hi everyone this is Anne w/ graphic design how-to and today we're going to be
talking about the shape builder tool there are a lot of different ways to use
this and we're going to go over all the ways that I know of and we're also going
to do a few little projects so you can see it in action so let's get started
okay we're in Illustrator and I've created a new document by hitting
command N or ctrl N on my keyboard and then just opening any size. so first
we're going to hit M to draw a few squares and then I'm going to hit B
which is my brush tool, come over here to my brushes palette and make sure I have
one of these at the top selected. I'll just draw some shapes across here. now
the first thing we're going to do with the shape builder tool is to merge and
when you merge something you have to have them overlapping. let's hit V and
click on this one and pull it over top so it's overlapping, then we'll select
both of them, hit shift M which is our shape builder tool and then just drag
across the three that combines them into one shape I'm going to hit V to get back
to my selection tool, then I'm gonna switch these by hitting shift X. you can
see this is one shape. if we hit command Y they actually are joined together now.
this one is a stroke. brushes our way strokes let's increase the stroke a
little bit here and now I want to show you what happens when you try to merge
these shapes. I'll hit shift M will do the same and
you're going to get some weird results when you try this let's undo, command z.
so if you wanted to actually merge these you would have to select this stroke and
then come up here to object>expand appearance. now this is not a stroke
anymore it's a fill. so now we can merge it just like we did with these two
shapes if we wanted to do that we can select both hit shift in and then drag
across all of these areas like this all right let's undo the second thing I
want to show you about the shape builder tool is
how to extract parts of it so let's select both and now just click once in
here and what that's done it's taken the pieces and divided them so each one of
these pieces is separate now now hit a we'll click off click on a piece and
just drag it out of there and all of these pieces have become separate now
okay I'm going to back up command Z now I'm going to show you how to subtract
parts of shapes so we can take our two shapes again highlight them then click
shift m to get to our shape builder tool over here hold option we can click to
remove some pieces that we don't want if you let off option you can go ahead and
just combine the extra pieces alright let's back up one more time and
this last thing I'm going to show you is just a way to create a shape from the
negative shapes that your shapes are making if that makes sense all right so
let's hit L to draw a circle so I'm gonna draw I'm going to hold shift and
draw a circle with this part of shape builder you absolutely have to have
things aligned so go up to view and make sure Snap to point is on now I'm going
to go up here to my group selection tool we'll click right on this anchor point
and I'm going to shift an option and drag it over until it snaps right on to
that other anchor point over there now I'll hit em and start right here from
that anchor point until it snaps there too I'll select all three of these with
the V tool which is the selection tool and now you can see this shape in here
now all we have to do is hit shift M click once in here and it will create a
shape we can use our a tool and click and drag this out so that can be a way
of using it if you want to work with the negative shapes all right let's select
all and delete now I'm going to show you how to make some laurels I'm gonna get a
green color here no maybe a little slightly darker green hit L on my
keyboard for the circle tool and I'll hold shift while dragging
I'm gonna hit V click-and-drag and then hold shift an option
then I'll select both hit shift M to get our shape builder tool and click once
right in between there and now I'll hit a click on this and pull it out now that
I have the edge of our Laurel I don't need this anymore I'm just going to
delete it I'll hit V select this one and then hit R to rotate this a little bit
maybe hold shift to get an exact 45-degree angle alright hit V and then
we'll pull this down like this and then hit command D now we can't select all of
these you'll notice that the bounding box might be sideways like this if
that's the case you can come up here to object transform reset bounding box so
that it's straight up and down and that does matter if you're rotating and
flipping things I'm gonna hit a on my keyboard for the reflect tool and I'll
option click right here now that sets an anchor point and it also brings us out
the reflec dialog box so we're gonna do a vertical reflect and we'll preview
that and then we'll hit copy and this is what we'll get so let's move this over a
little bit with shift and our arrows let's make these overlap a little bit
and I'm gonna select all of them and now we'll hit shift M to get to our shape
builder and I'm gonna hold shift and just draw a box around everything
if we hit command Y you can see that it's combined everything in there hit
command Y again to get back to where you were
and now while we're at it let's just create a brush I'll hit V and I'm gonna
drag this over here to the brushes palette
we'll make a pattern brush say okay oh my gosh let's cancel that let's rotate
this around to the side I'm holding shift to get it exactly on the 90 degree
plane all right let's pull this into our brushes palette and we'll make a pattern
brush alright it's looking pretty good I'll say okay now we can hit B
draw with our new pattern brush you would have to tweak it quite a bit to
keep this kind of thing for happening but you get the idea it's kind of fun to
make your own brushes alright so that is the shape builder tool alright that's my
video for this week if you liked it please click on the like button and I'll
see you next week for another graphic design tutorial thank you