as you go. It is a bit of a mindset to work in vectors. It's different from working with, for example, Procreate, where you draw more freely and as it goes. But vectors need to well, plot it. You need to put a point down there and a point somewhere else, and then you need to make a shape or a line. That's a different way of thinking. But once you master it, you can make a whole lot of things. And of course, it is possible to combine photo editing software and vectors. If you first make your vector and then you import it into affinity photo or in Procreate, you can add extra effects. I hope you had fun. I enjoyed myself anyway. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. Leave them in the omens and let me see what you made. So, see you next time. Bye bye. Thanks for watching. Cheerio. Mm