Custom Bokeh Brush in Affinity Designer for iPad

Hi everyone!

In this post, I’ll show you how you can quickly create your own custom bokeh brush in Affinity Designer V2. This pixel brush can be used on either photographs, or illustrations, to add a touch of blurry light leaks to your creation.

I’ll be using the iPad version of the V2 app, however, as long as you know where the tools are located, you should be able to follow along on the desktop version. I should note, there are differences in the brush engine between V2 and V1, so, if you are still in V1, your interface will be different.

Let’s get started!

Setting up the Canvas

I’m going to create a 2000 pixel square canvas in Designer, set to 300 dpi. Remember, this is a pixel brush, and the nozzle is ultimately a raster element, so I want to create my brush so that I know I can safely use it at larger sizes, without pixelation, should the need arise.

I’ll start out by heading right in to my Pixel Persona, by tapping the Designer icon at the top of the screen and choosing Pixel. Once there, I want to head in to the Brush Studio.

Quick Tip! If you can’t locate a particular tool or studio, tap and hold the ? at the bottom of the iPad screen. This will bring up labels so you can more easily find what you’re looking for!

Creating a New Category

If you haven’t already, you have the option of creating a new category for your bokeh brushes.

Go to the burger menu at the top right side of the brush studio and choose “Add Category.” Once you’ve added it, you can go back to the burger menu and choose “Rename Category” to give it a more specific name.

You don’t have to set up new categories but, as you add more custom brushes, it’s a great way to keep things organized.

Creating a Brush From a Preset Shape

We’re going to create our bokeh brush using one of the built in round brush shapes because, as you probably guessed, the round brush gives us a brush with a rounded edge. You can also create a brush using a custom shape you create, though I’ll cover under a separate tutorial as it’s a different type of brush.

Step 1: Engaging the Round Brush Shape

From the burger menu, select “New Round Brush.” This should immediately bring up a dialog box where you can change the settings of the brush.

Step 2: Changing General Settings

We’re going to start out by changing some of the general settings on the brush.

General Settings allows us to set the base level shape that will be Designer’s starting point as the brush shape is repeated across the canvas while the brush is being used.

There are only a few settings we’ll focus on here: Brush Name, Size, Flow, Hardness, Accumulation and Spacing.

BRUSH NAME:

Since we’re using a built in shape, Designer is defaulting the brush name to “Unnamed Brush.” While you don’t have to change the name of the brush, I do recommend it, especially if you’re going to create multiple versions of the brush. I’m going to name mine, “Bokeh Round No 1”

SIZE:

I’m going to set my size to 350 pixels as the default width of my brush. This can be overwritten at any time using the contextual menu to change the size.

HARDNESS:

Hardness sets the overall softness of the shape. If we were creating our own nozzle, rather than using a built in shape, we could set the softness when creating it, using a Gaussian blur. (In fact, on V2 of the apps, hardness is locked on that type of brush; you can’t change it) However, when using a built in shape, this is how we would adjust it’s overall hardness or softness; the lower the number, the softer the brush.

Remember, bokeh is a blur circle, so we do want at least a slight softness to the edges of our shapes, otherwise they’re going to read more like bubbles than light formations. I’m going to bring the hardness of mine down to 60%

FLOW:

Flow controls the the speed of the build up of the brush as you move it around the canvas and overlap the circles.

I’m going to bring Flow up to 70%, and use the dynamic settings to deviate from that default as I use the brush. That’s going to create a variation in the build up where the bokeh shapes overlap one another so that there are some more opaque spots than others.

ACCUMULATION:

Think of accumulation in terms of the opacity, or visibility, of the brush nozzle. We’re going to set a default opacity and then, using the Dynamics settings, vary that opacity higher or lower than that default.

Because this is a bokeh brush, I don’t want 100% opaque shapes, but rather soft spots of “light,” that we can see through. I’m going to set my default accumulation to 60% in the general settings and then vary that with the dynamics.

SPACING:

This is going to set the distance between each nozzle as it’s placed on the canvas. The lower the spacing, the closer the nozzle will be. Very low settings will create what looks like a solid line, and a higher settings creates a, “spatter” or a “spray.” In this case, we want to space our nozzle so that, at times, they overlap, but at others, they are further apart, so we want something in the middle.

I’m going to set my spacing to 60% and then vary that with the dynamics.

SHAPE:

While we aren’t going to adjust the shape setting, I do want to mention it in this case. Shape is going to allow you to squash your round shape in to ovals. Bokeh aren’t always perfect circles so you can vary the shape as you move around the canvas.

That said, I wouldn’t change that setting here in General. This should remain the original perfectly circular shape, set to 100%. The variation can be created by changing the shape dynamics in the next screen.

That’s all we’re going to change here. Leave everything else the same and let’s move on to changing the dynamics, which are going to create the deviation from the defaults we just set.

Step 3: Changing the Dynamics

Dynamics, or jitter settings, tell Designer how much you want to vary your default on the General settings we set above.

You also have the ability to designate the controller for the variation: pressure, velocity, rotation of your pencil, etc. This is useful if you do not have a pressure sensitive stylus, such as an Apple Pencil or Wacom pen, as you can still create variations simply be setting these controls to something like Random, or Velocity.

For the purposes of this exercise, I’m going to set all of mine to random because I like the randomness of how the brush lays the blur circles in place, varying the settings as it goes. There are only a few settings we’re going to adjust here: Size, Flow, Accumulation, Rotation and Scatter.

I’m not going to change any of the ramp settings in the spline graphs for this tutorial, however you can play around with different variations to see how they impact each of your settings.

SIZE:

This is always set to pressure, by default. I’m going to change mine to Random by clicking on the dropdown beneath the slider bar. I’m setting my size to 80% jitter.

FLOW:

Again, I’m going to change my controller to random and set the size to 80% jitter.

ACCUMULATION:

I want a nice variety of opacities across my canvas, from very faint to more opaque. I’m going to change the controller to random and set the variation to 80%.

ROTATION:

For the purposes of this brush, rotation doesn’t really matter, as I’m not varying the shape of the circle, nor am I adding texture.

However, I am going to set my rotation to random and the variation to 100% just in case I duplicate this brush and either add texture, or vary the shape.

This brush shape will act as a base for any duplicates I create.

SCATTER X & Y:

Scatter varies the position of the nozzle on either the horizontal axis (Scatter X) or the vertical axis (Scatter Y).

Again, I’m going to change the controller on both to random and set both to 400%. (A note, on the iPad, 400 is the highest you can go. If you’re on the desktop version of the app, you can go higher but may find you have to adjust your spacing.)

Quick Tip! The settings I’ve provided are those that I have found work best for my basic bokeh brushes but there are no, “correct settings.” Play around with the various levels, both in the General and Dynamic, keeping an eye on the window at the top of the dialog box, and see what you like best!

When you land on settings you like, save that brush. If you want to keep playing, just duplicate the brush and keep going!

Step 4: Saving & Testing the Brush

Once all your settings are to your liking, just hit Save at the bottom of the dialog box and you should see the brush set up as the last one in the category you’re in.

If you want to test your brush, add a pixel layer to your canvas, grab a color, and start drawing. (if your Assistant is set up in the app settings, it may automatically add a pixel layer for you)

When testing, keep an eye on the variations in flow, accumulation and size and see if there is anything you want to adjust. If there is, just left swipe on the brush in the brush panel and choose Edit. From there, make any changes you need to and then, once again, save it.

Final Thoughts

That’s it! The simple, round bokeh brush is done and ready to be used. Don’t forget, you can duplicate this brush and tweak settings to get variations on the original. For example, if you tweak the Shape Dynamics some of the circles will be squashed, giving you an oval effect. You can also add a base texture in the third tab, giving your bokeh a little grit.

This is just one of many types of bokeh brushes you can create. In an upcoming tutorial, I’ll show you how you can create your own shapes in the Designer side of the app and turn them in to fun raster bokeh brushes just like this one, using the New Intensity Brush option. Be sure to keep an eye out fro an upcoming tutorial, and YouTube video!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy creating your own bokeh brush. If there is a particular brush you would like to learn how to create, let me know in the comments below!

Happy Creating!

Want to learn more about the Affinity Suite?

Check out my full length classes, either on Skillshare, or my own learning site, the Creator Collage. You can also find short form tutorials, like the one below, on YouTube!

Create a Bokeh Brush in Affinity Designer for iPad

Setting up the Canvas

Creating a New Category