Transcript:
Wes: Hi and welcome to Adobe. Absolute Beginners: Adobe Illustrator CC. My name is Wes Holing, and I am going to be showing you Some of the basic tools and tips for how to use Adobe Illustrator CC. While I may have covered the 5 most common tools in Illustrator. I did leave out one very important. Tool, probably “the” most important and that is the Pen Tool It’s located over here on the left, along with all the other tools. It looks like the end of a fountain pen. The reason I left it out is because this is a challenge for new users of Illustrator. Not one that you can’’t overcome, though. The benefit of the Pen Tool is that it gives you precise control over drawing objects in Illustrator, but it works in kind of a funny way Rather than clicking and dragging to create a shape like a square or a circle. You are basically drawing points that all connect to one another. And then you close your path and then manipulate the shape that you’ve drawn. So that sounds like a lot, but I’’ll, go ahead and get started showing you. I’’ve got a white fill and a black stroke very basic. Just to show you what I’’m talking about. If I click once on my canvas, I get one anchor point and it doesn’’t show anything. But if I move my cursor away, I get a thin blue line. I’’m not drawing anything yet, except for that one point. This is just a guide along the way to help me draw. Now, if I click up here, I’’ve drawn a second anchor. And if I move my mouse again, I get that line and so on And I just continue to click and click and click. I’’m going to make a very sloppy Pentagon. There’’s the Pentagon. Nothing exciting about that, except I drew it without using a shape tool. Now what I can do if I go return to my Direct Selection Tool, If you remember with the Direct Selection Tool previously, I could choose the corner of that square to move it around. The same is true here I can click and drag on the inside of that. And now I’’ve got a completely different shape. And this is true for any anchor point along the way I can create some very bizarre shapes, even some that intersect others. And once I change my fill, you can see how strange this shape becomes. If I move this anchor point back out, it doesn’’t Intersect itself. And if I bring it back in again, it does. This is not a very pleasing shape, but it does show the complexity of shapes that you can get with the pen tool. Now, the next thing to show with the Pen Tool and I’’ll delete this shape because it so bad looking. All right, Let’’s create something new. So if I just create a very basic, sloppy square, I’’ve created a square. I’ve clicked the original anchor point to close that out. What I can do is I can also add anchor points along the way. If I move my cursor along the line, the cursor itself changes to the fountain pen icon with a plus sign, which means I’’m going to add an anchor point there. If I click it now, there is one right along the line. I can use my Direct Selection Tool and move that around as I need it. Now this is the real bonus of the Pen. Tool; It’s What’s called Bezier Curves named after its creator. If I return to my Pen Tool and I hover over the anchor point, This is where I press and hold Alt on Windows or Option on the Mac. My cursor changes to a sort of caret shape like an upside down V. Now, while I’’ve got that selected If I click and drag, you can see some guides along the way now. I’ve created a curve out of a single vector point, an anchor point in terms of Illustrator where I can create curves along the way. I can do this for any anchor point In any object. I can do it on the corners to create a more rounded shape. So if you are creating anything like a logo or an illustrated comic or anything like that, that involves creating some kind of visual design that is not based on a photograph. This is where it really comes in handy to create shapes that either look symmetrical, look pleasing or just give you that more range of options. It’’s something that takes a lot of time to get used to. Because you think you’’ve drawn the thing you want and it’’s just not cooperating. You’’ll, get there. Trust me, but it does come with a lot of work. Once you have drawn your strange shape like this, you can also manipulate it even further. If I choose my Direct Selection Tool and I click the anchor point at the top. You can see that there. Are these bars that shoot out from the side? And this is true for any anchor point. If I select some of these others, you can see that they appear as I select them. I’’ll return to my anchor point at the top, and if I choose that handle and click on the end of it and drag it around. You can see that now. It’’s got a bit of a wave going. If I click and drag it up and down, you can see that this blue line begins to morph, and you can see exactly how exaggerated that shape is going to become. And this is starting to look like 1950s modern art, but that is where this sort of concept comes from. I can create shapes that are geometric in concept and have a lot of control over them. That is the essentials of the Pen Tool. It is very quick and dirty. But again, please play with it to really get the full experience out of it.