We had the pleasure of working with some incredible artists: a wonderful mix of seasoned Affinity users and creatives we have long admired who were trying out the software for the first time. Here’s a look at the amazing work we featured, the artists who created it and their thoughts on Affinity V2 now it’s out in the world.
Anil Saxena
Anil Saxena is a digital artist who began doing conventional darkroom photo composition and retouching before moving his skills over to the digital world. After moving to Mumbai, India, to work as an illustrator, Anil became interested in photo manipulation as a way of utilising his eye for creating striking imagery. He now creates fantastical scenes which draw on his technical background in graphic design and CGI, as well as his own creativity. Check out more of Anil’s work on Behance.
Anton Burmistrov
Anton Burmistrov is a multidisciplinary designer specialising in typography, branding and visual and editorial design across all platforms. His work has been displayed in the Museum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg, and featured in World Brand Design and Computer Arts Magazine. He has also worked on projects for well-known companies such as Apple and Guinness.
His intricate Hreint label design is available as a sample file in Affinity Designer.
“When working with intricate line art, setting the precise width of strokes can be tricky, which is where the stroke pressure profile in Affinity Designer comes in handy. It allows you to control the line width and get live feedback on the line thickness—something I find a bit clunky in other programs.”
Bryn Jones
Bryn Jones is a concept artist for games and television who has worked for a number of high-profile clients, including Cartoon Network, Universal Music and QCODE Media. We first noticed Bryn’s incredible work on Instagram and reached out to him, intrigued to learn more about his process for painting over 3D models in Affinity Photo.
You can see more of Bryn’s artwork on Instagram and learn about his workflow in his Affinity Creative Session over on our YouTube channel.
Christian Weiß
Christian Weiß is a freelance artist who specialises in illustration and communication design. He takes pride in creating entertaining, multifaceted designs for agencies, magazines and companies from a wide variety of sectors and often philosophises and immerses his mind in utopian ideas while illustrating. To check out his portfolio, visit designwut.de.
Duarte Carolino
Duarte Carolino is a graphic designer and illustrator who dedicates most of his time to drawing across the fields of illustration, typography and literature, keeping his head full of ideas and amassing mountains of notebooks. In recent years he has developed several projects for screen printing in partnership with the handmade toy and textile brand Matilde Beldroega.
Learn more about Duarte in our interview with him or check out his work on Behance and Instagram.
Eisuke Taki
Eisuke Taki is a freelance graphic designer based in Texas. He specialises in visual identities and has worked on numerous branding projects for over a decade. Alongside his design practice, Eisuke set up ‘Waterfall’ in 2020, a creative studio focusing on illustration work.
Elena Paraskeva
Elena Paraskeva is an international conceptual photographer and art director. Having lived and worked in the U.S. for a decade, she now resides in Cyprus but often travels for assignments.
She loves to create surrealist, conceptual work bathed in colour and is often inspired by everyday life and popular culture. A published and exhibited artist (with exhibitions in NYC, London, Paris, and Barcelona, among others), Elena also serves as a judge for prestigious photography competitions and is currently a judge for the Florida Museum Of Photographic Arts.
We are long-time fans of Elena’s work and are in awe of her incredible portfolio, which you can check out here.
Elena’s image ‘Rain In The Tropics’ is available as a sample file in Affinity Photo 2.
Ellsphee
Sphelele Gumede, aka Ellsphee, is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist from South Africa. With over a decade in the creative industry, he’s had the pleasure of flexing his creative muscles in motion design, art direction, and creative direction. He currently serves as Lead Creator for Oliver Agency’s U-Studio in Durban, South Africa. Here he works with a small team of some of the most talented individuals, developing dynamic visual communications for both moving and static imagery.
We instantly fell in love with Ellsphee’s inimitable style and have had the pleasure of working with him numerous times over the last couple of years. Visit his website ellsphee.co.za and @ellsphee on Instagram to see more of his incredible work.
Ellsphee’s illustration ‘Thundercat’ is available as a sample file in Affinity Designer 2.
Emi Haze
Emi Haze is an Italian digital artist, illustrator and retoucher who is well-known for creating ethereal and imaginative double-exposure imagery that skilfully blends human beings with nature. Clouds forming hair, faces that blend with the air and sky and human silhouettes that arise from expanses of earth and roots are all part of Emi’s visionary, utopian world, which you can see more of on Behance.
“All the new features together with the new interface design split into five ‘Personas’ has really improved my workflow and reduced the time and effort needed to optimise a design.”
Erik Ly
Erik Ly is a contemporary illustrator from Los Angeles, California, who specialises in surreal illustrations, character art and animal drawings. We love Erik’s style, which currently comprises strong lines, lush colours and vibrant contrasts. To keep up to date with his latest work, follow @eriklyart on Instagram.
Felix Hernandez
Felix is a photographer and digital and miniature artist based in Cancun, Mexico, where he directs his Photography Studio Hernandez Dreamphography. He develops creative projects and high impact images for advertising campaigns and exclusive content for international brands.
We were in awe of the Winter Wonderland image Felix created for us in 2021 and were thrilled to work with him again for the launch of Affinity V2. Not only did he produce another incredible piece of artwork—‘Dinos and Donuts’—in Affinity Photo, he also created the Dreamphography brush pack for Affinity—a specially curated add-on created from his personal set of retouching brushes which are free for both Affinity V2 and V1 owners.
If you haven’t downloaded the FREE brush pack yet, you can get it here. For inspiration on how to use the brushes, watch Felix’s Affinity Creative Session on our YouTube channel.
“I have been using Affinity Photo for a couple of years and found it a breeze to learn. It’s pretty intuitive, with a user-friendly interface which contains all the tools you are used to. It’s fast and responsive, allows non-destructive workflow, and the way V2 manages masks gives you plenty of options and creative power.”
Frankentoon
Enrique Figueroa is an art director and the creative talent behind Frankentoon Studio, an independent illustration and visual development studio that has been creating high-quality brush packs, digital resources and tutorials for Affinity apps since 2016. He has also contributed some fantastic tutorials to Affinity Spotlight over the years.
If you would like an insight into how Enrique’s ‘Plushies Summoner’ artwork was made, check out the sample file in Affinity Designer 2.
“What’s not to love about V2? The new Affinity UI feels intuitive, immersive, and fun to use. It is a joy to work on my illustrations and design projects on the go faster than ever before.”
Giordano Poloni
Giordano Poloni is a resident of Milan whose experience in the creative industry ranges from motion graphics designer to illustrator. Inspired by his huge collection of comics, music videos, movies and photography books, and above all, colour, he creates digital artworks highly reminiscent of his Italian heritage. You can see more of Giordano’s work over on Instagram.
His vibrant and feel-good illustration ‘Miami’ is available as a sample file in Affinity Designer 2.
Guy Shield
Guy Shield is an Australia-based illustrator who specialises in dreamy, light-filled scenes that look to find the beauty in the everyday familiarity of life. Drawing from a rich appreciation of cinema, Guy crafts scenes and narratives that spark a sense of intrigue and rich engagement through detail, colour and texture. To see more of Guy’s work, check out his Behance profile.
Iannocent
Iannocent is an illustrator from Indonesia who has been creating professionally for the last twelve years. He loves drawing and painting using both traditional and digital methods and enjoys crafting imaginary worlds and characters within his works.
His illustration ‘Sea Kingdom’ is available as a sample file in Affinity Photo 2.
Irina Sidorowicz
Irina Sidorowicz is a talented UX designer and illustrator based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We first came across Irina’s work during our ‘100 Days. 100 Commissions.’ initiative back in 2020, and we love the direction in which her style has developed over the last couple of years. Check out Irina’s Behance profile and @irasidorowicz on Instagram to see more.
Jean-Charles Debroize
Jean-Charles Debroize is a French art director and retoucher who works for Agence Kerozen. A master of photo manipulation, he uses his skills and knowledge to combine photographs and digital art to create fantastical imaginary scenarios. To see more of his incredible imagery, check out his Behance profile.
If you would like to see the work behind his ‘Firefly Club’ image composition, it is available as a sample file in Affinity Photo 2.
Johan Keslassy
Johan Keslassy is a self-taught freelance illustrator living in France. He works mainly with newspapers and magazines and has a client list that includes Schweizer Monat, The Wall Street Journal, Monocle magazine, The Washington Post, Oblik and L’Express. You can see more of Johan’s work on Behance.
Justina Leistye
Justina Leisyte is a Lithuanian illustrator and designer currently based in Copenhagen. She works on a wide range of projects and strives to communicate ideas through illustrations and visual storytelling. During her free time, she loves to hike in the mountains, travel to other countries and curate self-initiated projects. To see more from Justina, check out her Behance profile and Instagram account @justina_leisyte.
Kayleigh June
Kayleigh June is a talented beauty photographer, retoucher and educator based between the cities of Sydney and Melbourne. She loves all things relating to photography, the business world and travel, and regularly posts retouching and photography tutorials on her YouTube channel. To find out more about Kayleigh and her work, visit kayleighjune.education and @kayleigh_june on Instagram.
KELLER ADV
Giuliano Brocani and the team at KELLER ADV are the talent behind the wonderful Fellini Theatre poster. KELLER ADV is an Italian advertising agency that was established in 2003. They create engaging content for print, digital and multimedia projects for medium and large businesses. Enthusiastic early adopters of Affinity, all of their production flow is Affinity based. To see more of their work, visit kelleradv.it.
Kristina Makeeva
Kristina Makeeva is a photographer and digital artist based in London who seeks to blur the line between the tangible and intangible—the ethereal and the real. Highly skilled in photo manipulation, she expertly blends the subjects of fashion, travel and architecture to create whimsical imaginary worlds full of beauty and colour. To see more stunning imagery from Kristina, check out @hobopeeba on Instagram.
Laura Rubin
Laura H. Rubin is an accomplished, award-winning artist living in Bern, Switzerland. She graduated from Zurich’s SAE Institute, where she studied film and visual effects, as well as digital arts.
Nowadays, she develops her own technical and creative tools, which she offers to other artists. You can find out more about Laura and her work at laurahrubin.com.
Her ‘Affinity Bird’ artwork is available as a sample file in Affinity Photo 2.
Lukas Hoefer
Lukas Hoefer, aka inoubli4ble, is a self-taught digital artist from Germany. He is passionate about creating all kinds of digital and visual art with his tool of choice, Affinity Photo. You can find out more about Lukas in his Affinity Spotlight interview and see more of his work at inoubli4ble.art.
Marc Keeley
Marc Keeley is a digital artist who goes by the name Vector Von Doom on Instagram. He enjoys creating vector illustrations in various styles, but his work has been advancing more towards photorealism of late.
If you’re intrigued to see the number of layers in his ‘Porsche 917K’ artwork, you can find the sample file in Affinity Designer 2.
Mario De Meyer
Mario De Meyer is a freelance graphic designer who has a strong passion for typography. He has worked on a wide variety of projects for clients like Bloomberg, Ogilvy & Mather, IBM, Wired and Henkel, to name a few.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with Mario on numerous occasions and are long-time fans of his work. Check out his impressive portfolio at dm2graphics.com.
His illustration ‘What Are You Waiting For’ is available as a sample file in Affinity Designer 2.
Nastka Drabot
Nastka Drabot is an illustrator and graphic designer from Poland who graduated with a degree in architecture. Her style is vibrant and colourful, and she enjoys the feeling of infinite precision that comes with working in vector. To see more of Nastka’s work, check out her website, Instagram account and online shop.
Her illustration ‘Vision’ is available as a sample file in Affinity Designer 2.
Noah Camp
Noah Camp is a 3D type artist, illustrator, and animator located in Philadelphia, PA. Combining his experience in design and CGI with his love of hand lettering, Noah Camp is most well-known for his quirky and playful 3D alphabets that evoke visceral reactions with seemingly touchable textures. Noah has worked with awesome clients including Target, LEGO, Spotify, WIRED and Vox, to name a few. Visit noahcamp.com to check out his portfolio.
Paul Hollingworth
Paul Hollingworth’s fascination for photography was born out of his love of design. Photography started as a means to capture material for his graphic design work but soon became a medium of exploration for all things weird and wonderful. From skulls dripped in paint to wild landscapes and almost abstract macros. You can check out more of Paul’s work on his website paul-hollingworth.com and Instagram account.
Robert Herzig
Robert Nazeby Herzig is a British/Italian artist based in London. After attending the Comics School of Milano and getting a degree in architecture at the Milano Politecnico, he started working as a comic and commercial illustration artist for some of the major Italian publishers and advertising agencies. This included two years of working as an animation director for a TV and internet production company based in Milan.
He’s been a freelancer for over ten years, first based in Milan and then in Tokyo and London. To see more of Robert’s illustration work, visit his Instagram account.
‘Shihatsu Densha’ (First Train Home) by Robert is a sample file in Affinity Designer 2.
Rubens Scarelli
Rubens Scarelli, also known as Rusc, is an illustrator and graphic designer from Brazil. Currently represented by the agency Illozoo, he has works published in numerous countries around the world. Check out his portfolio at rubensscarelli.com.
Timothy Poulton
Timothy Poulton is an Australian musician, composer, songwriter and producer for Mass Experience and Timothy and the Apocalypse, based in Sydney, Australia. He is also known for his award-winning photographic and design work, which you can see on Instagram.
Vincent Jacquin
Vincent Jacquin is a French freelance artist who has been creating under the pseudonym Small Studio for the last 15 years, creating bold, abstract art for various creative fields, including graphic design, illustration, self-publishing and mural design.
You can find out more about Vincent in our interview with him and see more of his work at smallstudio.fr.
Will Schorer
Hailing from Perth, Western Australia, Will Schorer is the mastermind behind Highscore Creative. Will has worked with some of the biggest artists and brands in the world and is always looking for ways to evolve as a designer.
Yurii Suhov
Yurii Suhov is an Arch-Viz artist with more than 15 years of experience in the world of architecture. He runs an architectural design and 3D visualisation practice based in Riga, Latvia, focussed mainly on the fields of interior design, architecture, furniture and industrial design. To see more of Yurii’s work, check out his website and Behance profile.
Not got Affinity V2 yet?
To learn more about Affinity V2 and to purchase the apps or an Affinity Universal License, visit affinity.serif.com.
All apps, including the Affinity Universal Licence, are available as a 30-day free trial which you can download here.