Lesson Info
1. Overview of the Pen Tool in Illustrator
Lessons
Overview of the Pen Tool in Illustrator
06:51 2Handle Point Conversion with the Pen Tool in Illustrator
07:06 3Creating Curves with the Pen Tool in Illustrator
11:27 4Convert Anchor Point Tool with the Pen Tool in Illustrator
10:40 5Tracing an Object with the Pen Tool in Illustrator
12:33 6Using the Curvature Pen Tool in Illustrator
07:30 7Pencil Tool in Illustrator
07:48 8Join Tool in Illustrator
06:49Lesson Info
Overview of the Pen Tool in Illustrator
welcome, everybody. I'm Jason Hoppy, and I am going to be walking you through how to use the pen tool. An illustrator. I'm also going to show you a couple other features that air newer to illustrator Creative Cloud, one of them being the curvature tool. And then we've got another cool little trick with the pencil tool. If you're not familiar with that as well, both of those were updated an illustrator. And we're gonna jump right into using the pen tool for people who don't like to use the pen tool or who use the pen tool and don't like using it. So I'm gonna start off here. We've got Illustrator Creative Cloud and you'll notice next to our pen tool in the toolbar here. That's our new curvature tool. Adobe created that to make a little bit easier for people to learn and understand the pen tool. So we're gonna go over both, But I'm gonna start off with the pen tool, gonna click on the pen tool and we have all of these options within the pen tool. Click on the little edge of my pen tool f...
ly out and actually getting create. It'll tear off here so we can see all about the pen tool. So very basics with the pen tool. Here we have a pen tool. Add and subtract anchor point tools as well as our convert anchor point. I'm gonna walk you through just the very basics of how to use the tool in the shortcuts here. And then we'll get into a little bit more elaborate features on actually tracing an object using the pen tool. So I start off with the basics of the pen tool here and pen tool. I'm gonna use it in a very basic fashion. Simply click. I'm gonna click and click on Click, and I have my fill selected. So when I draw, it's gonna automatically fill that object that I've created. Go ahead and set that, Phil, if I want to to be nothing so we can see just the shape that I'm drawing. So with the pen tool I was able to go through and simply click in the locations and draw straight lines between all of my objects. Nothing special depend Tool Click. Wherever you click, you're going to get an anchor point and continue clicking on through, and you can then go back to your original point that you created. You'll see little circle next to the right hand side of the pen tool, and that's going to close your shape. Paris My shape. Now, you don't have to close your shape when you're using depend tool. If you go in and just decide to click on your points and when you're done, one of the quick and easy ways out of this is it. You hit your escape key or you're sorry you command key and command click, and that's going to allow you to stop what it is that you're doing and have your penuell stop without actually closing the points between. You'll notice when I I'm gonna hold down my command key quite a lot because one of the things that we're going to use is going back and forth between the pen tool in the selection tool. Now, if I go back between the selection tool that I could move my object than I have to go back to the pen tool, do any editing that I want to go back to my selection tool. I'm going to just go in and I'm going to hold down my command key. And every time I hold down my command key, it's just going to switch over to my selection tool so it can very quickly and easily work with my path. When I'm outside of adding points to my path here, I can hold down my command key and then move my entire path and go back to my active Pento again, just holding down the command key. It's going to switch in between those particular tools. So basics of going in and using dependable I'm just going to click, draw a basic shape. I'm gonna go back and complete my path. There it is. Now I'm gonna be using my selection tool on many occasions, but I'm also gonna be using my direct selection tool. My selection tool is going to allow me to select my shaper my path and be able to transform the entire shape as one whole unit. I can click on the corners. I can click on the edges and scale that if I have or outside my corners, I'm going to be able to rotate my object but just basically resize my entire object. If I would like to go in and I want to edit my pads. I'm going to use my direct selection tool, and my direct selection tool allows me to go. We and directly select a particular point or a particular line segment on my shape and resize that shape one point or one line segment at a time. One of the common problems that people have when they draw a shape with a pen tool is this. I'll take the pen tool. They will draw the shape that they want. Their is there, resulting shape. They will then go over to the direct selection tool and they'll try to go in and select their object. And what will happen is they'll actually end up, begin moving the entire object as one whole unit. And the reason why is because when I go in and if I have my shape selected with my selection tool on a switch over to my direct selection tool, you can see all of these points on my path if all of those points are filled in solid there red right now, simply because the layer that I'm working on is indicated in red. But if all my points air solid and I use my direct selection tool. I'm gonna move everything. And this is something that people say. Well, my direct selection tool doesn't work. It works exactly like you wanted Teoh. The biggest thing is is that if you've had it selected with the selection tool, a men convert back over to the direct selection tool. Every single point is selected. Good habit. Click off your object and then, with your direct selection tool, either click back on a point to make it active. Click on a line segment to make that active. Or if you would like to select multiple points, you can click and drag over multiple points and Onley. Those points are going to be selected. Selected points are going to be highlighted as solid, non selected points are going to be hollow now, a very common problem that people come up against here and in desert an illustrator is I can't see those points very well. It is hard to see those points, And so when I hover over these, I have my smart guides turned on smart guys, air turned on by default. That's going to be under the view menu under smart guides and what that allows me to dio is it shows up in green here. When I'm touching an anchor or I'm touching a path or where things intersect, it just helps me show those items a little bit better.
Ratings and Reviews
MikeD
This tool is a bit in the ..., however Jason's inimitable style and affable character makes the class a delight to watch. I *MUST* learn to use the Pen and Pencil tool because I can't draw; not at all, not even a little bit. I say this literally, there are modest people and there are people who should be more modest and there are people who are poor at drawing, there are all colors and flavors and I say hands down, I cannot draw, write or even make an approximation of a straight line (literally, not an exaggeration) and my hand will not do what my eye and brain tell it. I can see where I want something to go and can't make my hand do it, I can't even trace something on tracing paper - the lines go every which way and this is something mastered by a six-year-old. So when I say I *MUST* use these tools, it's because I have no alternatives. Jason's class has been a Godsend because I can actually make plausible sketches, drawings and convey ideas through the use of these tools. I highly recommend this class if you want to learn how to get started using this tool. It's even fun once you learn a little bit about it.
Adrian Chorlton
Great course used as revision on using the tools. Well presented, interesting, waffle free. Be useful if there was a section on closing and opening paths
Fuzzy Piglet
I would consider myself as an intermediate illustrator user, having been around it for many years but only needing to use a minimal amount of the software. I also an advanced photoshop user with around 22-23 years experience so Ive made my share of clipping paths etc. This course provides all the technical information about the tools, paths, points and handles and Jason presents it in a very easy to understand way. I learned a few things from it but its also good to know the 'hows and whys' which is not something you might learn from a user manual or even necessarily from experience. Well worth the cost!