How to Use the Pen Tool in Adobe Illustrator

1.2 Getting to Grips With the Pen Tool

[SOUND] Hello everybody and welcome to Envato Tuts+ and welcome to this Coffee Break Course about the Pen tool in Adobe illustrator CC. The Pen tool is one of the most important tools that you can learn when tackling Adobe illustrator. Once you know how to use it, you can create some awesome stuff, and this tool will never leave you again. So let's explore it, and let's give a quick overview of how you can quickly learn the Pen tool. You'll find the Pen tool here in the tool bar. And then hover over it, you will get the little callout Pen tool, and the shortcut for the Pen tool is P. And then below, we have more tools for the Pen tool. As you can see the one with the plus sign is called Add Anchor Point tool. The one below that is the Delete Anchor Point tool with the minus sign. And then we have the Anchor Point tool. So let's explore all those tools. So if I type on the right side here. I will expand our little toolbar for the Pen tool. In the beginning the Pen tool might be a little bit scary. But don't worry once you've practiced a few things, you will really get a handle on it. So first, I would like to set my colors to just a black stroke and none for the fill. Now, with the Pen tool selected, let's create our first path. First we click once and as you can see, we see a red line here. And I have my smart guides on. So if that is confusing to you, you can turn it off easily by Cmd or Ctrl+Undo and then we can create a line. If i just move the mouse or your graphic pan around, you can see that recreating a straight line with the Pen tool. So anyway on the out port and I click again, we've created a first path. You could see that it continues and I could just continue again, making a straight line. I don't have to drag or press any shortcut. I just make another anchor point. Then anywhere on the out port and other anchor point. When I go over and close to path, you will see that we're getting a little circle. This means that the beginning the first anchor point that we've made will now be merged with the last anchor point, making closing the path so to speak. And here it is, you created your first shape with the Pen tool. Now if you wanted to add point to your shape. You would just select the Add Anchor Point tool and you can see you have a plus sign now. So anywhere on the path you can add an anchor point and you can see receive the little red square. That this is a new anchor point on your path. Now, if I select the Direct Selection tool and select one of those anchor points, I can move them. And as you can see because you've added anchor points to your shape, you can like morph it into a different shape now. Now let's say you've created too many anchor points and you would like to remove some. We can use that the Delete Anchor Point tool for this. So when we select it, we'll get the minus sign. And when we go over one of the points and click it, it will remove it. So again, if I go over the anchor point, it will remove it. If I remove too many, I'll just select the Add Anchor Point tool again. Add a point, use the Direct Selection tool, and make my shape again. Now let's tell me this shape here. And let's create another path with the Pen tool. But this time I want to create actually a curve. So how can we do this? First, we'll click once then we see our straight line. Then we click again but we hold the point, we don't let go and then drag. And as you can see now, you see handles coming up on the side of the path. And now you can control what kind of curve you would like to make. As you can see, when you move the handles around, or your mouse on the art board or with the graphic pen, you can see that the handles are in equal length. No matter how much you pull them or contract them they'll always have to same length. Now what if you wanted to have actually one side shorter. Let me show you a little trick. If you press the Option key or the Alt key on the keyboard, and then move it around, now you can see you're only moving one handle. But first, let me show you what happens when we don't do this and we want to create a curve. So I let go and now I have a curve. If I want to make it to the top or to the bottom or trying to create a circle, you can see now with the path guide what kind of path you're creating next. So if I click once again and now we've created a curve. As you can see when you select one of the anchor points with the Direct Selection tool, you'll get the handlebars again. And you can alter it how you like it or how you need to alter it and change it into any kind of other shape or curve. The first point does not have any handles. And if you wanted to actually continue with this same path all you would have to do again is choose the Pen tool and you can see a dash line. That means that we can reconnect by this point here. So we click it and now you can see that I'm creating another path. So I would like to have a curve again. So i click, I pull the handles, then I let go. And then I go to the last point, I see the circle, I click, now I've created a closed path again. Now what if I wanted to have this point here, not as a corner point, but as a curve point. Now we can use actually the Anchor Point tool. So if we select the Anchor Point Tool. And click once on the anchor point. We can add handlebars to that point. Meaning, we create instead of a corner point, a curve point. And again, if you would like to change it back to a corner point. We can still use the same tool, the Anchor Point Tool. But we have to actually press the Option or Alt key on the keyboard and click once. And we remove the curved point. Now let me show you quickly how we can create a leaf with the Pen tool. So I select the Pen tool, I click once. I click on the bottom, I hold and I pull out. I see both of my handles in equal size I let go. But I would like to make a corner point here. So instead of actually having to switch to the Anchor Point tool, I can just hover over the point, click once and it make it into a corner point. Then I want to close the path but instead of letting go I still keep it pressed and I drag out. And as you can see now I have another handle and I can let go, now I've created a leaf like shape. And this is really what the Pen tool is all about. You can create some awesome shapes with it and once you know exactly how to use the Pen tool you will never want to forget what you've learned. I have prepared a little exercise for us. Just to show how the Pen tool works again. Now let me delete this here and let me show you what we're going to be working with. Now let's start creating our little icon here of the fleur de lis with the pinto. So as you can see here we have to guide. And a little anchor point helpers. And so we're going to choose the Pen tool. We'll start by clicking to create the first anchor point. Then we click on the next one, we hold, and then we drag until our path follows the guide and then we let go. Then reclicking on the next anchor point, hold and drag to adjust it, then we let go. Again, click on the next anchor point. Repeat this step if you hold and drag the handles until our path follows the guide and then we let go. Next anchor point, hold and drag. And then we're going to create a corner point by clicking on it once and then we'll continue. And this step we're going to repeat until we have our first shape in place. At the end here we're closing the path and you can see the little circle. So when we click once, hold and drag, you can close the path. And voila, we've created our first shape with the Pen tool. Next we want to create the middle part here. And since we're going to be smart about it, we only want to create half of it. So again, the Pen tool selected. I set my first anchor point, click the next one, hold and drag to create my curve and I'm pulling out the handles, then I let go. Set the next point, hold and drag again and then let it go. Another point, hold and drag then I want to create a corner point. I click once on it and then I'm sending the last point down here. Now we just have to create one more part here for the middle. Again I used the Pen tool, set my first point. Go to the next and if I want to be exactly straight, I can press the shift key and then press once. Then I'm going to set the other anchor point. I hold, press to shift key as well, and then I drag and you can see, I am creating the handles in a 90 degree angle vertically. So when I'm happy with it I let go and then I create a corner point. Now we are ready actually to finish the rest of the shapes. But instead of drawing them with the Pen tool, you can use the Reflect tool. So let's select a shape here then let's select the reflect tool. The shortcut for this is o on the keyboard. And then we'll pick where we want to reflect it to. I will hold the Shift and the Option or Alt key and then I let go. I might want to move it in place a little bit more, then I'm selecting both of them again. Repeat the step and reflect it again. The same thing I will do with this one here in the middle, and I will circle like shape here on the outside. I select both and then I will reflect them. Now if I turn off the guides you can see here is what we've created. We might have to do a little bit of a cleanup, and let me add the anchor point helpers here. You can see that our shapes here are not closed. So when we zoom in, now in order to join them, I can actually use the Join tool. The Join tool you will find where the pencil tool or the shaper tool is just on the bottom. Now, in order to join them, I don't have to select anything, I'll just go over and make like a red, little circle. And you see? It joined it. The same thing I will do here and on the outside here. Now if I use my Selection tool and select it, you can see the shape has now been closed. Now we want to do the same thing with this part here. As you can see, these two shapes are not joined. So again, I use the joint tool, mark what I want to join, and they will be joined. Then I'm moving downwards, and you can see here, we are not joined either. Again mark it and look, now the path is joined. Now, let me zoom out and here's our shape: a fleur de lis, created with the Pen tool. And this is it for now with the Pen tool. Now let me show you the final that I have created and I just added another path in here. I created another shape and I split it. And I gave it a different color. But this little exercise will really help you to get familiar with the Pen tool. And try out some curves, some straight lines, and some corner points. Let's quickly head over to the conclusion, and recap everything. What we've just learned in this Coffee Break Course about the Pen tool here on Envato Tuts+.