Getting Back into the Swing

[CosmoglotJay]

Hi! Just realized this Introduction forum exists. Already made one post in the Slowvember Challenge. Faux pas!

I'm jumping back into the idea of illustrating after taking a much-too-long hiatus. I started (brick and mortar) school for it 9 years ago, then various economic life events forced me me to move and broke my resolve. Since then I've been working as a low-key freelance graphic designer and copywriter/editor.

But writer-illustrator has always been my pie-in-the-sky profession. I'm a storyteller by nature - have a few short story awards under my belt, and I LOVE making art. Always have.

And we only get one life, right?

Recently I decided to switch from Adobe softwares to Affinity, partly for cost reasons and partly because I hate the abuses of monopoly. As a way to teach myself the minor differences between Photoshop and Affinity Photo, I decided to take up digital painting - and I frickin' love it.

I'm glad platforms like svslearn.com exist now. It's making a big difference.

And this forum seems like a good place for constructive criticism!

[braden H]

@CosmoglotJay said in Getting Back into the Swing:

And this forum seems like a good place for constructive criticism!

It's a STRANGELY good place for constructive criticism Welcome to the forums

[CosmoglotJay]

@Braden-Hallett thanks!

[burvantill]

Welcome! I haven’t heard of Affinity before. I have been looking for a Photoshop alternative since I realized last month that my adobe cs is not going to survive Apple updates on my computer. I use PS and illustrator almost every day and I too am unhappy with Adobe’s new hostage format. Do you know if Affinity has color correcting tools in both RGB and CMYK?

[theprairiefox]

@CosmoglotJay welcome. I am glad you found us!

I love Edgar Allen Poe as well. It is great to see him making a showing in the monthly contest!

I can't wait to see more of your work.

If you have an instagram or website make sure to throw it in your profile signature (so we can all follow you there as well...)

[CosmoglotJay]

@burvantill Affinity does both CMYK and RGB. I think they do the "free trial" thing, so you might check them out to make sure they do what you need.

Plus at the moment they have their "cyber" specials going on - 30% off all desktop programs (so, like, only $35ish per software)! And their apps for the iPad are state of the art, too.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/

[CosmoglotJay]

@theprairiefox thanks! Yeah, I'll get that insta on my profile before too long.

[burvantill]

@CosmoglotJay Found it! Thankyou

[CosmoglotJay]

@burvantill Nice. Let me know what you think of them if you decide to give 'em a shot!

[carlianne]

Welcome! I'm an author/illustrator as well in my ️. On top of this great community I totally recommend becoming a member of SCBWI as well and attending some local events. I found a critique group and met a lot of really cool people.

[CosmoglotJay]

@carlianne That’s some fine advice, thank you!

[CosmoglotJay]

@burvantill One important thing for digital painters / illustrators to know about brushes in Affinity Photo is that what Photoshop (and as a result many of the tutorials on SVS) refers to as Opacity / Opacity Jitter, AF's brush dynamics menu refers to as "Accumulation." That confounded me for a little while. Just thought I'd put that to you and spare you the headache!

[burvantill]

@CosmoglotJay Thanx! I’m going to get the free trial today. I hope I like it. You can’t beat that price.

[burvantill]

I bought it. LOL! I farted around with it for a bit while listening to some tutorials and am happy with what it can do so far. Thanx for the tip! I'm going to check out Designer too to see if it compares with illustrator.

[CosmoglotJay]

It stacks up quite favorably! Every once in a while in the forums you'll see a complaint that Designer doesn't do things in exactly the same way as Illustrator, but those posts mainly seem to be made by people with idiosyncratic work processes and people who are completely averse to changing how they do things.

[CosmoglotJay]

@burvantill Here's a work in progress that I sketched out in Photo and went into Designer to begin vectorizing. I'm still figuring it out, obviously--and, really, I could have done it completely in Designer, but I'm trying to make myself use Photo as much as possible for initial layout these days.

[NicolaSchofield]

I bought affinity designer and photo in their sale last week after a little play around with the trial. I don't have a graphics tablet yet though (on order) so I'll have to wait to try them out properly. Itching to paint something!

Until now I've just been using a super old version of Photoshop with a mouse for some basic filtering of scanned work.

Thanks for tip about different terminology.