Hi everyone, this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and today we're going to talk about
the Path Eraser Tool and the Join Tool in Illustrator CC.
And you have to have Illustrator CC to use the Join Tool for sure, and maybe even the
Path Eraser, but I'm not 100% sure on that.
So let's get started.
Now I'm pretty much going to do these in opposite order of the way they're listed, because it
makes more sense for me to have a few paths in order to use the Path Eraser Tool.
So we'll start off with the Join Tool.
Now first, when you use this, you kind of have to draw your shapes in a certain way.
So I'm going to draw a couple lines, and then I'll come in here and grab the Arc Tool.
And I'll just...I'll make sure to cross over this other line that I drew.
So I've got a little arch going here.
And I'm going to hit the Up button and bring that down like this.
I'm using the Up and Down buttons to get a different angle on that arc.
So now that I've got this, I'm going to Copy, Paste in Front, (that's CMD F).
I'll hit O and then I'll OPT Click right about where I want that to do a reflect, and then
do a Vertical reflect here.
OK, I'll need to move it in a little bit so that it crosses over in the same way.
And now I'm going to do a couple more arcs that go up and over like this.
I'm going to hit the Down button to get a little less of an arc.
And then I'll just hold OPT and drag this down so I get a little bit of a cross area.
There we go.
What I'm trying to draw here is a kind of shield.
So I'm going to just shrink it up a little bit so it has more of a shield look to it.
So now we can start using the Join Tool.
And to get to that, you go to the Pencil Tool and just choose Join right down here.
I'm going to zoom in a little.
And I'm going to select these two shapes.
And then I'll hold SHIFT and select this one too.
And I'm using my Group Selection Tool.
I have that set to G, but you could also use your V tool for that.
OK, so we have just the three outer lines.
And we'll go back to our Join Tool, and I'm just going to draw right over these like this.
And that gets rid of them.
For some reason, it deselects what you just did, and as far as I know, that is kind of
a new Illustrator thing.
I'm not sure why that happens, but it's been reported as a bug.
So you do have to reselect it.
I'm going to hold SHIFT and reselect that, and then we'll come down here to the Join
Tool again, and just do the same thing here.
Select this, and then do this again.
If you use this tool a lot, you can set up a keyboard shortcut by going to Edit> Keyboard
Shortcuts here, and then just choosing a key that you want to use for that.
And I really suggest doing that because it is a pain to always go right back up there
and get it.
OK, so the only things we have left are these two right here.
And now we'll just take the Join Tool and draw across both of those like this, reselect
it, and go back and do the same thing over here.
And I'm just going to do... go out here like this.
And that's pretty much what I want.
That will get the job done.
OK, so now we have all the pieces that we want.
I'm going to hit CMD A to select everything.
And we'll just hit the Shape Builder Tool, SHIFT M and then hit OPT and deselect these
pieces.
And as you can see, this doesn't look very good down here.
So I'll hit A, grab that little point, and just move it down like this.
Alright, so we have sort of a shield.
Yes, it's a little bit ugly.
I would definitely work on this a little more if this wasn't just a tutorial.
And now we'll go into the Shape Eraser Tool.
Let's increase the size of this to about 7.
There we go.
So it already looks way better.
But sometimes you just want an outline icon.
And you want the strokes to be adjustable.
And if you want to add something in here, you kind of have to get rid of part of this
line.
So the best way to do that is to go back to your Pencil Tool and go straight to the Path
Eraser Tool.
And then you just go over the part of the line that you don't want anymore.
So just like this, you move it right along that line.
And now you have an open section.
I'm going to add maybe a little circle in here, but first I'm going to select everything
and round the Cap and Corner.
That way we can get a nice look for the edges.
Now I'm going to hit L, and we'll add a little sun right in there, and then I'll hit my Backspace
and get some rays to go in here.
Maybe just something like this.
OK, well, like I said, if you're really wanted to do
something with this, you'd want to spend a little more time than I have here.
But there are other ways to do the same thing.
But I think these two tools just speed up the process if you find yourself erasing paths
a lot or drawing in the way where you overlap things, and you need to join them instead.
So that's my video for this week, just a short tutorial on those two little tools in your
Illustrator Tool Palette.
If you liked this video, please click on the 'Like' button, and I will see you next Thursday
for another graphic design tutorial.
Thank you!!!