How to Use the Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer

The Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer is a great option for designers who find the Pen Tool a bit tedious. It’s also great if you’re simply looking for a more natural result.

This tool draws vector shapes with a click and drag or pen input. You can set the stroke color, the fill, and the width of the stroke, all using pen pressure or through the Stroke panel—which we’ll cover in this tutorial.

You can also follow along in the ultimate Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners, where we cover a general overview of all the main tools and features.

Watch the Lesson: How to Use the Pencil Tool

How Do I Use the Affinity Designer Pencil Tool?

Let’s set some things up before we start using the Pencil Tool. First, we need some color for our polar bear shape. So let’s activate the Move Tool by selecting it from the toolbar or by hitting V on the keyboard.

Make sure that the polar bear shape is selected. Also make sure that your Color panel is visible. 

If you don’t see the Color panel, go to Window > Color to show it.

There’s an Eyedropper icon on the Color panel. Click on it and drag it across the workspace over the image at the bottom left.

Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Pencil Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Pencil Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Pencil Tool.
Pencil Tool
Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Move Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Move Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Move Tool.
Move Tool
Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Color panel and the Eyedropper tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Color panel and the Eyedropper tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Color panel and the Eyedropper tool.
Color panel + Eyedropper

Through the magnifying glass, you can see which pixel it’s going to be selecting from. Here, sample the gray color from the clouds.

Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: Eyedropper color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: Eyedropper color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: Eyedropper color sample.

Now, go to the Color panel. You’ll find the color sample you just selected, the active fill, and the stroke. To apply the color sample, click on it and add it as a fill to the shape you’ve selected—in this case the bear.

To add it as a stroke, activate the stroke and then click the sampled color the same way.

 We’ll leave the stroke black this time around, so we can see what we’re looking at.

Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: a color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: a color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: a color sample.
Color sample
Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the active fill.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the active fill.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the active fill.
Active fill
Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the stroke.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the stroke.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the stroke.
Stroke

Now that we have a color applied to the bear shape, let’s set up the color for the shadow. We’ll draw that using the Affinity Designer Pencil Tool.

Deselect the bear, choose the Pencil Tool, and check the context toolbar at the top.

Affinity Designer Pencil Tool context toolbarAffinity Designer Pencil Tool context toolbarAffinity Designer Pencil Tool context toolbar

We want to make sure that the Width is active and Sculpt is turned off. We don’t want that on yet, because it’s going to affect any shape that we have selected.

The Sculpt Mode is really handy. It lets you tweak the shape of your line by adding or subtracting. However, it can be confusing when you first start using it.

Set the Controller to Pressure and activate the Stabilizer using the Rope Stabilizer, which is the first option. I’ll set the length around 30. The other options remain checked:

  • Use Fill
  • Auto Close
  • Keep selected

You’ll want to use those when we go to sculpt shadow to make sure we don’t do something weird with our shapes. 

Finally, let’s activate the Insert Inside button at the top right of the screen. With that, when I draw the shape, I’m going to have the bear shape selected, and it’s going to add my drawing inside the bear by clipping it to that shape.

Affinity Designer tutorials: Insert Inside the selection.Affinity Designer tutorials: Insert Inside the selection.Affinity Designer tutorials: Insert Inside the selection.

Voilà! That’s how to use the Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer. We’ll use it to draw a shadow in the next tutorial in this series.

Explore More Affinity Designer Tutorials

There you go! You now know how to use the Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer. Check out our Envato Tuts+ and Envato Blog tutorials to keep learning the ins and outs of creative tools and software.

You can also try Envato Elements. A subscription gives you unlimited access to professional creative assets for a low monthly fee!

Explore more Affinity Designer tutorials to deepen your knowledge:


This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Drew MacDonald

The Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer is a great option for designers who find the Pen Tool a bit tedious. It's also great if you're simply looking for a more natural result.

This tool draws vector shapes with a click and drag or pen input. You can set the stroke color, the fill, and the width of the stroke, all using pen pressure or through the Stroke panel—which we'll cover in this tutorial.

You can also follow along in the ultimate Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners, where we cover a general overview of all the main tools and features.

Watch the Lesson: How to Use the Pencil Tool

How Do I Use the Affinity Designer Pencil Tool?

Let's set some things up before we start using the Pencil Tool. First, we need some color for our polar bear shape. So let's activate the Move Tool by selecting it from the toolbar or by hitting V on the keyboard.

Make sure that the polar bear shape is selected. Also make sure that your Color panel is visible. 

If you don't see the Color panel, go to Window > Color to show it.

There's an Eyedropper icon on the Color panel. Click on it and drag it across the workspace over the image at the bottom left.

Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Pencil Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Pencil Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Pencil Tool.
Pencil Tool
Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Move Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Move Tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Move Tool.
Move Tool
Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Color panel and the Eyedropper tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Color panel and the Eyedropper tool.Affinity Designer beginner tutorial: the Color panel and the Eyedropper tool.
Color panel + Eyedropper

Through the magnifying glass, you can see which pixel it's going to be selecting from. Here, sample the gray color from the clouds.

Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: Eyedropper color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: Eyedropper color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: Eyedropper color sample.

Now, go to the Color panel. You'll find the color sample you just selected, the active fill, and the stroke. To apply the color sample, click on it and add it as a fill to the shape you've selected—in this case the bear.

To add it as a stroke, activate the stroke and then click the sampled color the same way.

 We'll leave the stroke black this time around, so we can see what we're looking at.

Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: a color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: a color sample.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: a color sample.
Color sample
Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the active fill.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the active fill.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the active fill.
Active fill
Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the stroke.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the stroke.Affinity Designer tutorial for beginners: the stroke.
Stroke

Now that we have a color applied to the bear shape, let's set up the color for the shadow. We'll draw that using the Affinity Designer Pencil Tool.

Deselect the bear, choose the Pencil Tool, and check the context toolbar at the top.

Affinity Designer Pencil Tool context toolbarAffinity Designer Pencil Tool context toolbarAffinity Designer Pencil Tool context toolbar

We want to make sure that the Width is active and Sculpt is turned off. We don't want that on yet, because it's going to affect any shape that we have selected.

The Sculpt Mode is really handy. It lets you tweak the shape of your line by adding or subtracting. However, it can be confusing when you first start using it.

Set the Controller to Pressure and activate the Stabilizer using the Rope Stabilizer, which is the first option. I'll set the length around 30. The other options remain checked:

  • Use Fill
  • Auto Close
  • Keep selected

You'll want to use those when we go to sculpt shadow to make sure we don't do something weird with our shapes. 

Finally, let's activate the Insert Inside button at the top right of the screen. With that, when I draw the shape, I'm going to have the bear shape selected, and it's going to add my drawing inside the bear by clipping it to that shape.

Affinity Designer tutorials: Insert Inside the selection.Affinity Designer tutorials: Insert Inside the selection.Affinity Designer tutorials: Insert Inside the selection.

Voilà! That's how to use the Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer. We'll use it to draw a shadow in the next tutorial in this series.

Explore More Affinity Designer Tutorials

There you go! You now know how to use the Pencil Tool in Affinity Designer. Check out our Envato Tuts+ and Envato Blog tutorials to keep learning the ins and outs of creative tools and software.

You can also try Envato Elements. A subscription gives you unlimited access to professional creative assets for a low monthly fee!

Explore more Affinity Designer tutorials to deepen your knowledge:


This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Drew MacDonald


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