- Jan 17, 2021 - Explore Miki Plank's board 'Affinity brushes' on Pinterest. See more ideas about photoshop brushes free, digital painting tutorials, digital art tutorial.
- Before we block the sketch layer, use the image below to demonstrate the light and value of this painting. The widest light path shows the main light stream coming from top, traveling through semi-transparent swan, water and reflected mostly in the bottom of the glass, then reflected all the directions out, make a bright light source in the image.
- Sketch & Digital Lineart Start by sketching the overall idea, you can sketch directly in Affinity or scan a pencil drawing. Create a new layer underneath the sketch and use the Flood Fill Tool to apply a white colour. Reduce the opacity of the sketch layer and create a new layer above it for the lineart.
- Both programs are great for digital painting but Designer have two brush engines: one vector based (for vector brushes although it can use raster based nozzles too) and another raster based (which is the same used in Affinity Photo). Currently the vector based brush engine is less developed than the raster based engine.
With Corel Painter's intuitive guides, you can either quickly convert a photo to a digital painting or paint the canvas using the photo as a cloning source. Then there's the nifty 'Brush Accelerator' utility, which automatically optimizes your CPU/GPU settings for 20x faster painting.
What is the DAUB PaintBox Brush Pack?
PaintBox is a collection of raster brushes that have been handcrafted with digital artists and classic painters in mind. With 80 raster brushes in total this brush pack harnesses the latest brush engine power of Affinity Designer on iPad and Affinity Photo on iPad. They feel amazing to use on iPad and give digital painters tools to create realistic and natural brush strokes.
Providing a vast selection of gouaches, oils and acrylics, the aim of this brush pack is to give you the brushes you need to create expressive colour dynamics, impasto and thickness effects with Affinity on iPad.
What’s included:
- DAUB PaintBox Oils (20 brushes)
- DAUB PaintBox Gouaches (20 brushes)
- DAUB PaintBox Blockers (20 brushes)
- DAUB PaintBox Off-Beats (20 brushes)
IMPORTANT NOTE: These brushes have been specially made for use with Affinity Designer for iPad (1.7) and Affinity Photo for iPad (1.7) only.
See the brushes in action…
Paolo shows us below how to add detail using the DAUB Chisel packed bristles that are included in the DAUB Paintbox brush pack adding an authentic looking paint effect in your work:
Working with the DAUB® PaintBox Brushes
The PaintBox brushes allows infinite possibilities and effects in digital painting. DAUB® PaintBox brush pack contains specialised brushes which have been designed to reproduce classic painting techniques. Paolo Limoncelli, the brains behind the brushes, shows us below how the brush pack can be combined with the software to seamlessly reproduce a classic painting approach by creating a piece he calls ‘The flaming fox’.
Step 1: Sketching
To start your project off you’ll want to create a rough outline sketch of your subject, in this case the fox, as a base for your work. I recommend using a simple brush for the concept outline such as one of the DAUB® Ink brushes that can already be found in the software. You don’t want to go into too much detail here, just create the rough outline as you see below.
Step 2: Shaping volumes and lighting
Once the sketch is complete and you have your rough guides, you can begin to shape the image and start adding volume. To do so, use a combination of the Smooth Chisel Oil and the Classic Round Impasto from the Paintbox – Oils brushes. This is the first stage of painting so it can be pretty quick, it doesn’t need any specific care or detail other than defining volumes and lighting.
For the light areas use a yellow or an orange shade with dark red and blue/violet tones to define the mid-tones and shadows.
I recommend keeping the painting as loose as possible. As these brushes allow loose painting by design they are perfect for this. You don’t want to create too much of a refined look at this stage other than possibly adding the detail of the eyes.
Step 3: Detailing
During the detailing stage you can begin to add the fine strokes and depth and detail. The Chisel Packed Bristles—again from the PaintBox brush oils are the only brushes I used here in a small/medium size. The fine strokes once built up begin to create the flowing fur of the fox.
Tip: This step needs patience as it’s so easy to lose the rough effect whilst defining the detail. Zoom and pan whilst developing this step to keep an eye on both the illustration as a whole and the finer details as you’re working.To keep things clean, take a break from the screen so you don’t lose focus, then stack the further levels of detail into clipped layers.
Step 4: Developing the background
Now the fox is finished, we can start to develop an environment around him. For this tutorial we’ll add a hint of a forest.
To do this in a quick and convincing way the PaintBox – Blockers set is perfect for creating the background. These brushes are designed to cover large areas whilst keeping the natural media effect. The brushes I used here are DAUB® Vincent 01 and Vincent Fine as a hint to the well recognised Van Gogh signature style.
Once again we’re going to progressively develop the background using clipped layers.
For shadows and highlights the Vincent Rade brush can be used to create a rough texture.
Step 5: Final touches
To finish off the painting I used the Layer FX with a Radial gradient going from white to violet (the colour used for shadows). This tone helps to lower the bright tones of the tail.
You could then add some flames to add a credible glow around the fox using the DAUB® Stucco 01 and Vincent Rade, then lower the opacity of the layer to 40%. The final touch is the done with an Adjustment Curve layer, tweaking the Master Curve and the Blue channel.
More inspiration
Paolo’s expertise has helped shape the Affinity brush engine and he is our resident Affinity brush expert. His beautiful, effortless, illustration and teaching style has featured in both the Affinity Photo Workbook and Affinity Designer Workbook.
Here is a variety of artwork created by Paolo with these latest DAUB brushes, all of which use techniques that can be re-created using the DAUB® PaintBox brush pack available in the Affinity Store.
Get the DAUB® PaintBox Brush pack today!
You can purchase Paolo’s DAUB® PaintBox brush pack from the Affinity Store. These raster brushes are compatible with both Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer on iPad.
About the maker
To learn more about Paolo Limoncelli you can read our past interview with him here or check out his UI/UX design portfolio at www.ux-designstudio.com and his artwork at www.paololimoncelli.com.
We really recommend you check out more of DAUB®’s brushes for Affinity Designer and Photo from the official DAUB website too at www.daub-brushes.com.
You can also see Paolo’s Affinity tutorials in the Affinity Designer Workbook and the Affinity Photo Workbook.
Laura Ferreira
Laura is a portrait photographer and artist from Trinidad and Tobago who first started turning her passion for photography into a career when she was an expectant mother in 2006. When we came across Laura’s showstopping work we commissioned a shoot with her and this resulting vibrant piece did not disappoint. This was Laura’s first time using Affinity Photo but she claimed;
“It wasn’t very difficult to get the hang of Affinity. I loved the layout, and immediately fell in love with the hover previews of adjustments, and the forever undos. It felt smooth and snappy.”
Laura’s work has been used on our Affinity Photo for iPad webpage.
To see more of Laura’s photography visit her website Lauraferreira.com, Instagram and Facebook.
Anna Dittmann
Anna Dittmann is a digital illustrator from San Francisco with a passion for figurative art. She now lives and freelances in beautiful Scotland. Her love for nature and portraiture are recurring themes throughout her work, often drawing inspiration from movement, organic shapes and natural elements. Her work is featured on book covers, comic covers, magazines, advertisements, posters, tattoos and she has exhibited in galleries worldwide.
Anna’s work has been used as an in-app sample, in our 1.8 video and on our Affinity Photo webpage.
Visit Anna’s website, Instagram and Facebook to find out more about her work.
Paul Hollingworth
Paul Hollingworth is a photographer, art director and creative based in Edinburgh. Paul’s fascination with photography was born through his love for graphic design. His first experiences with the medium were whilst studying art, design and multimedia at college. What was first utilised as a means of capturing material to aid his graphic design work, slowly developed into an art form in its own right.
Paul’s work has been used as an in-app sample, in our 1.8 video, on our main webpage and on our Affinity Photo for iPad webpage.
To see more of Paul’s work visit his website, Instagram and Behance.
Luis Toledo—Laprisamata
Luis Toledo is an illustrator from Madrid, Spain whose work is unlike any other. The art by Luis Toledo is extremely surreal and feels personal to the artist, giving the audience the feeling of entering into another world.
Luis’ work has been used in our 1.8 video.
To see more work from Luis visit Laprisamata’s website, Behance, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Beth Mitchell
Beth is a fine art and fashion photographer who specialises in the art of underwater photography, particularly in feminine, figurative underwater work. She’s based in Australia and has a passion and talent for capturing ethereal scenes underwater.
You can go behind the scenes with Beth on our commissioned underwater photoshoot and learn how she post-processed the final image in this short tutorial.
Beth’s work has been used as an in-app sample.
Visit Beth’s website and Instagram to see more of her stunning photography.
Elena Paraskeva
Elena Paraskeva is an international Conceptual Photographer and Art Director. Having lived and worked in the U.S for a decade, she now resides in Cyprus, but often travels for assignments.
Elena loves to create surrealistic conceptual work bathed in colour and is often inspired by everyday life and popular culture. Her work never ceases to amaze us, you can read more about Elena in our previous Spotlight interview with her here.
Elena’s work has been used on our Affinity Photo webpage.
You can see more of Elena’s work on her website, 500px and Facebook.
Mr Xerty
Brice Chaplet, aka Mr.Xerty, is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator from Paris who specialises in digital art and mixed media. He is self-taught, experimenting different techniques like drawing and graffiti writing before touching down with graphic design.
His style in influenced by urban life, surrealism, the circus world and the mystical. He likes to play with photos, textures and colours which are most of the time mixed with some 3D abstract forms. The result is crazy and surreal worlds with twisted urban landscapes, personified animals or fantasy buildings.
Mr Xerty’s work has been used on our Affinity Photo webpage.
Visit Mr Xerty’s website, Behance and Facebook to see more of his work.
Alberto Seveso
Illustrator and digital photographer Alberto Seveso was born in Milan, grew up in Sardinia but is now living and working in Bristol (UK) as a freelancer. His passion for graphic art started from young age when he was really fascinated by the graphics on skate decks and the cover of music CDs of metal bands in the early 90’s. From this passion he started to create his artworks.
Alberto’s work has been used as an in-app sample, in our 1.8 video and on our Affinity Photo webpage.
To see more of Alberto’s imagery visit his website, Facebook, Instagram and Behance .
Eleni Debo
Eleni Debo is a Belgian illustrator who freelances from the breath-taking Italian Alps. Her work regularly features in international newspapers, books and magazines and she has an incredible talent for distilling often complex stories and subject matter into a single thought-provoking image. She won a prestigious World Illustration Award for her editorial piece ‘When to stop’ created in Affinity Photo. You can read more about her awarding winning project here.
You can see more of Eleni’s illustrations on her website, Facebook and Instagram to see more of her illustrations.
Corrie White
Corrie was born in the Netherlands but currently resides in Ontario, Canada. She specialises in water drop photography. She first became interested in this macro art form when she came across some works by Martin Waugh and decided to try the art form for herself in early 2009.
She started out with a simple medicine dropper for the first year and then went on to use electronics, firstly using The Time Machine, where she went on to make numerous discoveries in the field of water drop photography. Currently Corrie uses the MJKZZ system which she claims has opened up a whole new world of creativity for her.
Corrie’s work has been used in our 1.8 video and on our Affinity Photo for iPad webpage.
Visit Corrie’s website and Facebook to see more of her work.
Matt Donovan
Matt is a landscape and travel photographer from Sydney, Australia. He’s spent his whole life loving art and all things creative, which inevitably led him to study graphic design in 2009-10. During that time, Matt took an extremely basic photography class. It was then that he picked up his first DSLR not having a clue how to use it. Years passed and he decided it was time to dedicate all of his free time learning the ever-growing art of photography and has never looked back since.
To see more of Matt’s photography visit his website, Instagram and Twitter.
Daniel Kordan
Daniel is a renowned landscape photographer who originally studied Science at university but later decided to choose a career in photography. These days he holds photo workshops and expeditions in a variety of stunning landscapes across the world. When asked about how he found working in Affinity Photo he said;
“Affinity software impressed me with the smooth editing process. I like to use multi layer systematic approach on my editing. Each editing step should be very gentle and elegant—that’s why my images have a soft painting like look. Affinity helps to make each step super fast and easy—helping to pay attention to every single detail.”
Born in Russia in a small town near Moscow, Daniel spends most of his time now in Norway at Lofoten Islands and in Tuscany guiding groups from Europe, the UK, US, Asia and Russia.
Visit Daniel’s website, Instagram and Facebook to see more of his work.
Mr Paisley
Affinity Designer Vs Affinity Photo
Designing under the name Mr Paisley, French textile desiginer Florent Terracol creates detailed designs for high-end brands with the aid of Affinity Photo. Using Affinity on both Mac and iOS means Florent often sketches his highly detailed designs on the go, after seeing this jungle animal inspired repeat pattern we knew we had to licence the piece for use on our website.
Mr Paisley’s work has been used on our Affinity Photo for iPad webpage.
You can check out more of Mr Paisley’s decorative designs on his website and Instagram.
Affinity Designer Painting
Erik Ly
Erik Ly is a contemporary illustrator from Los Angeles, California and is currently being represented by Illozoo. He specialises in surreal illustrations, character art and animal drawings.
Erik’s work has been used in our 1.8 video and on our Affinity Photo webpage.
Visit Erik Ly’s website, Instagram, Twitter and agent Illozoo to see more illustrations.
Piotr Kasprzak
Affinity Designer Review 2020
Piotr Kasprzak of Infrared CGI is a visualisation artist who specialises in creating 3D graphics for architectural and interior visualisations, product advertising and 3D animations. He uses Affinity photo for post-processing his images.
Piotr’s work has been used on our Affinity Photo webpage.
You can see more work from Piotr of Infrared CGI at infraredcgi.com and on Behance and Instagram.
Carlos Jiménez
Carlos Jiménez is an award winning creative director and designer with 17 years of experience in the advertising industry. He has won over 35 awards and accolades in different fields such as advertising, creativity and design.
Carlos specialises in photo retouching and compositing. He has worked for world renown design and photography studios such as Sagmeister & Walsh in NYC and Sane Seven in the UK. His work has been featured in many industry leading blogs and magazines such as Abduzeedo, AdsOfTheWorld, Adeevee, Lurzer’s Archive, Poster4Tomorrow. He has also showcased his design work in International Festivals and Biennials.
Carlos’ work has been used in our 1.8 video.
Visit Carlos’ website and Behance to see more of his stunning imagery.
Painting In Affinity Photo
Fake Face
Hugo Marques—aka Fakeface—is a freelance artist and a 2D/3D animation teacher from Évora, Portugal. He first started working in computer graphics with 2D and 3D animation software years ago and has since made several projects for big companies as well as TV advertisements. He has a passion for digital painting and uses Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer as his two main tools.
Affinity Photo Art
Visit Fake Face’s Instagram to keep up to date with his latest work.