Whimsical art with Affinity Designer: Designing a custom print.

1. Hello!!!: Do you love custom print with a whimsical feel, but don't know how to do it. And what about these cottagecore prints that look like an explosion of Mushrooms and flowers. If you love them, this is your class. Hi, my name is Aldara. I’m an engineer, designer, and self-taught illustrator. I am the founder of Playful&Whimsical And my mission is to help you banish boring walls, and to add some whimsy to your home and your live. My style as an illustrator, it's colorful, imaginative, and whimsical. I mix hand drawing with digital illustration to create unique images. And some of my bestsellers are quotes surrounded by flowers and mushrooms and vegetation. And I create those images with the techniques that I'm going to show you in this class So, it's going to be fun. If you want to see more of my prints check out my Etsy shop. This is the third class I teach in Skillshare. My previous classes or lettering and calligraphy with affinity, designer, and Mandala creation with Affinity Designer. You can tell, I really like Affinity Designer. I think that the option that it gives you to work with vector and pixel graphics at the same time is very powerful. We are going to use it in this class. I understand the importance or learning while doing, I believe in that. So during this class, we will create a print like this one. And for that, we will use some of my favorite tools of Affinity Designer like symbols, assets, and of course, the Pen tool. These tools one mastered and you will, don't worry. We'll give you the power to design. an immense variaty of prints very quickly. This class is beginner friendly, but a bit of knowledge about Affinity Designer will be helpful. Perhaps, if you are really a beginner. Take first my class, lettering and calligraphy with Affinity Designer it will probably help you come back here. Custom prints are a great gift us so fun to make. So give it a go, and I'll see you in the next video. 2. Your whimsical print: Your class project is to create a custom print like this one. It doesn't have to be exactly like this one. But for your first try and only for the first one, I've recommended that you follow me closely so you can practice the techniques with me. We're going to do it in three steps. A very easy and quick step when we are going to learn about the Pen tool and how to do the mushroom or any shape you like. A more complex, but it's still easy step where you will learn about Assets and Symbols. to quickly learn the basics. And a third step where we are going to focus on lighting, texturing and a bit of overlaying to give it a whimsical feel. Once you have all these concept mastered, you will be ready to create more complex, fully textured. And whimsy final projects. And as in all my classes. Every step is easy. I have created and collected a collection of assets, textures, colour palettes, and brushes for you to use. These will allow you to jump in and have your first custom whimsical print ready in no time. The link to download the resources is in the projects and resources tab below. And I will put the password on the screen. Now. I'm sure you are looking forward to start, So, open your Affinity Designer, and I'll see you in the next video. 3. Pen tool tricks and a fairy: The first step then is create a new image. And we're going to create that A3 horizontal document. Of course, you don't have to exactly what I'm doing. But for the first try, I recommend that you follow me closely. So just create a blank document. So make sure you are in the designer persona there and choose the frame text tool. With this tool, you can create a test that it will be easy to center using this to their own V image. I wrote tinkle run, and of course you can write anything else. But I think this is a good start for our whimsy kind of print. And we're going to do the t with a mushroom. And for that, we're going to use the Pen tool. The Pen tool has a little trick. There, you have it. If you want to do a straight line, just click and double-click. But if you want to do a curve, click, drag and click. Look. Click, drag and click and long query. If the shape is not perfect this first time, it doesn't supposed to be. You are going to be able to change it and modify afterwards. And another thing is don't try to do exactly the same mushroom that I'm doing. This is a free shape. So do more or less something similar that I'm doing. Once it's finished, we are going to use the node tool. These little circles are nodes notes. And as you can see, you can modify them. You can move the handles, move the nodes until you are happy with the shape. You can also use this little tool to combat too smooth to change how the how the world works. And I'm just modifying here. And then this step is yes. Other bit of texture. I'm for that typical toad stool, we are going to add ellipsis, elusive, sorry. Once put them more or less one do you feel if they work and change the layer blend like I'm doing there, then you have the texture judge, you like. Now we are going to change the font and the size of Tinkerbell and other bit of a background. And that's it. This is the first step for the custom whimsical print. 4. Symbols, assets, and a cluster of mushrooms: We're going to use symbols and assets in this gas. Symbols are little containers that you can copy on your drawing. And any change that you do in any of those containers, they will be copy on the rest of it. So I think it's better to view, see what they do, how they do it, to understand it. So let's do it. To open the symbols. Go to View Studio and of course symbols. And what this does is open this little tab here called symbols. So now what you're going to do is create a rectangle like this one. No difference. This case, it's important, very important that you align the rectangles on the corner and on the central point. So use the red and green guides. Once you have the rectangle and make sure you have it selected, click on Create. And that creates a symbol. And you can play or modify the symbol. As you warm. It makes, it's just like rectangle right now. Now, what we're going to do, or this is a little trick, is create a radial symmetry around the center. And for that to just drag and drop the symbol and flip it, like you can see on the screen, is good. We're going to flip it there practically. In the last one, you're going to understand in a moment why I do this. So now you have four symbols with an, each one has a rectangle inside. And look what happens if I add a moon in one of them. The moon appears in all of them because we have flip it. You have these radial symmetry. Now we don't want this color on the symbol, so just select the rectangle and click on no color. And now we are going to put the sign inside one of these rectangles and one of the symbols is going to be repeated on the rest of the brain. And for that we're going to use assets. So go to View Studio and assets. Assets are these designs. Then you can use just drag and drop him yarn going to have this collection called playful and whimsical that I made for you is going to be similar to this. And you can just import assets to open it. And to use destroying these designs, just drag and drop V acid. And because we have the symbols, as you can see, you put them in one of the symbol and they appear in the other. And you can pull it outside the rectangle and then they will cross like the red leaves or inside the rectangle like this little mushrooms. So you are going to have like a perfect symmetry there. What is my trick to create these cottage core whimsy prints just cluster to resign on the corners. As I'm doing there. These symbols trick will take care of the rest is SSAS that you are doing with working with mushrooms. I'm leaves here. But you can use any symbol that you want, any asset that I want. And it will have a similar effect. 5. Texturing, lighting and a bit of whimsy: In this class, we are going to play with texture and liked him. The first thing we're going to do is add lighting. So in reality, we are going to add shadows and highlights. And that's what it's going to create a 3D effect on the mushroom. For that, we are going to start with that dark side, a dark shape that is going to be inside. There. You see inside of the mushroom mushroom top. For that, we go to the pen tool and we create a safe that copies more or less the exterior curve of the mushroom. Don't worry about what is outside, what we're going to clip it moved in moles but don't agonize. It doesn't have to be perfect, just roughly shape. Then we're going to fill it with the same color and this is important. The same color of your mushroom. And you see what I've done there. I just move it inside and that's called clipping. And just change the layer blend to multiply. For example, it's usually work very well. We are going to do something very similar for the highlights. So again, we're going to create a saved that mimics that steer curb. We are going to fill it with the same red than it is. We are going to clip it. So we are going to put it inside of the mushroom. The blending modes will you have to choose which one do you prefer now to soften? Because it's a bit harsh, isn't it? To soften that, those edges, we are going to go to the pixel persona and we're going to use that to the smudge brush tool, the finger tool. But doing nothing. That's because you have two vectors and you have to transform it to pixels. So you can use the smudge tool. You just rasterize as you see there. And look, you see what it's doing. It's like mixing both colors. It says as much in it, but it is very effective. Now you can play, I think a bit less opacity and the highlights is going to work better, but this is a personal preference. Same thing. You can use soft light, you can use a screen. Cry. This is the best way to learn how to do it. And just repeat those steps of adding shadow and highlight. In the trunk. Of course, put the shadow and the highlight on the same sides on both the top of the mushroom and the trunk of the mushroom. Rasterize. And it's much. And we are going to do the same, different with the text. As you can see, I'm just duplicating. So if I want to change something, I always have the original rasterize. And instead of the pen tool, I'm going to use the brush. Why the brass? Well, because there are a lot of letters and I don't need to be very precise. I think that's just brushing around the letters is going to work beautiful and it's a bit quicker. Of course to see you have to change the blend mode. Again, playing around, change the brush, see which one do you like? I'm using the old one. And again, I'm going to use a darker blending mode for the shadows and a lighter blending mode for the highlights. Now we're going to add some texture. And for that, I'm going to place a texture image. In this case, v is like metal effect. Yes, place the image and as you can see, it's just an image is nothing special. It's just black, gray, and white. But the interesting thing here is what happens when you change the blend mode. And as you can see, it creates like vintage, feeling like it is a bit worn. As always. Just find the texture you like. And lastly, we are going to use overlays. And an overlay, in reality sells an asset that has an overlay blending mode. And you can create these winds, see effects with them. You can create a lot of effects with them. But with the ones we are using, you have this magical lighting effect. I really like. You just drag and drop. And that's it, as you see is they're very easy to use. And this last one is just a light. And because we have the highlights on the left, you should put your lights coming from the left and just playing around with it. But that's it. You have the knowledge now to do an image like this one or any other wing see magical image or just a full-on plants and flowers, Gracie, quote, print, like the ones I've showed you before. So I hope you have enjoyed and I see you in the next video. 6. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye: Congratulations, you've arrived to the end of a glass. I hope you have enjoyed it And if so, please leave a review. It will help me enormously, will help other people find the class. I am. So looking forward to see your projects, so please post them below. And not only the final project, the steps that you take, the other projects that you make everything. I love it. I promise I will give you feedback and I will share them on my social media. And why not keep going? I learn more about assets and symbols with my class, Mandela creation with Affinity Designer. It is a really fun class. My method to do Mandalas is mesmerizing. If you want to know when I publish a new class just follow me here on Skillshare. Keep learning and I'll see you in the next class.