so today a short but a sweet Illustrator tutorial on some advanced tips when
using the pen tool what is that people welcome back to you
Satori graphics the home graphic design content right here on YouTube now for
the first Ella straight a pencil tip let's first take a look at the basic
method to try and recreate this grade line here and then afterwards I'm gonna
show you the advanced tips to improve things so normally you might go ahead
and grab the pen tool and then click and make some curved lines like so
however the problem here is that you don't have full control over the handles
and thus the line doesn't really come out smooth and perfect as we'd wish you
can see in the final outcome how kinked and how jagged the line actually is so
let's move it out of the way and use a different technique with the pen tool
instead of clicking once and the heading to the second anchor point
hold down the first click and extend out two handles now quick tip here is that
stretching the handles in the direction that you intend to create the line
really does help to make some smooth lines and then for the second anchor
points I can repeat the action of holding down a click and expanding the
handles to the direction of the line using this tip you would be able to make
some smoother and better pen tool paths in Adobe Illustrator also whilst of them
the vector path you can hold down the alt or the option key to cut a specific
handle away from the path and then you can manipulate it on its own
so as you can see this technique really results in some smooth pen tool paths
the next one I have showcased on my channel before but in case you've never
seen it we don't actually need to make curved lines to end up with a decent
curved vector path instead we can simply click in our anchor points in the
general direction that we wish to go and then when ready hold down the alt option
key and then click once more you can then manipulate the line like I'm doing
here so many designers find this method easier especially more beginner users to
Adobe Illustrator you can take your time to use the option key and create some
super smooth curves so we're now going to go back to the technique of holding
down a click and extending the handles outwards and we're going to try and
recreate this line here but see what happens when I arrive at the sharp turn
at the end of the line my extended handle is far too long and thus my pen
tool path is not going to match the line that I intend to take now I can just
click the anchor point and continue but that's quite messy and the line doesn't
look so neat and smooth as I like it to be it's pretty kinked and it's sharp in
the corner which isn't what I want so here's the advanced pen tool tip for
this situation click and extend the handles out as usual
but when you realize your handle is either too long or too short hold down
the command key on a Mac or the control key on a PC and your pencil path will be
locked in position but the only difference is that you can manipulate
the relevant handle the handle influences the next course for the path
so you want to have control over its when you're using the pen tool in
Illustrator so again I'll hold down the command or
control key and stretch out the handles like so in the direction that I wish to
take and as you can see the line is a lot more similar to the original one so
moving on to more advanced tips with the illustrator pencil we're going to
utilize the shift key in combination with the techniques that we just used
so when holding down shift the handles fixed to a 45 degree position and for
the S shape here this is actually really perfect
the second point doesn't require that are you shift to get the line perfect
but also I'm gonna use the autopsy key to make some adjustments to the path as
I go and then down to the third points I again will use a shift function to lock
it perfectly vertically
so finally in today's pen tooltips tutorial let's repeat the same technique
but halfway through making the second point I might feel that the point is in
the wrong position so I can actually hold down the spacebar and then relocate
the Anchor Point itself I'll show you that one more time here in the third
point so simply hold down the spacebar on your keyboard and then you can
relocate the point remember if you want to keep boosting your skills as a
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next time guys design your future today peace
you