Illustrating a richly textured mountain landscape using Affinity Photo with Eleni Debo

hi there thank you for tuning in  to my affinity creative session   my name is eleni debo i am a belgian illustrator  currently living in the alpine mountains of italy   for those that don't know my work i do mostly  editorial illustrations so illustrations for   newspapers and magazines but i also  do a lot of commercial illustration   i work for cultural institutions i make  illustrations for books prints you name it   and i have recently released my first illustration  brush pack in collaboration with Affinity and i'm   sure you can find a link to that brush pack in  the text below the video i will be demonstrating   some of these brushes in this creative session  and sort of as a thank you for tuning in to my   creative session i've made a couple of free sample  brushes for you to experiment and play with and   i'm you will probably find a download in  the in the text below the video as well   now you might be wondering why i am in the  middle of a field for my creative session   and the fact is that my studio is currently under  construction and quite frankly a bit of a mess so   i figured it's a really nice day out today why  not take you to one of my favorite spots in   the mountains near my home instead i've got  my trusty ipad with me in my backpack here   i've got Affinity Photo for ipad which is a really  really good application to make illustrations if   you ask me um really intuitive and well it  just fits fits perfectly with my workflow   and the best part is that i can go do my work on  top of a mountain so really what's not to love   we still have a short hike left to get to  the top so let's go so i'm taking you to   one of my favorite locations um   it's a great place where i like to come whenever  i'm working on a particularly difficult um project   and i just want to clear my head or when i'm  anxiously awaiting the reply of some client   it might be a bit of a hike but it is definitely  worth it this spot in particular overlooks the   wonderful val sugana panorama and show you shows  you a view of trento and the valley behind it   we can even see the very tips of the brenta  dolomites which is a really nice natural   reserve that has around 20 or 30 brown bears  living in the in it and we're nearly there it's a bit of a hike to get  here i'd say about half an hour   a little more maybe but it is definitely  worth it got a nice blue autumn sun here let me just show you the  full panorama real quickly i've always been fascinated with mountains  it's part of the reason why i came out to live   here in the first place so whenever i get the  opportunity i i love to include them in my work   in my illustrations i'm always looking to  create an interesting tension a sort of   contrast between these soft fluid organic shapes  and then these more sharp geometrical kind of   shapes and textures and mountains to me seem to  have this kind of contrast in them inherently   in the way that there is this pattern of different  textures and how the light hits these formations   and creates these interesting shades so that  probably adds to why i like mountain so much   so let me just quickly set up here i've got  my ipad pro with me with my apple pencil   let's just open up the affinity photo app here  and start a new canvas so selecting new document   and i'm going to go for a print format and  select a size of well let's say about 300 on 400   millimeters which is a really nice size when you  want to create prints so let's create that canvas   so in order to do today's illustration  exercise i will be using my illustration   brush pack that i've launched with affinity  the brush pack is still available for sale in   the affinity store so please do check it out  and other than that i am going to use this   small selection of free sample brushes that i've  made for you these are not the same brushes that   are in the illustration brush pack they are  additional new brushes that i've created   so i'm going to just give you a really  quick overview of what they look like   just to give you an idea what you're going  to be downloading so i've got this uh sponge   speckle brush which is a speckle brush but it's  a bit more grungy than a normal one as you can   see here when i'm zooming in these largest of  these speckles they sort of bleed into the page   which i think gives a nice  grungy and analog effect then we have two ridgeline brushes  i will be explaining how they work   more in detail in this video later on  so ridge line one and rich line two   and then finally i have the wet bore bristle  brush which is also kind of a new favorite of mine   and i will be explaining these brushes  more extensively throughout the video so uh please don't forget to download these  brushes if you want them because the download   link will not be available forever so get  them while you can okay so let's remove this   and start with a clean canvas now i'm  going to start out by sketching out the   base for the composition i'm going to speed up  this part of the process a little bit here because   i don't want this video to become  too long and i'd rather spend   more time with you having some fun with  these brushes and these textures so   just quickly mapping out various mountains and  hillsides having some contrast in their shapes   and i think it would be nice to add  sort of like a brutalist architecture   or sculpture how do you want to name it  here in the center of the illustration   i've always been fond of virtualist architecture  because i like how it at the same time contrasts   with an environment but it also seems to sort of  mimic in a minimalistic way these natural shapes and maybe i'm going to put like a plant here in  the lower corner some shading and the sun just to   balance out the composition now i'm going to set  the opacity of this layer to about well i think 20   should should about do it um so that i can use  it as a base to work on now i'm going to take   a simple distressed ink pen which i kind of  like as a brush to map out or to block out the   shapes of each element i'm just going to  simply trace the outlines of my sketch   i'm not being too precise about it once again this is an exercise so  we're not going for perfection here   and i'm going to select the bucket tool and  fill out the shape be sure to set tolerance   high enough so that it fills every every little  pixel of it now i like to go back to my shape with   an eraser just cleaning up these edges  a little bit make them slightly tighter   and i'm just going to repeat this process for all  of the elements that i've drawn into my sketch so   each mountain or each element is going to go  on a separate pixel layer and again i'm going   to just speed up this process because i think  you get the gist of it it's a rather repetitive   part but it's a necessary part to just set  up our document to start having fun with it so i'm not particularly worried about the   color of each element at this  point i'm just selecting random   variations of gray just so that the elements  contrast with one another and i can see what i'm   doing but i will be changing these colors later  on anyway let's just quickly map out the shade   here and let's not forget the shading of the plant  here in the bottom corner cleaning up a little bit   and to finish up i'm going to use an ellipse tool  to create my sun i want it to be nice and round   so i'm not going to freehand it like that i like  how it's on the on the corner of the background   over there okay i'm going to toggle off the sketch  now so that i can see what i've i've just created   and just tweak the composition just a little  bit i have the feeling for example that this   shape over here isn't quite straight so i'm just  going to correct that those edges a little bit that should help making the image look a bit  more balanced so what i'm going to do next   is i'm going to select the bucket tool and i'm  going to make each layer that i've just created   white so i'm just selecting and tapping it with  the bucket tool so that it becomes filled wide   and the reason that i'm doing this is that i  want each shape that i've just created to become   sort of like a stencil into which  i can then create my textures this is kind of like a technique  that i've used extensively when i was   still painting analoguely with gouache paint  and i find it a really nice and intuitive   playful way to create textures but don't worry  it's going to explain itself rather quickly   so what i'm going to do is i'm going to create  a new pixel layer and i'm going to drag that   layer on top of one of my shape layers so  not below it but on the top and release   now if i select a brush in this case i'm  going to select one of my sample brushes so   the sponge speckle brush if i now  tap or drag my brush into that layer   you will notice that the texture stays inside the  shape of the boulder so it doesn't go out of it   even though my brush is over it the nice thing  about is that you can select the texture brush   you've made and just drag it around erase it  you have a lot of control over it if you work   with these stencils this way so let's try that  again just create a new layer drag it on top   of the existing layer select your  brush and then just stencil inside it   i'm just going to tap with my speckle brush here  and then i also want to give it some shading   to make it look less flat so i'm going to  select one of my soft noise texture brushes   over here set it to a little bit larger size  and then i'm just going to slowly build up some   texture and shading to the bottom and  the back side of this boulder here   not really going for something realistic but just  giving the boulder a little bit more volume here   okay maybe just a little bit more here on the  bottom and maybe erase just a bit here on the top   okay that looks pretty okay so let's focus on  the next shape we have so the hillside behind   the boulder um in this case i'm going to use a  different brush to create this texture i'm going   to use one of the brushes from the free sample  pack and i'm going to use the wet bore bristle   now this brush in particular is a bit nostalgic  for me i created it based on some of my   older work i did when i was still a  student where i used these really cheap   bore bristle brushes um oh that's a tongue  twister and bore bristle brushes so anyway   that was sort of the feeling that i was trying  to go for when i was creating these new brushes   but then maybe in a slightly more organized  sort of way so anyway let's give them a try   i've added a new pixel layer and drag it on top  of my shape layer and let's give it a go so as   you can see what i'm trying to do here is when i'm  painting i'm alternating the amount of pressure   that i am giving on my pencil and this is creating  these kind of blotchy wiggly sort of lines again i don't really have a distinctive plan of  what i'm doing here i'm just trying to create an   interesting pattern um just having some fun  and the nice thing here with the stencil is i   can't really see where the edges of my shape are  and consequently i can't really predict exactly   how it's going to look and i'm sort of  trying to deliberately create a situation   into which i don't have full control over what  i'm doing because when you're working digitally   it's so easy to keep pressing ctrl z and erasing  what you've just done and trying it again and   again until it's it's perfect and in the meantime  we've taken all of the life out of it and by using   some of these brushes which might be a little  bit fidgety and by using these stencils where you   can't really see the edges you re-allow a sense  of spontaneity and the unexpected in your work now i want to add some shading to this as well  so i'm just quickly going to decrease the opacity   of this layer here and then select another of my  noise texture brushes and i'm just simply going to   build up some some texture real quickly here in  a circular motion i'm going to set it to multiply   just to make the texture stand out a little bit  more here and then i'm going to take my eraser   and i'm just going to create some highlight  here on the edges of this hillside again i'm not really going for realism here  just trying to create a sense of volume   so i'm just going to soften up  these highlights a little bit okay that looks about right so let's  move on to our next hillside then   again let's add a new pixel layer and drag that  on top of our hillside so you've probably caught   on to the idea here namely that i want to  use a different texture for each element   in the drawing so that it becomes this  really nice rich mix of textures and in   this case i'm going to use the chunky shape  blocker which is another favorite of mine   when you use it in a big size it's a really  handy brush to just sort of block out shapes   but when you use it on a smaller size it behaves  much more like a graphite pencil so it has quite   a wide range of soft and hard shades and  has a nice subtle texture to it not too   heavy so how i'm going to use this brush is i'm  just going to be etching in a sort of a random uh   in sort of a random direction so what i'm going  to do here is i'm sort of just etching along the   line of our hillside here and but sort of  in a random direction so i'm just changing   the direction i'm drawing in a bit  based on the curvature of the hillside   and then i'm going to take an eraser and just  sharpen up the edge of what i've just drawn here   so it's creating this fluid organic shape  which has an interesting texture to it   then what i'm going to do next is i'm going to  add a new layer on top of that and i'm going to   again etch away with this chalky shape blocker  but this time in a different direction into the   previous lines that i've made again i'll just  erase a part of that and then i'm just going to   keep up adding these areas of opposing etching  lines sort of like in a kilt like manner i'm   just making a patchwork of these uh textured lines  uh until the entire hillside is filled with them   okay quite happy with how that looks so let's move  on to our background layer here so again i'm going   to create a new pixel layer drag it on top of  our shape that we've created for the background   and this time i'm going to use one of my  speckled brushes to create the background   i'll use the soft noise texture but instead  of using it in the paint brush mode i'm going   to set it to the pixel mode this is kind of  a trick that i use quite often when i want   some of my texture to look extra sharp and crisp  setting it to the pixel mode makes it a very hard   black or white divide so it's either  black or either white there's no grays   and i've experienced that using the noise  brushes in this way especially when you   want to create a big area of noise it just  avoids the speckles to muddy together too much   so you'll be able to see the individual  specs a lot better so now that we've   got our background figured out let's take a  look at our mountain range there in the back when you'll take a look at the illustration brush  pack you'll see that i have a couple of gradient   shaders in there i've been using these gradient  shaders a lot in my work from these recent years   let me just show a couple of them real quickly make sure to set it to black so when you look at these gradient shaders  you'll notice that even though they all   have a very different texture to them all  of them have one hard edge straight edge   on one side of them while they have faded out  noisy edge on the other side and this makes these   brushes particularly useful when you want to do  a quick way of gradient shading so let me explain   now originally if i wanted to create a shaded  area i would have to draw the the shade first   then i would select an eraser with a noisy  texture erase back the parts that i don't need   and then i would attain the same effect that the  gradient shaders have so in this case by using   the gradient shaders i can just skip that part  of erasing and only have to do the shading part   this works particularly well if you have to shade  these angular geometrical objects like for example   mountains so let's give it a try here make sure  to select the right layer and i'm just going to create these angled shades here near  the top near the ridges of the mountain   i don't have a particular plan for them i  just do what i feel seems logical taking care   only to put shading on one side of the mountains  so that where the sun would hit them uh there's   not going to be any shade um then i'm going to  take an eraser once again and just pull back some   of this texture here to create these highlights  where the sun would normally hit the mountain tops don't worry too much about this being realistic   and while i'm at it i'm going to erase  back some of this texture in a hard angular   motion i feel like making these hard lines helps  to create a sense of dynamic sense of movement   very similar to for example the futurist artwork  that use a lot of these diagonal lines to create   movement and speed and and always try to add  that effect of these angular lines to my work   to add just a touch of movement to a piece  now i'm just quickly going to set these   shaded parts to lower opacity maybe around 4d  that should work and speaking of futurist artwork   in my brush pack i actually have a brush  which i've named futurist fun stamp   but it's actually another stamp originating  from my time as a student and what this stem   does is it creates another angled gradient but  this time it creates this gradient at a random   rotation so you can't really predict  where that angle is going to come and this   is just another example of how i try to allow  some element of the unexpected into my work   i tend to try to make everything way too  perfect and using a fun brush like this   really allows some spontaneity into your  work so let's just for fun add it to this   mountain range here as well so like i said  i'm just randomly tapping and creating some   of these angled shades i'm not really worrying  too much about where they are going to come okay that should about do it and then  i'm going to set the opacity of that   entire layer a little bit lower we don't  want it to steal the show entirely either   okay that should do it and now to finalize  this mountain range we need something to   create a bit more contrast with the sky  behind it so i'm going to create a new   pixel layer and i'm going to choose one of my  noise texture brushes and i'm just going to softly   trace the edges of these mountains a bit  in a circular motion to avoid having to   having these edges that are too visible i'm just  building up some some shading on the top there   again um let's decrease the opacity  just a little bit to make it   slightly less hard and contrasting but something  like that like this should should look nice   and maybe maybe we should pull up  the opacity of our shading a bit more that looks about right okay halfway there  now let's have a look at this large area of   shading here in the front um a really quick way of  creating a nice shading on a flat area is by using   this brush over here it's called the grainy  noise texture but what this particular brush does   is when you brush with it you will see that it  creates this pattern of horizontal lines and   if you use that on an area  that is supposed to represent   a horizontal plane it is a really quick way  of giving that area some depth and perspective now maybe just add some darker shades  uh some darker shadows to the front here something like that that looks nice  now overall this is already starting   to look really nice we have a nice  diversity of textures going on here   now that i look at it i feel like that background  should be swapped around so that the background   is darker than the mountains in front of  them so let me just quickly correct that   again i'm going to use the noise speckle brush  and note that i'm using the pixel brush setting   and i'm just slowly building up noise in sort  of like a circular motion going back and forth   over different areas and i'm also going to add  some light to the bottom of these mountains here   in the same way just to give some back  lighting to these mountains and also   create a little bit the effect  of mist hanging around the tops okay that's better time to move  on to our ruthless architecture now again let's create a new pixel layer  and drag that on top of our architecture   and again i'm going to select a different texture  brush for this one i'm going to choose the   dry flat brush here and it's similar in feeling  like the boar bristle brush but a lot more regular   and a lot more predictable um still it gives  you a really nice tonal variety based on the   pressure that you're giving so let's try  that out on our architecture over here um i'm going to quickly toggle on  the sketch layer that i've prepared   just so that i have a better  idea of what i'm doing and what i'm doing next oh my camera is lagging  for a second sorry about that but basically what   i'm going to do at this step is i'm going to make  these repeating strokes with my dry flat brush   and keep all of these strokes in the same  direction creating a sort of grain texture and then i'm going to take my eraser  and delete whatever falls outside of   my panel so a quick way of creating a straight  line with an eraser or a pencil for that matter   is by holding your screen with one finger  and then tapping from one area to another   with your pencil and that creates a straight  line between those two taps so that's why   you're seeing that blue circle in the bottom  over there that's where i'm holding my finger   now i'm just quickly going to decrease  the opacity of that layer a little bit   like that let's try another and hopefully my  screen recording doesn't fail me this time   so once again i'm just going to drag some  strokes in the same direction but this time   an opposing direction to the previous one and  again selecting my eraser to remove whatever falls   outside of the panel don't worry too much about  aligning these panels perfectly with one another   as one hand this is just an exercise and at the  other it can actually create some nice effects   when the panels don't align perfectly  now let's do one more here at the top   again choosing a different direction for my  strokes and i have been erasing i have been   removing whatever falls outside of the panel  with an eraser but i suppose you could also use so when you go to the selection persona  which is this little icon at the top here   and then select the lasso tool  and set it to polygonal type   here at the bottom you can then just click and  drag a circle around the area that you want to   remove going back to your photo persona  you can then select your eraser and just   remove whatever is inside your selection then  simply click deselect and you're good to go   so both methods work fine the selection tool is  definitely the fastest one especially when you're   removing large areas or when you're working  on desktop i just find the eraser tool   tool a little bit more intuitive so i tend  to use that when i'm working on my ipad   now i think you get the idea here of this  technique so i'm just going to quickly fill   in the remaining panels so that we can move  on to the next step note that i am creating   a new layer for each texture that i'm creating  that way i have a lot more control over what   areas i'm going to remove and also a lot more  control on setting the opacity of each texture   okay so there you have it i've filled  all of the panels now remember when i   said not to worry too much about aligning your  panels perfectly so as you can see i've got a   part of the panel here where to two textures are  actually overlapped because i didn't remove enough   of them and at the same time i've got some places  where i've removed too much and you've got these   white edges to these panels but i actually like  these little errors because they create some   effect of of lighting and shadow that can really  help your object stand out against the background so now that i've created the texture for each  panel let's add just a little bit of shading again   here to add some more volume to our sculpture  i'm going to select the soft noise texture again   which really is my go-to brush when i want  to give some general soft shading to an area   so so again i'm going to be  working in a separate pixel layer   and just brush that noise texture into  it until i've built up enough of it   and then again i'm taking my eraser to  remove whatever part of it i don't need so creating these shadings is basically the  same technique as i've used for creating the   texture on each panel so i'm just quickly going  to add some shading to the other panels as well   i'm not worried too much about realism  again so i just put the shading where i feel   it needs some accent to make it stand  out a little bit more from the background   or where it just feels logical to me to to put it so playing a little bit with the opacity  of each layer uh also helps just to   get the balance of the overall building  and its place in the composition a bit more okay i'm happy with how that building looks i like  how it looks like it's a little bit reflective   now it's a tiny extra detail it could be nice to  actually add a little person uh on here like a   little like this ridge here gives a bit the effect  of it being a balcony so i think it's nice to have   a little person standing on there overlooking the  scenery and at the same time having this figure   standing here is a great way to add a  sense of scale to a landscape or a setting   and without that your brain has no idea how  to process the size of what it's looking at   and adding some an element  that has a really recognizable   size like for example a person but it  could also be a house a car some trees   and that really helps to make your in this  case large mountains seem very large um   it's really the fastest way to give your  image a sense of uh impressiveness or grandeur now i'm not gonna going to add too much detail to   this person i just want to have like  a little silhouette standing there that should do it okay that's it for our buildings so now we've just got two elements in our  illustration left to finish we've got our sun   and we have that funky looking plant over  there so let's start off with that plant for this plant i'm going to go back to my chalky  shape blocker because i want to give this plant   a really simple shading i don't  want to fuss too much with it   so i'm going to select a dark gray color here and  what i want to do is i want to create quite a hard   lighting on this plant so really hard  dark shades on one side of the plant   and then almost completely white on  the illuminated part of the plant   note that i am leaving a small area of light on  the very edge of the plant to give is a bit of   that feeling of an illuminated edge so so like a  subtle light blooming there on the edge of that   plant i'm also doing the same but for but in  the shadows for this this other leaf over here and i'm also just going to make this  top of this plant a little bit darker   that doesn't really make sense but i want  it to stand out from the white background   now i'm going to select one of my noise  brushes my hard noise texture in this case   just to smooth out some of these parts a  little bit here where the leaf is making the   curve actually like i can't use a hard shadow  over there it needs to be a little bit softer   and i'm just going to tap some texture on  the white just ever so slightly then remove   some of them again leaving just a hint of  noise on there just to give it a bit more character okay that looks about right okay that was a really quick way of  giving these plants a bit of volume   now i'm not completely happy with the bottom  part of this plant just yet i feel like uh the   edge of where the plant meets the soil is just  a bit too hard for me and i'm going to select   my dots online brush which is  another one of those brushes that   has while it has this noisy texture  it also has that horizontal structure   to it the same way as that brush that we've  used for the large shadow on the background   so i'm just going to select the complete  layer here so i'm not selecting the   texture layer but just the  entire plant layer and i'm   just softly going to so i'm just softly going  to brush away part of the bottom of this plant   to make it blend in a little bit more with  the background like that that looks better so we're nearly there now let's  have a look at our sun there   so i'm getting a bit of a science  fiction vibe from my image so far   so actually instead of making our sun a sun i'd  actually rather make it sort of like a backlit uh   planet so i'm just going to duplicate this ellipse  layer i've made here then add a new pixel layer   drag that on top of our ellipse that we've  just created and then i'm going to do some   shading inside that ellipse i'm going to  select another of my noise texture brushes and i'm just going to i'm just going to add some shading to the back of  this ellipse so keeping in mind that this object   is supposed to be a sphere i'm leaving  some lighting to the back of it and of   course some lighting to the front making it  look like the light envelopes a bit around   the sphere now what i'm going to do next is i'm  going to take that ellipse that we've just created   and drag it on top of the previous one and  then zooming in just a little bit so we can   see what we're doing if i just move that layer  just a tiny bit it creates this nice hard edge   of backlighting to to our planet which  i think makes it look really cool all right now i feel like our planet is just missing  a bit of backlighting and in our in   the free sample pack that i've created  for you you'll find um the rich line brush   ridge line number two which i think is  going to work perfectly because as you   can see the this brush in particular creates  this flare like effect that it has these rays   coming out of the brush and they sort of follow  the direction of your pencil and i think this is   going to work really nicely to create the effect  of solar rays or back dramatic backlighting rays   so i'm just going to trace the edge  of our ellipse here and immediately   this creates this glow effect makes  it look a little bit like an eclipse   like this planet or this moon is moving in front  of a light source yeah just going to decrease   the opacity a little bit make it slightly  less hard but that looks nice i like it now i've just used ridgeline 2 but i also have   another brush in that sample pack which is in the  ridge line number one so the difference between   ridgeline one and two is that with ridgeline  one we have that same flared out texture   but all of all of it is pointing in the same  direction no matter how you move your brush line   whereas for ridgeline two the direction of  the flares follows the direction of your   rotation i feel like these this these brushes  could work well to do for example tree lines or   fur or a plane of grass um but by all means do try  out these brushes and maybe you'll find an even   more interesting way of using them don't have to  share those with me i would love to see what you   do with them now i'm going to use the ridgeline  brush just to add a small ridge of trees to one   of our hillsides over here just to make it look  like we've got an edge of a forest over there   so let's make sure to create a new pixel  layer behind our hillside over here   and then select our brush but i'm going  to set the brush to the pixel mode   and that way the shape of these pine trees i  split column like that are just a bit harder   and sharper and making them stand out against  the background even more so i'm just tracing the   edge here of the slope and i'm varying the  amount of pressure i'm giving to the brush   so that it feels like some trees are more in the  front while others are more in the back and it   really gives that i feel like it gives that sense  of a full forest that is on that ridge over there   now let me just remove some part of the trees  that are sticking out here i kind of like that it   sticks out from the frame a bit so i'm not going  to remove everything so i'm just going to remove   a little bit from the bottom here so that it's  following the curvature of our hillside of it   and then i'm just going to select  one of my moist texture brushes   i'm going to take the hard noise texture and  just remove a little bit to make that gradient   transition now let's just reduce the opacity of  that layer just a little bit okay that looks good   so there we have the entire composition of  our illustration now we could just leave this   in black and white as it is but i just want to  quickly share one more technique with you that   i like to use to add a bit of color to a black on  white illustration so what i'm going to do is i'm   going to open the adjustments panel and i'm going  to select the gradient map adjustment layer and   put that on top of my illustration and what this  does is it gives you this sliding panel over here   where you have control over how the adjustment  layer translates those black and white levels to a   color of your choice so for example i'm going  to set the light lightest colors to white here   and i'm just going to set the darkest colors  to blue and basically this gives you a lot of   control and also a lot of possibilities where you  can just slide around and choose whichever color   works best for your composition   it's not an effect that makes your illustration  instantly look perfect you have to fidget a little   bit with it and tweak your contrast in your image  to make it look right but it's a very quick and   non-destructive way of changing your colors in  your illustration and especially if you want to   go for a duotone illustration it can give you  some really nice results reasonably quickly so   i've got to be honest with you here i could quite  literally fidget with these settings for hours um   i am not going to subject you to the torture of  my indecisiveness so i'm just going to speed up   uh this part a little bit but basically what  i'm doing is just going back and forth between   the gradient adjustment and going to each  layer individually to check the opacity   to highlight the contrasts a little bit  more or just to dim them a little bit down   and just basically trying to get the  balance of the entire composition just right   the advantage of having built up our illustration  where each texture is in a different layer   is that at this stage where we're just fine-tuning  our image is that we have a huge amount of control   uh about which elements we want to have  darker which should be lighter which   we should remove altogether so even  though it's a little bit more work   from the get-go it does help out in the end  when you want to have that total control but   that might just be me so there we go  here's the result of our little exercise so that's it the sun's setting so i'm on my  way back before i have to walk through the dark   um you've made it all the way  to the end of the session so   i hope you've enjoyed it um don't hesitate  to ask any questions you might still have in   the chat i will stay for a little while longer to  answer i will try to answer all of your questions   if you've enjoyed my work  please consider following me   on instagram or twitter i will link to  those in the description below bye everyone you

Channel: Affinity

Views: 18,767

Keywords:

Id: Ogolhc4jRcM

Length: 57min 16sec (3436 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2020