Cons: Certain useful features like gradient map, 3D, mockups, etc. That are available in Illustrator may not be available with Affinity Designer. But I am OK with this - too many features make us forget essential ones. Besides, the magic wand tool available in Affinity Photo is not available in Affinity Designer - for precise cropping of people. Affinity Photo works very well with any application that one may use. I found it very helpful and very handy to post process 3D renders and come up with great results. I advise other 3D artists to try Affinity Photo to create the final look and feel to their renders and experience the differences in speed and functionality between other.
The new Affinity Designer 1.7 update gives us all a MASSIVE set of new features and improvements that are quite simply impossible to detail all in a single post. So, to keep our heads from exploding into tiny pixels, we are going to focus exclusively on the new isometric drawing tools and break them down as smoothly as possible. The result being, that by the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to create your own organic isometric assets like a pro.
You can get all the assets I created for this tutorial using the download button below.
Tip: You can learn to how to install Assets in Affinity Designer in our guide to installing creative resources.1. Setting up the Isometric Grid
Affinity Designer’s 1.7 update, adds new options to the Grid and Axis Manager Panel. However, for this tutorial, we’re going to focus exclusively on the Isometric Grid settings. You can see a quick overview in this video:
2. Getting to know the NEW Isometric Panel
This is a huge one. This panel is going to basically save you tons of steps by projecting your shapes into isometric planes automatically.
Let’s see how it works:
3. Stepping up the game
So, you’re thinking making simple geometry like isometric buildings and cityscapes is now almost too easy using Affinity Designer? Well, let’s challenge ourselves then. How about crossing (just a little bit) the boundaries between 3D and 2D art?
One style of 3D art that I LOVE is so-called low-poly art. Before Affinity Designer 1.7, creating this type of art was totally feasible but was really time-consuming since you needed to perform more calculations using the Transform Panel.
Let’s make some happy trees.
Having the tools to manipulate shapes more efficiently allows us more creative licenseto draw our shapes.
Tip: Learn more about mixing vector and raster graphics in this tutorial.As you can see, just by following this simple technique shown in the image above, you can come up with many shapes to combine together and create a nice collection of reusable isometric assets for your projects.
Tip: Avoid using RIGHT angles (90°) when drawing your planes, to make your objects look more organic and stylised.4. Create anything you can imagine.
All of the assets for this tutorial have been made in the same way. The Isometric Panel is both, a time saver and a creativity booster since it helps you to focus more on your artwork creatively and less on the technical aspects.
Remember, you aren’t limited to just 4-sided faces, to add complexity to your shapes, you can draw multiple-side polygons (1). The more sides you add, the less rigid your assets will look when projected (2).
The process of creating the top and bottom planes (3) and then, connecting the dots to draw faces (4), remains the same.
5. Using textures.
To give some character and depth to your isometric objects, you can use the techniques shown in THIS TUTORIAL we made a while ago, explaining in detail how to add raster textures to vector shapes in Affinity Designer.
6. Time to play!
Once you’ve created some individual isometric assets, you can arrange them and make quick compositions to test what works best for your scene. These new features in Affinity Designer 1.7, will allow you to build more intricate illustrations in half the time.
Visit Frankentoon’s TOON LAB for more Affinity Designer tutorials covering a range of techniques from quick complex masking and painting with textures, to emulating retro graphics and comic book illustration.
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This tutorial is aimed at desktop users of Affinity Designer 1.7, though its worth noting that Affinity Designer on iPad has also had isometric features added in our 1.7 update!
Selling imagined interiors as NFTs and creating 3D rendered villas for fictional vacation getaways, architect and designer Riccardo Fornoni of Cream Atelier is at the very vanguard of digital culture — or, more precisely, culture in general, considering how much of our daily lives and realities are spent and cultivated online these days. Fornoni first received attention last year, when — in the throes of a global pandemic — he teamed up with London-based interior designer and creative director Charlotte Taylor to create the fictional “Villa Saraceni” to satisfy lockdown society’s widespread wanderlust; Taylor has called it “her favorite project to date.” (You might also recognize some of his work from the images Sight Unseen commissioned last year to accompany our annual gift guides!) Based in Mantua, Italy, the 26-year old innovator is one to watch. We recently sat down for a video call with Fornoni to learn more about his fascinating practice.
How did you get started in 3-D design?
I graduated from Politecnico di Milano in Architectural Design, after which I began to explore interior design and learned to do renderings and 3-D modeling. What started with practical renderings for interiors transformed into something more creative. I began to add surrealistic elements—I wanted to create ironic interactions between furniture and playful relationships between objects.
Can you give us and example of such ironic interactions and playful relationships?
I wanted to create something that wasn’t just practical or to serve another purpose, but a stand-alone image that could communicate beauty and ideas. “The Fisherman” for example (above, middle), is made outside of a commercial commission or other applicable usage. An armchair, side table, lamp and accessories are set in a sandy desert landscape at the edge of an oasis of water. The image features the Mod 265 Swing Arm Wall Lamp by Paolo Rizzatto, and the lamp swings toward the armchair as if it were a fishing rod to a phantom fisherman.
Another example is my image “Il Veliero,” (above, bottom) which started from the Veliero Library by Franco Albini. Veliero literally translates to sailboat, so I placed the bookshelf in water, with pillows on a sand embankment, like a luxurious, high design reading nook on an imaginary deserted island.
Speaking of imagery places, tell us more about your Villa Saraceni alla Scala dei Turchi project with Charlotte Taylor. It was completed last summer, at the height of the disappointment of would-be travelers shut in by the pandemic and travel lockdowns.
On top of pandemic travel restrictions, the villa I created with Charlotte could never be realized in reality, because Scala dei Turchi, a rocky cliff area in Sicily, is a protected UNESCO site. Even if you could build something there, it would be knocked out as soon as the water level comes up. We wanted to create something beautiful for the imagination. The interiors are appointed with Picasso ceramics, a Chandler McLellan sculpture, a 1950s wooden Brutalist Chair, Pierre Chapo coffee table, Cerf Volant wall lamp by Pierre Guariche, and a painting by Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell.
You’re able to bring together many different eras, cultures, places, and ideas together in one seamless scene. And now you’re taking these images into yet another realm by selling some of them as NFTs. Can you tell us more about your experience with NFTs?
I sold “The Fisherman” as an NFT on a site called Makersplace about a month ago and my latest piece up for auction as an NFT is “Mid 70s,” which started from a 1969 Borghesani wooden robot bar cabinet posted by designer Kelly Wearstler. The scene includes a 1951 Marco Zanuso “Lady Chair,” a 1950s Charlotte Perriand 527 Mexique wooden coffee table, and my version of Hockney’s 1967 A Bigger Splash painting in the background. Like Hockney, there are hints that someone was just in the scene—a rumpled pillow, phone off the hook, used glassware—but the lack of a figure forces the focus onto the architectural shapes and the objects, and the life of the scene itself.
We are also currently talking about possibly selling the Villa Saraceni as an NFT work. I never really thought about selling my images. I was just creating them to flex a creative muscle and to do something fun and interesting. When I sold “The Fisherman,” I was astounded. It’s the dream of most creators to live off their art, and the NFT market is allowing some people to do that.
I notice that water is an important element in many of your pieces. Can you tell us more about your affinity for watery landscapes?
Water is not the easiest element to create in 3D, but I love the depth it can give to an image, and if it’s well done it adds a realistic touch. I miss being near water, going to the sea for the swim, and drying off in the warm sun, so perhaps that longing is partly why I add water to many of my pieces.
In addition to design, you’re an avid skateboarder. Can you talk about how your two disparate passions have merged in your latest work, “The Bird Bath”?
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Skateboarding is my first love. My brand new work, “The Bird Bath” (above, bottom) is an homage to skateboarding, in particular the 1970s skateboarding culture spearheaded by Stacy Peralta, J. Adams, Tony Alva, and others in the Zephyr Boys skateboarding crew.
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The image features a curvaceous empty swimming pool, like the kidney pool popularized by modernist Alvar Aalto in 1930s Europe, which Peralta and the Z-boys would seek out to skate in around Santa Monica and Venice in the 1970s. The pool is dry and empty, but right outside of the pool is a watery landscape. Ripples in the water, as well as a pair of Vans and a skateboard at the edge of the pool indicate that someone has jumped in. The allusion to an unseen but present human presence is something I borrowed from David Hockney, and his “splash” paintings, which indicated a swimmer had just entered the water, even though they remained unseen. In the background, the striated wall with a roundel window is a quotation from a Jacques Tati film.
Affinity Photo
The ancient Roman architect Vitruvius had three principals for the built environment: “Venustas, Utilitas, and Firmitas” or Beauty, Function, Durability. I would add to that two more principles from my own philosophy for life in general: skating and creating.