Using the Pen tool in Illustrator

The pen tool is one of my favorite tools in Illustrator. You can use it to draw pretty much anything, from a straight line, to a fancy curve, to a complicated shape complete with smooth curves and sharp points. When I first started using Illustrator, I played around a bit with the pen tool, but it left me frustrated, and since then I've discovered some tricks that make it worlds easier to work with.


More video tutorials at:
http://www.elijahtaylor.com/Tutorials.aspx

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• illustrator
• button
• drawing
• vector
• pen

[imnotrealy18yet]

say i want to do the same for the letter: O

once im done with the outside, how do i do the inside so that i can then fill the letter ''normallly''?

[aceoft]

@imnotrealy18yet you can draw the second shape and use the pathfinder to "subtract" the second from the first, or you can select them both and create a compound path.

[Maarttttt]

Hey dude. Whenever I make a second point with the pen tool the current trace becomes invisible. It's really a n n o y i n g. What do I do?

[aceoft]

@Maarttttt make sure you have a stroke color/weight selected and you should see them.

[royalconcrete1]

I did learn. You showed how to delete a mistake point....and several other things I cant remember right now. I will watch again. question. a vertical and horizantal blue line would zap every now and then to show you werent quit vertical yada yada. how did that line come up? what did you press?

[aceoft]

@royalconcrete1 I think you're seeing a result of the video being resized. The edges are aliased in this version of Illustrator, so it's a little jaggy. Eeww..

Glad you found it useful!

[AngrySaw]

I can make it in 2 seconds lol))

[Queenweezy1]

THE CURVES R SO HARD =[