Chiselled features

James Paterson explains how to transform a portrait image into bold polygon patterns with the help of Macros in Affinity Photo

- James Paterson

THE MISSION

Make a polygon portrait with the Pen Tool, Blur Filters and Macros

Time needed Two hours

Skill level Advanced

Kit needed Affinity Photo

Some image effects take mere seconds to create. But it's usually those that require a little more work that are all the more rewarding for it. In this project we'll look at how to transform a portrait into a series of striking geometric shapes.

Unfortunately we can't just run a filter over the image, we have to create each individual polygon shape. But this makes the overall impression completely unique, rather than the generic look you often see when filters are used.

Each triangular shape in the face and hair here has to be plotted out by hand, which will take time and patience. Thankfully there is a way we can speed up the process.

Macros are a handy Affinity Photo feature that let us record a set of tasks (much like Actions in Photoshop CC). This means that we can make a Macro for a repetitive sequence of edits, then apply the sequence again with a single click. We begin by making a triangle with the Pen Tool, then blur the area and add an inner glow effect. Each step we make is recorded in the Macro. Once done, we can use the Pen tool to move the triangle into a different position and then hit play on our Macro to repeat the sequence.