Pen Tool Tutorial -- a work in progress

What do XaraX, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, CorelDraw and After Effects have in common? The pen tool!

When I teach graphics classes, I find this is the tool which frightens students the most. In the past, I've been of little help. I've quickly demoed the tool, and I've mumbled something like "you'll just need to practice this one until you get it." From what my students tell me, other teachers do pretty much the same thing.

So many people give up on the pen tool. And while it's possible to do interesting work in Xara without touching it, for some apps, like After Effects, it's vital! And surely even in Xara, most people would benefit by learning to use it.

So I'm no longer content to skip over this tool. I'm trying to develop a pen-tool tutorial. You can view a rough draft of part one here:

http://www.grumblebee.com/bezier/pen.gif

I'm posting this, because I'd love some suggestions. When you first leaned to use the pen, what made the lightbulb go on for you?

If you struggle with the pen, what is your biggest hang up?

Have you ever taught anyone to use the pen? What method did you use and how effective was it? Did you use any clever analogies?

Note: I know one can draw beziers in Xara with the shape-editor tool instead of the pen (perhaps this is even the best way to draw curves in Xara), but I want to stick with the pen tool, because it's a standard. I've found that once I learn how to use it in one app, it's pretty easy to modify the same steps slightly to get it to work in another app.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

What do XaraX, PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, CorelDraw and After Effects have in common? The pen tool!

When I teach graphics classes, I find this is the tool which frightens students the most. In the past, I've been of little help. I've quickly demoed the tool, and I've mumbled something like "you'll just need to practice this one until you get it." From what my students tell me, other teachers do pretty much the same thing.

So many people give up on the pen tool. And while it's possible to do interesting work in Xara without touching it, for some apps, like After Effects, it's vital! And surely even in Xara, most people would benefit by learning to use it.

So I'm no longer content to skip over this tool. I'm trying to develop a pen-tool tutorial. You can view a rough draft of part one here:

http://www.grumblebee.com/bezier/pen.gif

I'm posting this, because I'd love some suggestions. When you first leaned to use the pen, what made the lightbulb go on for you?

If you struggle with the pen, what is your biggest hang up?

Have you ever taught anyone to use the pen? What method did you use and how effective was it? Did you use any clever analogies?

Note: I know one can draw beziers in Xara with the shape-editor tool instead of the pen (perhaps this is even the best way to draw curves in Xara), but I want to stick with the pen tool, because it's a standard. I've found that once I learn how to use it in one app, it's pretty easy to modify the same steps slightly to get it to work in another app.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

Marcus

For some reason the tutorial starts out OK and then reduced to fit the screen and everything is too small to see.

I have heard some people complain that Xara's Pen Tool does not work in quite the same way as say Illustrator's Pen tool.

On the other hand, because it is so easy, and so much more intuitive to shape lines with both the Pen Tool and/or the Shape Editor Tool by dragging on the line segment, there does not seem to be much percentage in learning how to draw with Bezier curves.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

Hmm. Looks okay on my screen, but I'll fool around with it and see what I can do.

If the only app you're ever going to use is Xara, you don't necessarily have to learn the pen tool. But many programs rely on it, and Xara DOES have a pen tool.

It doesn't seem that different from Adobe's pen to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

Gary, when you draw a curve -- since you don't use the pen tool -- do you just draw a straight line and then pull its segment to get the curve you want?

What is your starting point? Is it like working with clay: you start with a vaguely-shaped blob and then pull it into shape?

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

To Gary,
MS Internet Explorer has a new "function" which automatically reduces bitmap to screen size.
Going with the mouse on top of the reduced image, you should notice a small icon at the right bottom which allows you to enlarge again.

ciao
Luciano

Hi Marcus, I think the easiest way to learn to use it is to practice drawing something simple that can easily be drawn with a pencil, not to worry about accuracy, just get the lines down and use the shape editor to make corrections. Then trace a bitmap that is a bit more complex. I would say the hardest thing to do is closing a path, sometimes ya got to zoom in. Myself, I love to paint bitmaps, most of the time I use Xara's pen tool to clean up the edges and make sharp lines on a bitmap, it is a very important tool for my style of drawing and I would not do very well without it.

MB

Good work, Grumblebee!

In my bookmark I've found the url of a very interesting site that features step-by-step instructions to master vector shapes using the pen tool, and they provide exercice files for several illustration programs. the url is

http://www.sketchpad.net

Best wishes,

-------------------------
Joan M. Mas
TypePhases: Dingbats and Fonts for yer computor!
http://inicia.es/de/jmas
-------------------------

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> MS Internet Explorer has a new "function" which automatically reduces bitmap to screen size.
Going with the mouse on top of the reduced image, you should notice a small icon at the right bottom which allows you to enlarge again. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So that is what that button is for ;-) Thanks Luciano.

Marcus -- I do not draw very much. Rather I use primatives and modify them. If I need to draw, I either use the Freehand Tool, or use the Pen or Shape Editor Tool and draw a series of straight line segments that approximate the shape I am trying to create and then drag the line segments into elegant, gracefull curves :-)

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

Marcus, your tutorial looks good - keep it up. My pen tool advice to folks is duh-simple: just click and drag!

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

I use the FreeHand tool and clean it up with the shape editor or I use the shape editor directly; and clean as I go.

I prefer to dice and slice rectangles and circles and put them together in to what I need. This is easier on the mind as you don't have to worry about any goofy artifact at a high magnification.

If the created object looks to stiff - I "mangle" it with the Mould Tool a little bit.

Risto

risto@ristoklint.com

Visit my web site!

It's interesting to find out how everyone creates shapes.

Klaus, I agree that you click and drag. The question, for must newbies, is WHICH DIRECTION TO DRAG? and WHY?

I guess that's two questions.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

Hi Marcus,

that's a nice pen tool tutorial.
The Help File makes it pretty clear that the Pen is in Xara mainly because users coming from other apps (i.e. CD or AI) are familiar with its workings. As far as I can see, the pen tool in Xara is limited in that it doesn't offer the choice of *either* smooth or cusp join (as does Illustrator's Pen, and of course the Xara Shape Editor) - I only manage to do curvy lines with it.
I'm still new enough to Xara not to have any particular preference between these tools. I can see how with practice the Pen tool may prove faster for drawing smooth curvy lines ... but that's all.

Regards,
Britta
"I'm mad as a bat"

but I, like many others, don't use that tool to much or that often. Maybe for newbies that are coming over from using that tool in other vector programs would like that familiarity (spell that one right??)

I am with Risto. I use allot of basic shapes and cut, dice and slice them. I've gotten really pretty good with the feathering tool and I love the eliptical transparency.

I actually use the freehand/brush tool allot now. Great for drawing shapes, with ALLOT of control over smoothing, then I can slice out another shape with the created shape or use it for something else. Like creating a human head shape [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Keep up the good work, all is appreciated, for sure!!!

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

It's interesting to hear that so many people like the freehand too. Perhaps Xara should beef it up. Have any of you tried Expression2? Xara is a better app for most vector work, but Expression's freehand tool rocks!

I'd like to see Xara's brushes get a bit easier to use. It would be great to be able to easily save a brush w/o having to save a whole file.

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

Yes, Marcus - I've long been an Expression fan. And yes, XX's brushes are a pain to use in some ways.

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

I'd admit to using Xara similarly to how Gary describes.

Almost all of my drawing is done using the Shape Editor tool, and where I need to I use the Freehand tool.

I never ever use the Pen tool - in fact, I don't even have the Pen tool on my icon bar; when I install Xara I always customise the icons to my way of working, which includes removing the Pen Tool!


Stu.

I agree with most of the above. The "bezier" tool is the hardest for me to use and, therefore, least used.

When drawing straight line segments I use the FREEHAND tool in combination with Alt and Ctrl+Alt (constrained straIght line) BECAUSE I can SEE the line as its BEING DRAWN and BEFORE I anchor (left-mouse click) the other end point of the line. This, to me, is a very important feature.

you say you customize the icons on the toolbar. How do you do that?? I can add other toolbars, I can determine if the icons are smaller or large and the bars can float or snap to any of the 4 sides of the work area, but customize, can't figure it out.

HELP!!

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Regards, John

But I never use shape tool for creation of line shapes only for editing.

All set and quite happy now with the toolbars!!

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Xara icon bars are very easy to customise. Just choose the Control Bars option from the Window menu, which you no doubt have used to adjust the size/position of the the standard icon bars.

All you need to do is click New..., then scroll to the bottom of the list and turn on the Button Palette. From there you can (using the alt key) drag any icon to your new bar.

I tend to use the default Infobar, Toolbar and Galleries bar, dump the rest and create my own. By saving the Xara BarsNormal registry key from HKCU you can preserve your hard work should you need to re-install in the future.

Stu

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John Clements:
Regards, John<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where exactly on the help... I've been looking and found nothing

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ernesto:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John Clements:
Regards, John<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where exactly on the help... I've been looking and found nothing<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Found it on the past postings!!!

thank you Stu!

Several months ago I spent an entire day going back and forth between Photoshop 5.5, Illustrator 9 and Xara X, getting the idea of how to use their pen tools, and noting the differences.

At the end of this exercise I was pretty good with the Xara Pen Tool, but I seldom use it because it is so cumbersome for most purposes.

When I use Xara, the Freehand and Shape Editor Tools are just easier and faster for most purposes. It is handy to know how to use the Pen Tool though, because it comes in handy for creating symmetrical shapes and certain types of curves.

A good exercise is to create as near perfect a circle as you can using the Pen Tool, creating four connecting arcs one after another in the same curve. This exercise made something "click" in my brain.

http://talkgraphics.infopop.net/1/Op...&ul=1101906325
Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll