Vectober is a challenge for digital artists inspired by Inktober that has grown in popularity in recent years, and we’ve already seen some fantastic illustrations created in Affinity Designer for this year’s challenge.
Fancy taking part but aren’t sure where to begin? Join long-term Affinity user Jhonatan Silva over on YouTube, where he’ll be releasing a new Vectober tutorial each day throughout October to show you how to create an illustration for each day’s prompt in Affinity Designer.
Here Jhonatan tells us more…
Many artists widely use ink during Inktober. I’m a designer and illustrator who enjoys working in vectors so I decided take part in Vectober to help people that are not familiar with traditional inking.
As I have been doing tutorials for Affinity Designer since 2018, I wanted to combine my passion for Vectober and for sharing my process to hopefully inspire people to complete the challenge as well.
During the month of October, I will be exploring and creating projects using a mix of vector and raster painting, which Affinity Designer allows me to do with great affect.
As well as showing you how to create and complete simple projects from scratch, my tutorials will help and encourage you to stick to the challenge and practice digital art. Many people don’t practice enough to get used to a creative process or learn how to use their app properly. That’s why it’s so important to set yourself a fun challenge and learn by completing a milestone each day.
The challenge is made to incentivize everyone to create something using their own imagination based on the topic for that day. The topics available on the Vectober prompt list are designed specially to inspire people to create something fun. The illustrations can be as simple or challenging as you like—people are free to explore their ideas and experiment!
Of course, to be able to do this for 31 days can seem like an impossible task if you have a lot of work to complete daily, but I’d suggest around one hour per day is enough to make a simple project using the techniques in my videos.
To make the most of the challenge, after each drawing, I’d recommend you identify and make a note of any parts of the process you are struggling with:
- Is it the concept stage? (ideas)
- Is it the vector process? (block stage)
- Is it the rendering and shading? (Light and Shadows)
- Is it the Adjustments? (Finishing touches)
By doing these reviews, you will be able to notice where you can improve.
In one month, you will have 31 projects to use and share with friends, upload to social media and put in your portfolio! The benefits are really great.
Jhonatan’s Vectober tutorials are free to watch during the month of October on his YouTube channel. After the challenge ends, on the 1st of November, the tutorials will be available exclusively to Vectorize Club members—a design school and community run by Jhonatan dedicated to teaching vector illustration. To learn more about Vectorize Club, visit vectorizeclub.com.