How to Create a Maze in Affinity Photo/Designer

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a maze in Affinity Photo. The following steps can also be applied to Affinity Designer.

Step 1

First, go to File > New. Set the Page Width and Page Height to 2000 px. Then, set the DPI to 72 and click Create.

Step 2

Next, grab the Rectangle Tool from the Tools Panel. Press Shift and draw a square that’s 100 px by 100 px. Press Shift + X to change the stroke color to the fill color. Then, in the Swatches Panel, turn off the stroke color. Place the square in the top left area of the document.

Step 3

With the square selected, press CTRL + Shift. Turn on Snapping in the Toolbar. Then, with the Move Tool, drag a copy of the square next to the original square.

Step 4

After that, press CTRL + J 16 times to make duplicates of the 2^nd square we created. You should have a total of 18 squares.

Step 5

Select all the squares. Then, press CTRL + Shift. Take the Move Tool and drag a copy of the selection of squares next to the original one.

Step 6

Now, press CTRL + J 16 times.

Step 7

Take the Move Tool. Select an area of squares. Then, press the Delete key to delete the squares. Continue to delete squares from the maze to create different paths.

Step 8

Once you’ve finished deleting the squares, take the Move Tool and select all the remaining squares. Then, go to the Boolean Operations Panel and select Add.

Step 9

Go to the Swatches Panel change the color of the maze to a color of your choosing. I set the color of the maze to the following hex code color #09E356.

Step 10

With the maze layer selected, click the fx (layers effect) icon. Check the Bevel/Emboss box and select it. Set the Type to Inner. Then, set the Radius and Depth to 10 px. Go to the Direction. Set the Azimuth to -107 degrees and the Elevation to 70 degrees.

Step 11

Next, check the 3D box and select it. Unlink the Radius and the Depth. Set the Radius to 15 px, the Depth to 33 px, and the Soften to 3 px. Leave the other settings as-is.

Step 12

After that, check the Outer Shadow box and select it. By default, the Blend Mode should be Multiply and the Opacity should be 50%. Set the Radius to 6 px, the Offset to 10 px, and the Angle to 225 degrees.

Step 13

Finally, check the Outline box. Change the Blend Mode to Multiply. By default, the Opacity should be 100%. Set the Radius to 5 px, Alignment to Outside, and Fill Style to Solid Color.

Another thing you can do is add a background color to the maze.

Step 14

Grab the Rectangle Tool from the Tools Panel. Take the tool and draw a rectangle that covers the document. In the Layers Panel, drag the rectangle below the maze.

Step 15

Next, go to the Swatches Panel. Double click on the fill color to bring up the Color Chooser. Set the background color to a color of your choosing. I set the background color to #9A2FFA.

Congratulations, this tutorial is complete! You now know how to create a maze in Affinity Photo/Designer. For more Affinity Photo tutorials, check out this article on how to create a dot pixel effect.