Draw pencil lines

Use the Pencil Tool to apply pencil lines, giving a hand-drawn effect to your design. A range of settings can be enabled to fine-tune the pencil stroke's appearance.

Pencil drawn example

Sculpting

Pencil Sculpt mode redefine and continue before
Pencil Sculpt mode redefine and continue after
Redefining and continuing a pencil stroke using Sculpt mode.

Sculpting allows you to modify the pencil stroke when the stroke is still being drawn or if it is reselected again for further editing. Two techniques are possible:

You can also perform advanced editing of the pencil stroke with the Node Tool. For example, node and control handles can be repositioned.

Stroke stabilisation

Affinity Designer's stroke stabiliser smooths pencil lines as you draw, helping you to produce a more aesthetically pleasing stroke.

A Rope stabiliser or Window stabiliser mode can be used; the former drags the stroke end by a 'rope' to smooth the stroke, but lets you introduce sharp corners at increasing rope Length (radius) values by redirecting the slackened rope; the latter will smooth the stroke by averaging sampled input positions within a Window whose size is configurable.

Stabilisation
(A) Pencil line without stabilisation, (B) with Rope mode stabilisation, (C) with Window mode stabilisation and (D) auto-closed pencil line.

Auto closing

A context toolbar option called Auto Close lets you create a closed curve from your stroke when enabled. While drawing, if the pencil cursor nears the same curve's starting node, a 'dog bone' visual aid temporarily appears to indicate that closure will occur on mouse release.

Pencil Tool auto-closing behaviour
Pencil Tool To draw freehand pencil lines:
  1. Select the Pencil Tool.
  2. (Optional) On the context toolbar, do one (or more) of the following:
    • Enable Sculpt to reform or continue a previous pencil stroke.
    • (Optional) Enable a Stabiliser option to smooth the stroke using different smoothing modes (Rope or Window).
    • (Optional) Enable a Controller to have the stroke respond automatically to a pen tablet's Pressure input or speed of mouse movement (Velocity), or manually to the Stroke panel's Pressure profile chart (None).
    • Check Use fill to automatically fill the concave area created by the curve with the current fill colour.
    • (Optional) Check Auto Close to close the curve when the cursor approaches close to the same curve's start node.
  3. Drag on the page in the direction that you want the path to follow.

SEE ALSO: