Affinity Designer 2 Beginner in Illustration [Updated!]

Explore the raster (pixel) persona for freehand drawing, painting, and texture, and learn to blend it with vector work using brushes, opacity, and pixel layers.

Learn how to set up a first project in Affinity Designer 2, compare drawing with mouse versus pencil, and why brush pressure matters for raster drawing.

Master the paintbrush tool in Affinity Designer, adjusting width and resizing with hotkeys. Learn how opacity, flow, and hardness affect brush strokes, and explore wet edges and round brush settings.

Master advanced brush settings in Affinity Designer, including size, accumulation, hardness, spacing, flow, shape, and rotation, to craft dynamic strokes and watercolor-like effects. Save custom brushes and resize with ctrl-alt-drag.

Master the stabilizer and symmetry tools in Affinity Designer 2 to produce clean, accurate line art using brush, window mode, rope mode, mirror, and lock features.

Explore blend modes in Affinity Designer 2 by painting with the paintbrush, using normal, multiply, overlay, and soft light to build watercolor-like or gouache effects on separate layers.

Use the raster paint brush in Affinity Designer to explore watercolor-like strokes with wedge edges. Learn how set wet edges, blend modes, and flow influence results for shading.

Learn how to use associated tools in affinity designer 2, where selecting a brush automatically switches to its paired tool (paintbrush, eraser, smudge brush) for faster workflow.

Master Protect Alpha in Affinity Designer by painting inside existing pixels on the current layer, preventing brush strokes from crossing boundaries; use multiply, overlay, and highlights to refine the result.

Use the pinch brush and erase brush to draw and refine shapes, snapping with shift to create squares, then use vector for perfect circles and project alpha for textured silhouettes.

Master the selection tools in Affinity Designer, including rectangular, circular, freehand, polygonal, pen, and brush options. Move, duplicate, delete, snap, invert selections, and paint within areas to refine a sketch.

Explore the fluid selection tool in Affinity Designer 2, learning to select areas on a pixel layer with tolerance and continuous options for precise painting.

Master background removal in Affinity Designer 2 by using refined selection and brush tools to isolate a subject, tackle tricky edges, and convert layer to raster for a transparent png.

Refine selections in Affinity Designer 2 with the selection brush and refine panel, test overlays (black and white, black matte), and adjust ramp, smooth, and feather for a cleaner PNG.

Sketch a baby monster using Affinity Designer brush tools, symmetry, and layers to refine from a rough sketch into clean lineart, with mirror, selections, and raster vs vector notes.

Fill a character silhouette using freehand or selection brush tools, then apply the fluid fill tool on a fill layer. Adjust tolerance and anti-alias, refining with the selection brush.

Explore how the dodge brush tool in Affinity Designer 2 adds light and color by painting shadows, midtones, and highlights with brush settings, protect hue, and soft or hard light.

Learn how to use the burn tool in Affinity Designer to create highlights and shadows, with protect hue, and build shading on one layer for vibrant saturation.

Learn how to use the merge brush and smudge tool to blend colors across layers, creating soft, blended effects with foliage and circular shapes.

Explore Affinity Designer 2 painting tips by using the smudge brush for shading and highlights, grayscale layers, and the merge brush tool to blend light and shadow.

Master the blur and sharpen tools in Affinity Designer by learning how to soften lines with the blur brush, sharpen with the sharpen brush, and compare with the smudge tool.

Explore Affinity Designer 2 color picker techniques to shade characters, manage layers, and add textures, while using fluid selection, protect alpha, and blend modes for precise results.

Complete the Pixel Persona project in Affinity Designer 2.0, mastering brush painting, selections, shading, fluid fill, color dodge with the burn brush, and the smudge workflow.