Introducing the Pen tool - Illustrator Tutorial

- [Instructor] In this movie, I'll introduce you to Illustrator's pre-eminent drawing tool, the pen tool, which has been with us in one form or another since the very first version of the software. Now, like the curvature tool, the pen tool allows you to create custom path outlines, one anchor point at a time. However, unlike the curvature tool, which is designed to create curvature by default, clicking with the pen tool creates corners. And so it's very useful for creating free-form polygons, like the front edge of this chair. We'll also be creating these curving edges at the top of the chair. Now, I want to stress that this is just an introduction to the pen tool, it is so amazingly powerful that I have two courses about this tool at LinkedIn Learning. The first one is called Learning the Pen Tool, and the second one is called Adobe Pen Tool Mastery. So you can check those out at your leisure. In any event, I'm going to switch over to this document, which contains some custom guidelines in order to create that free-form polygon. All right, so I'll go ahead and select the pen tool from the top of this flyout menu right here. And then, let's begin the path outline right here. Now notice, if you will, that the pen tool cursor has a little asterisk next to it. And just as when you see an asterisk with the curvature tool, that tells you that you're going to begin a new path outline. And so I'm going to start by clicking at this location here, and then I'll move my cursor, and notice as I do, I'm seeing a straight line connecting that first anchor point, which is a corner point, to my cursor. And that's what's known as the rubber band preview, by the way. All right, now I'll click at this point right here, and that connects those two anchor points with a straight line. Now we're going to be able to see that line a little better if I increase the line weight, and so I'll go ahead and take that line weight value, here in the properties panel, up to four points, and also click on the fill, and I'll get rid of it, by setting it to none. Because otherwise we're going to block our view of the other path outlines. All right, now I'll press the enter key, or the return key on the Mac, to accept that change, and I'll drop down to the end of this guideline right here, and click once again in order to create yet another corner point. And notice that Illustrator goes ahead and connects those points with straight segments. All right, now I'll just keep clicking, so I'll click right there, and then I'll click at this corner, at this one right here, and then you want to go up the arm, and so each time you click, you create a corner point, and Illustrator connects that point to the last point with a straight segment. Now I'll click right here, in order to create a segment along the top of the arm of the chair, and then I'll click up at this point right there, and notice that I just messed things up, and that's because I clicked on an end point of an open path outline. And so let me do that again, I'll press control+z, or command+z on the Mac, so we can see what went wrong. Notice that my cursor currently looks like the pen tool, and nothing more. We're not seeing any special doodads next to it, and that tells me that I'm continuing to work on my freeform path outline. However, as soon as I move my cursor to this spot right here, I see a little anchor point, and that tells me that I'm going to connect these two path outlines, which is not what I want. So, I'm going to switch back to the black arrow tool, by pressing the v key, and then I'll click off the paths to deselect them, and I'll go ahead and click on this path outline to select it, as well as this path outline. So both of those open paths that represent the back of the chair, and then I'll go up to the object menu, choose lock, and choose selection, in order to lock those path outlines down. All right, now notice, if I click on this path outline in order to select it, and then I switch to the pen tool, if I hover over this endpoint right here, I see a slash next to my cursor, and that tells me that if I click at that location, I'm going to extend that open path outline. And now notice, when I position my cursor at this location, that I do not see that little anchor point. In fact, I just see the pen tool, which tells me that I'm just continuing my existing path outline. But if I drop down to here, I've got a problem again. I can see that little anchor point next to the cursor, and so what I need to do is press the v key to switch back to the black arrow tool, and then click on this path outline, go up to the object menu, choose lock, and then choose selection, in order to lock down that path outline. All right, now I'll go ahead and click on my path in progress, to once again select it, and then I'll get my pen tool, and I'll move my cursor over this end point, at which time you can see that I have a little slash next to the cursor, which tells me that I am going to extend that path, and now notice when I position my cursor over this endpoint here, because that path outline is locked, I don't see that little anchor point next to my cursor, and that means that I'm safe. And so I'll just go ahead and click along these points here, and finally, when I position my cursor over the very first anchor point, I'm seeing a little circle, which shows me that I am going to close this path outline. And now notice once again, my cursor has a little asterisk next to it, which indicates that it's ready to draw a new path outline. And so I'll just go ahead and trace along this custom guideline right here, and make sure that you can see that little magenta line, that shows you that you've got a snap, and then drop down here and click, and by the way, if you want to ensure that you're getting an exactly vertical segment, then press the shift key. That will constrain the angle of your segment to the nearest 45 degree increment. All right, so I'll shift-click right there, and then I'll click over at this location, and finally I'll move my cursor over the first point I created, and I'll see a little circle next to my cursor, which indicates that I'm about to close the path outline. All right, now what I want to do is fill these path outlines, as well as modify the stroke, notice that we have some sharp corners going right here, and so I'll press the v key to switch to my black arrow tool, and I'll shift-click on this first path outline that I drew, and then I'll go ahead and grab the eyedropper tool, and I'll click on this path outline right here, in order to lift its fill and stroke attributes. All right, now at this point you can see that I have two filled path outlines, I actually want the central path to form a hole. And so I'll right-click anywhere inside the document window, and then I'll choose "Make Compound Path," not "Make Clipping Mask," but "Make Compound Path," in order to turn the inside path into a hole. And now, I'll press the v key to switch back to the black arrow tool, and I'll click off the path outline to deselect it. And then finally, I'll go up to the object menu and choose "Unlock All" to unlock those path outlines. Now that actually unlocks a little bit too much, so I'll go up to the select menu and choose the deselect command, to deselect my artwork, and then I'll click on this top gradient, and shift-click on this bottom one, in order to select those two very big rectangles, and then I'll return to the object menu, choose lock, and choose selection in order to lock those two path outlines down. And that is how you click with the pen tool in order to create custom free-form polygons, here inside Illustrator.