Also make sure that the Stroke Weight is set to 1 pt here. With the Swatches selected, make sure that black is chosen. To set the Stroke color and the Stroke weight for the line you're about to draw, click the Stroke color in the Properties panel to the right. Before you start drawing, you'll set a few properties. Then select the Pencil tool from the menu that appears. To select the Pencil tool and start drawing, press and hold on the Paintbrush tool in the Tools panel on the left. And drag across the upper left part of the artboard with the ship on it to zoom in. So, to zoom into part of it, select the Zoom tool in the Tools panel on the left. You'll add the final shapes to that ship using the Pencil tool. With the file open, notice the ship artwork on the left. You can open this practice file if you want to follow along. And finally, you'll finish the artwork for the ship out here. To complete the artwork for this project, you'll start by drawing with the Pencil tool. Understanding what paths are composed of is a great first step to creating and editing your own artwork in Illustrator.Īdobe Illustrator has a variety of tools for drawing paths including the Pencil tool for creating fluid, beautiful curves and straight paths. There are a lot of paths and shapes you can create in Illustrator, and all of them are made up of anchor points, paths, and when necessary direction handles to create a curve. Then drag the end of a direction handle, and you'll see that the curve of the path changes. Try dragging this anchor point to move it. You'll see the Direction handles that control the curve. Move the pointer over one of the anchor points and then click to select it. You should see four anchor points that control the curve of the path. With the Direct Selection tool selected, click the edge of the circle shape to select it. In other words, all the anchor points are connected one to another in the shape. A shape like a circle or a square is a closed path, since the starting and ending points of the path are the same. The last type of path you'll look at are shapes. Try dragging the end of a handle, and you'll see that the curve of the path changes. And they can be used to curve a path and control the shape of that curve. Any anchor point you create can have these handles. These are called Direction handles or Control handles. You should see these lines coming from the anchor point now. When you see the word 'Anchor', click to select the anchor point. Move the pointer over the top anchor point of the curve. This can give you control over the shape of the path after you've created it. The Direct Selection tool can be used to adjust the path and the individual anchor points. To see the anchor points that control this path, select the Direct Selection tool in the Tools panel on the left. If you want to edit a path by adjusting the curve, for instance, you would edit the anchor points. Now to remove that color fill, choose Edit, Undo Apply Swatch. This path is called an open path because the anchor points on the ends of the path are not connected. Notice that the Stroke doesn't completely surrounds the fill. And then select a color I'll select this blue. Make sure the Swatches option is selected.
Notice that there is a Stroke applied to this path but no Fill. In the Properties panel to the right of the document, you'll see the properties of the selected path. Try dragging a corner of the box to see how it reshapes the path. If you don't see this bounding box, choose View, Show Bounding Box to turn them on. When you select a path with the Selection tool, a bounding box surrounds the path allowing you to resize, rotate, and transform the path as a whole.
Then select the Selection tool in the Tools panel on the left and click right on the curved path above the line. Select the Zoom tool in the Tools panel on the left and drag across this path to zoom in. Now let's look at a curved path like you see here. In a path like this, the anchor points control the length and direction of the path. Paths are composed of anchor points at the start and end of a simple path with a path or line segment connecting those anchor points. Then come out to the artwork and click right on this line to select it. Start by selecting the Selection tool in the Tools panel on the left. In this video, you'll find out what a vector path is made of by using different tools to explore paths in this project file. Which means you use it to create shapes and different types of paths. Adobe Illustrator is used for vector drawing.