A Beginner Guide to Affinity Designer | Textured Florals on the iPad V1

In this class, you will learn how to use Affinity Designer V1 to create beautiful, textured florals and leaves right on your iPad.  Designer is a vector based program, with raster elements built in to it, making it perfect to create complex flower and leaf shapes and give them a wonderfully organic feel using pixel based texture.

I will provide you with all of the guidance you need to create your very own botanicals that can be used in illustration, surface pattern design, for print on demand sites, client work and much more.

PLEASE NOTE

If you are using V2 of the app, you can still follow along, as long as you know where tools are located. The process itself hasn't changed, however the interface is much different. Thank you!

You will also receive, as a free download, a set of assets, and a vector brush pack that I have created specifically for this class. Throughout the class, I will show you how to use them to create your own colorful, textured florals. I have also included, in the Resource Guide, a complete list of all of my favorite Affinity Designer brush makers and texture designers so you can further build your own go to collection of tools for creating your own textured flower illustrations. 

Downloads can be found at this link, and the password will be shared in the Downloads & Resources section of the class.

Please note, while I don't provide texture files for this class, there are a number of resources for either free or paid textures out there. I have put together this blog post covering a few of those sources, which also includes a quick video about how you can use Designer's built in stock studio to pull texture images right from Unsplash, Pixabay and Pexels.  Find the post here on my blog.  The class itself isn't about the specific textures or brushes I use but, rather, the process to add them so feel free to use whatever you have on hand.

In this class, you will learn:

- All about the User Interface in Affinity Designer for iPad, including the vector and pixel personas and how they can work both together and separately all in the same app.

- How to create your own custom color palettes using reference photos or your own illustrations. 

- Use the built in shape tools in Affinity Designer to create the vector base for your leaves and flowers.

- Use the Pen and Pencil tool to create freehand shapes that you can turn in to beautifully textured, colorful flowers.

- The three methods I use to add texture and dimension to my flat illustrations.

- How to create, save your completed objects to the Assets Studio and use assets in the Nature Elements Asset Pack to build your leaves and flowers and use them in future illustrations or seamless patterns. 

- Learn how to save and export your documents from Affinity Designer for iPad using the Documents Menu

Already familiar with the ins and out of Designer for iPad and just want to get started creating? Please feel free to jump ahead as I created this class with all levels in mind so, so you can easily do so.

The methods you learn in this class will give you the building blocks you need to create more complex illustrations in Affinity Designer for iPad. The class will be taught on an iPad Pro, using a second generation Apple Pencil, but you can also use your finger or another brand of stylus.

Do you love textural digital illustrations as much as I do? Join my Textural Illustrations for Digital Artists Facebook Group. In this group, you can share your creations, learn tips and tricks for adding texture in the various digital apps, and ask questions of other artists who love texture as much as you do. Check out there group here.

Please note: Affinity Designer is compatible with specific iPads. Click the link to find out more information on Serif's website.

INTRO SONG CREDIT: "Acoustic Breeze" Bensound http://www.bensound.com

• Welcome | Class Project
• Downloads & Resources
• Gallery | Creating a New Document
• The Designer Persona
• The Color Studio
• The Pixel Persona
• The Shape Tools
• The Pen & Pencil Tools
• Saving and Exporting Documents
• Preparing Your Canvas
• Creating Leaves with the Shape Tool
• Creating Leaves with Pen and Pencil Tools
• Adding Texture to Single Layers
• Adding Texture to Groups of Layers
• Simple Flowers from Shapes
• Complex Flowers From Shapes
• Flowers with the Pen & Pencil Tools
• Adding Texture to Flowers
• The Assets Studio
• Putting it All Together