The Pen Tool Tutorial: Part 1
The Pen tool is a very important piece of several different design programs. It is probably most integral, though, to Adobe Illustrator. It’s also a complicated tool to master. This is the first in a multi-part series designed to break down the tool and make it more approachable.
Pen Tool Basics
The Pen tool is otherwise known as the Bezier curve tool. The Bezier curve was invented to draw smooth, curved car lines for the automotive industry, and now has been used for any curved drawing in digital format. The basic idea is that a computer would prefer the ’shortest path between two points’ – drawing a straight line – instead of an arc of some kind. What came about was a system of points with an added component – direction and velocity. With direction and velocity, a computer connects points the same way a car driving quickly would – long, sweeping curves.
To draw with the pen tool, not only click to draw a point, but also hold the mouse button down and drag. This will add the directional component to the points.
With this tool at your disposal, you can draw nearly anything you can imagine – you just need to know how to make it work for you.
Click and Drag – Where?
The idea of click-and-drag with the point is to give the line that ‘leaves’ that point a direction to go. If I click and drag up, like the image above, the line wants to leave the point going up. Then, when drawing the second point, dragging up means two things – the line ‘leaving’ the point goes up, but also, the line entering the point comes in from the bottom. That’s why the animation above has an S-curve. The line leaves the point at the left going up, and goes into the point at the right from the bottom. The line must bend in the middle to make that happen.
Basic Drawings: The S-Curve
To draw a basic S-curve, the line must leave the first point in a single direction, and enter the second point from the opposite angle. This necessitates the S-bend in the middle of the line.
Basic Drawings: The Horseshoe
Drawing a horseshoe, a single bend, can be done two different ways. Possibility #1 – create 2 points, and have the line that leaves both points go in opposite directions. Possibility #2 – create 3 points, and only bend the point in the middle.
Stick Around
In our next installation, I’m going to discuss how to make the pen tool a little more user-friendly. When I was starting to get the hang of things, using the complimentary tools to the pen really helped ease the transition.
To learn more about the Pen tool and Bezier curves, try out our classes in Adobe Flash, Illustrator, and Photoshop. You’ll see it in action until it becomes second nature!
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