Hello people, welcome to this video! Let's see all the basic features
used to draw in 2D and to drop fillings with CorelDRAW X8!
Leave us comments to improve our next videos!
CorelDRAW has several powerful tools to draw in 2D, in order to draw
freehand, draw lines, advanced curves or regular shapes. Let's see how.
To draw a single line freehand, straight or curved, you can use the
Freehand tool. To draw straight lines, fix two nodes in your workspace.
To draw curves instead, just click and hold your click while you define
the line.
To draw straight lines only, use the 2-Point Line, and click and drag
on your workspace.
To draw curves freehand, with a nice style, you can use the Artistic
Media tool, clicking and dragging on the page.
To draw curves precisely, you need to use other tools, like B-Spline,
3-Point Curve, Bézier and the Pen tool.
The 3-Point Curve is the most simple tool, basically used to create
arcs. Click and drag to fix the two endpoints, release your click, and
then move your pointer to shape the arc. When you click once again, the
arc will be dropped on your workspace.
B-Spline is another tool used to create curves. Differently from the
previous tools, this draws continuously a new curved node for each
fixed point. To finish drawing, double-click on the last node, or just
close the path by clicking on the first node.
The Bézier and the Pen tools are advanced tools to draw 2D lines.
In contrast to the B-Spline tool, the Bézier tool is used to draw
straight or curved sides quickly. Every time you click on your
workspace, you will fix a new node that will be used to create a
straight line with the previous node. But, if you click and hold on and
drag, you will drop a curved line that will be tangent to the latest
node, and so the following new one.
The Pen tool works just like the Bézier tool, with the difference that
you will go on drawing, until you double-click on the last node. This
is quite useful: in this case in fact, you always have a blue line
showing you a preview of what you are actually going to drop on your
workspace.
All these tools seen, a part from the Artistic Media tool, can be used
to draw also closed paths. All you need to do is to close the line by
fixing the last node on the first node of the shape, using the same
tool. This allows you to draw closed paths with a complete custom
shape.
If you need to draw more regular shapes, you can use the Polyline Tool.
With this, you can fix nodes quickly to draw straight sides, and click
and drag to draw completely freehand. The shape will be dropped when
you close it.
Always check the options above, to regulate the settings of your
drawing, such as shape and line style.
To draw regular 2D closed paths instead, you can use the three polygon
tools inside the Toolbox. You can choose to draw anything between
Rectangles, Ellipses, Polygons and useful shapes, like arrows and
spirals. Just click and drag on your workspace to fix the shape. On top,
you can change the kind shape to draw.
Let's see now how to edit your open or closed shape.
With the Pick tool enabled, click and drag the drawing to move it, and
use the black nodes in the corners to scale it. You can also rotate and
skew it by clicking once again with the Pick tool.
To edit the shape, you can also use all the tools inside the second
button of the Toolbox. For example, the Shape tool is used to edit the
shape of an object starting from its nodes and paths.
Each 2D object is defined by its own nodes, indicated by squared nodes,
and paths which are the straight or curved sides between two nodes.
With the Shape tool enabled, you can click and drag a node to move it,
in order to change the shape of the paths connected to it.
Plus, if you click and drag, you will create a selection area, useful
to select and edit multiple nodes at the same time.
You can also remove a node double-clicking on it.
If you double-click on a path, you will add a new node on it, useful
to edit and customize each side.
Even more, if you select a node that is tangent to a curved side, you
can manage its arrows (or handles) to change the curved paths as you
like.
You can also use the Pen tool to edit your drawings. Select your path
with the Pick tool first, and add new nodes clicking on the path,
or remove nodes clicking on the existing ones.
Even more, if you hold ALT down on a node and drag, you will transform
a straight angle into a curved one, tangent to the selected node.
To simply move a path as it is, just click and drag it while holding
ALT down.
To edit a curve precisely, hold CTRL down and click on a node
linked to a curved path. The blue handles will appear, very useful to
edit each curve.
Inside the second button of the Toolbox you have other advanced tools
you can apply on your 2D drawing. Just select the interested object,
and click and drag on it to apply the effect, as much as you like.
Remember that you can adjust the effect settings above.
Let's now see how to fill your 2D drawing objects! There are several
ways to fill them.
You can fill 2D objects by using the Object Properties panel on the
right, by using the Fill section, and choosing the kind of filling and
its color. You can choose between a Uniform fill, that applies a solid
flat color; a Fountain fill, that drops a gradient on the object, made
by two colors you can choose from the panel; a Vector pattern fill or
Bitmap pattern fill, that fills the object by repeating a chosen pattern.
Choose No fill to remove any filling applied instead.
To fill quickly, you can use the filling tools, like the Smart Fill tool
and the Interactive Fill tool.
Use the Smart Fill tool to fill drawings by clicking on their enclosed
area. This adds a filling with a color and a contour color indicated
in the bottom right corner.
The filling added with the Smart Fill tool spreads until the first
boundaries met, even in case these are defined by multiple objects.
So, to fill larger areas, just click over these boundaries.
You can also use the Interactive Fill tool to apply fast gradients
on your objects. Differently from the Smart Fill tool, this tool is
applied on a selected object, with its own boundaries only.
When you click and drag, you will fix a blue arrow and a white circle.
This blue arrow represents the gradient direction that passes from the
first color, indicated by the first square, and the second color, where
the blue arrow is pointing at. To change the direction, you can move
the circle. Then, by moving the small rectangle in the middle, you can
adjust the transition between the two colors.
The filling applied with the Object Properties panel or the tools may
be different. In fact, as long as you use the Object Properties panel,
the filling you apply is a changed property on the curve itself. In
fact, in these cases the curve will remain a single object, as you can
see from the Object Manager list. But, if you create a filling with the
Smart Fill tool or the Interactive tool, this filling will be a 2D
object on its own, with the same shape of the boundaries, but with its
own contours and properties.
Thanks for watching this video! Check out our full guide to discover all
the amazing features inside CorelDRAW X8!!