In this sixth Affinity Designer tutorial in the series, we will start to work on the line art for the arms and legs for our posable digital manikin. As we already have finished the line art for the head, face and torso details, we are ready for the limbs.

For both the arm and leg, we have four steps to complete (see screenshot).

1. We will draw small circles inside the right arm and leg sections of the manikin, which will indicate the position of the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee and ankle joints.


2. We will draw the final line art for each limb. We need to draw each limb as one closed vector path. This will make it easier for the next step.


3. When you are happy with the line art, we will divide the limb in to sections at the joint positions.


4. Finally, we will make the joints poseable using the Point Transform tool and Forward Kinematics. But don't worry. There is no math involved.

Let's set the Opacity to 25% for the step 1 - rough sketch layer. Turn off the visibility of the manikin line art and proportions layers. First we will draw the joint circles for the manikin's right arm (see screenshot). Using the screenshots as examples of the size of the joint circles, we will draw the shoulder, elbow and wrist joint circles.

1. Open your file in to Affinity Designer.


2. In the Layers panel, select the step 1 - rough sketch group layer. We want to start on a new layer about this layer.


3. Select the Ellipse tool and set the Stroke to Null and the Fill to pink or your choice of color.


4. While holding down the Shift key, draw a small circle for the shoulder joint. Position this circle inside the arm and at the top curve of the shoulder/arm.


5. Name this new layer right shoulder joint.


6. Repeat this for the elbow joint and wrist joint. Name the new layers right elbow joint and right wrist joint (see screenshot).

Now that we know where the joints are, let's draw the final line art. We already have the final line art for the head and torso. Let's continue by drawing the line art for the arm on a new layer above the right shoulder joint later. You may wish to keep the Opacity of the step 1 - rough sketch group layer at 25%.

1. Select the right shoulder joint layer.


2. Select the Pen tool, set the Fill to null and the Stroke Width to 1 pixel. Set the Stroke Color to black.


3. Go to the Canvas and starting anywhere on the arm, draw over the sketch with the Pen tool (see screenshot). Continue around the entire arm until you are back to the first point. Click the first point to close the path. At this time, you may want to add more details to the hand, such as separating the thumb from the fingers.


4. Name the new layer right arm (see screenshot).

Next

INDEX - Artist Manikin in Affinity Designer

Screenshots used by permission of Serif (Europe) Ltd. This article is not endorsed by Serif Ltd.