
In this tutorial, we will be making a floating island in Affinity Designer.
You will need the following in order to follow along with this tutorial:
Affinity Designer (https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/)
Document
Make a new Document that is:
Type: Web
Page Preset: FHD 1080px
Document Units: Pixels
Check Transparent Background
Background
Add a rectangle the size of the artboard
Remove the border and fill the background with a sky blue color (#A9CEE6) [HINT: double-clicking on the fill color in the Color panel will open a Color Chooser window where you can put in a hex code]
Rename the default layer “Background and lock it
Island Base
Add a new layer and rename the layer “Island”
Make a rectangle that is 800px in width and 30px in height and place it in the center of the artboard
Fill the rounded rectangle with a green color (#4BAA2D) with no stroke
Add rectangles that hang from the island base filled with the same green color as the island base (#4BAA2D) – make sure they are not uniform
When they are complete, group them together (CTRL + G)
Add large triangles to the bottom of the island and fill them with mid-tone gray (#5D5D5D)
Group the triangles together and move the layer to the bottom of the stack
Add smaller triangles to the bottom of the island and fill them with darker gray (#3A3A3A)
Group the triangles together and move the layer to the middle of the stack (above the mid-tone triangles)
Hills
Lock the Island layer and add a new layer named “Hills”
Add an ellipse and fill it with a darker green (#397227)
Place a rectangle along the bottom of the ellipse
Select the rectangle and then the ellipse and click on “Subtract”
Draw a rectangle over the right-side of the ellipse and fill it with a darker tone of green (#325028)
Move the rectangle layer inside the (Curve) layer – this will create a clipping mask
Place the ellipse on top of the island base and make duplicates
Mountains
Lock the Hills layer and add a new layer named “Mountains”
Add a triangle with a mid-tone gray (#5D5D5D)
Add a rectangle over the right-side of the triangle and fill it with a darker tone of gray (#3A3A3A)
Move the rectangle layer inside the (Triangle) layer – this will create a clipping mask
Move the Mountains layer below the Hills layer
Place the triangle on the island base and make duplicates
Group the triangles together
Make a duplicate of the group
Select the bottom group and scale it to a different size
Move the group of triangles into position
Change the opacity to 30% [Note: The opacity can only be change on the individual triangles and not the entire group at once]
Clouds
Lock the Mountains layer and add a new layer named “Clouds”
Make three ellipses with a white fill (#FFFFFF) and group them together
Make duplicates of various sizes and place them around the background