Is there a way to make my lines slightly 'wobbly' as if drawn by hand in XDPX?

[Acorn]

I should have thought of it straight away, it was only egg mentioning mesh [warp] that made me remember...

Yup! Shape Painter > Warp is megga.
Just tried a smaller drawing Zoom and 100px Nib so it is possible to totally warp a selected shape in one move.
Clearly the smaller Nib affords total control over any part.
The best bit is the Shape remains totally editable and in newer versions renders as SVG. Ideal for motion path animation.

Acorn

[handrawn]

glad you are finding it useful - I used it when it first came out and i was still doing cartoon lineart in xara, but you forget things when you move on...

[Acorn]

Yes Jono and Affinity Designers mesh tool is to die for:

Here is my Xara Image Mesh Warp:

Xara - Image Mesh Warp.xar

APPROACH

1. Select (1), an image on your design page.
2. Use it as an Art Brush.
3. Use the Shape too and add two horizontal points the width of the image.
4. Set the Line width to the height of the image.
5. Your Brush (2) has the attributes of Horizontal Squish & Squash as normal; Vertical is trickier as you now adjust the Line Width or have Scale line widths selected for the corner controls. I suggest this as Xara has magicked in a Bug if you adjust the brush with Scale line widths unselected.
6. I set my Brush to Round join and Butt Cap.
7. The finesse now to create (3) is to add only a few extra control points and keep the curve smooth.
8. With @handrawn's observation of using Shape Painter > Mesh, you can achieve finer control over adjusting your warp.
9. Remember, you are warping a Line (set View Quality > Outlines) to see what you are distorting.

Acorn

[Egg Bramhill]

Nice effect Acorn but you'd be hard pressed to achieve all of Affinity's meshes easily.

[Jonopen]

Shape Painter > Warp, that sounds cool. I'm not at my PC right now but can't wait to try it out later.

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Off topic but just to throw something extra into the pot. VectorStyler has an excellent wobbly line maker in the form of a vector Wave Shape Effect. The 'wobble' can be adjusted both visually and by entering values. A word of warning though, it's an amazing app, but if you think Affinity Designer has a learning curve, well... (there's plenty of help though).

[Acorn]

Shape Painter > Warp, that sounds cool. I'm not at my PC right now but can't wait to try it out later.

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Off topic but just to throw something extra into the pot. VectorStyler has an excellent wobbly line maker in the form of a vector Wave Shape Effect. The 'wobble' can be adjusted both visually and by entering values. A word of warning though, it's an amazing app, but if you think Affinity Designer has a learning curve, well... (there's plenty of help though).

I've had a quick look at https://www.vectorstyler.com/detailed/ to compare with our beloved XDA. Quite similar with some good extras.
At $95, it's not so expensive but its bonus is it works on Apple/Windows so for some worth it.

There are so many contenders out there. I pay £8/y for Boxy SVG and copiously use the free web services people offer. See what https://fffuel.co/sssvg/ produces.

Acorn

[handrawn]

if you are still here shiphen, did you get your lines roughed up ...

[shiphen]

could not agree more - and it would do what shipen wants very quickly and easily keeping the sides of the lines parallel, but xara does not have one

but you have remined me of the xara tool shipen could use:

select the vector line go to shape painter tool [previously called shape builder] and from the info bar drop down on the right choose warp

that will enable you to warp the line by dragging over, keeping the sides equidistant ['parallel']

Attachment 133417

Well the Shape Painter is certainly an interesting approach. And it does more or less do the job!

However my slight problems are:
1. I only want to create a very subtle tweaks (that look "hand drawn" [!]) and quite lot of amount of skill and/or time is required to make it look hand drawn.
2. I want to do multiple lines at once and make them wobble randomly rather than systematically
3. Fwiw, I can't work out what effect if any "Smoothing" has.
4. Also is there any way to straighten the line (slightly afterwards) rather than trying to sort of brush them back into shape?

J

[handrawn]

I'd have to check to be sure, but smoothing slider probably only has effect when you are drawing a line with this tool [paint mode]

and quite lot of amount of skill and/or time is required to make it look hand drawn

in my case about 5 years before I could draw a line freehand and make it look 'easy' - skill and time is what it takes... although AI is going to help with the routine stuff more and more

I don't think you can batch it randomly, xara does not do randomisation afaik; maybe a plugin someone knows about....

if you still have a magix version you could look at the live effect > deformation filter > liquid color and use the draw setting tool to tweak your original line - with care it will look more hand drawn, but you will loose the strict equidistance between the sides which of course you do not have in a true hand drawn line outside of tech drawing where the lines do not wobble

smoothing it out is another task altogether

[Acorn]

3. Fwiw, I can't work out what effect if any "Smoothing" has.

Select the shape, open the Shape tool and Click+Drag across those controls you want to smooth.

Acorn