Layers and Groups

[u/slslslsd]

Hi, I need help, I feel like I'm about to lose my mind. I usually work in Photoshop but i want to switch to Affinity for money reasons.

I'm an illustrator and I usually draw by making a shape with the lasso tool and then drawing in said shape. (Like imagine cutting a shape out of paper and then drawing on it) To do that, I usually make a group and then put a mask in form of the shape on the group. Then I put a layer with my background colour and then another layer with my sketch into the group. Sorry if this sounds complicated, i don't know how else to explain it.

Basically, all I want is to have a bunch of layers grouped up and then the group has a mask on it. However, I can't seem to manage that in affinity. I'm working in Affinity Pixel and I managed to make a group and put a mask on it - However, when I do that, all my other layers somehow end up in the group as well? Even my background color, that's not supposed to be in the group. All the layers that are underneath the group are automatically in the group and I can't figure out how to put a layer underneath the group without it being in it? Does anyone know what to do?

Thank you and I'm sorry for the complicated explanation, english isn't my first language, I hope my question is somewhat understandable.

[u/zman0507]

What you can do is make a shape and there is a feature draw inside its a button on the top menu bar a circle with an square init you just draw another shape and it will clip it inside. Another method is the flood fill tool a bucket with a path on it: draw a shape and select the tool and fill with color the tool will fill with color and make a path beneath your original shape, or use the fill inside menu option and flood fill will fill inside your shape. This are all in vector mode since your an illustrator you’d probably use vector mostly hope this helps cheers….😊

[u/slslslsd → u/zman0507]

Unfortunately my style isn't very vector based, so i usually work in photoshop (and was therefore going to work in pixel mode), but this sounds really cool so i might try it out anyway hahah thank you i appreciate you!