Ok, here we go. The most incredible tool is at your fingertips…but every time you try to use it, it does these completely weird things and takes over! ARGHHHH!
The Pen Tool is an amazing tool. It can help you create amazing vectors and designs that have beautiful curves, the sharpest angles and can be endlessly resized without ever losing quality! It is how I create 99% of my T-Shirt and Skate Deck designs.
So, today, I will attempt to explain the basics of how to use the Pen Tool with a groovy little tutorial (and character) to get you started. I firmly believe that you will learn the Pen Tool much quicker when you are actually using it!
Here is the cute little flame character we will be making today >
This little flame character took me about 5 mins to make, but creating, posting and editing this 4 page tutorial took me 5 hours! So please show a bit of love and view some of my designs on the home page of Diesellaws.com - Thank you!
Print these following pages or read along as I initiate you into the wonderful world of the Pen Tool.
START THE TUTORIAL!
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1. Open a NEW canvas in Photoshop with these settings and Click OK. Click on FILE and SAVE AS. Find somewhere in your computer to save your file. If you are not sure, save it to the desktop.
2. To the right of screen should be your layers palette. Click and make a NEW LAYER.
3. To the left of screen on the sidebar, Double Click the Foreground Colour and in the popup box change it to Red then Click OK. (This will be the characters body colour)
4. In the left sidebar, Click on the Pen Tool.
5. In the middle of your canvas, Click to make a POINT. A little bit below that point, Click and HOLD to make a second point, then DRAG the mouse to the left and RELEASE (This will BEND the line). TIP: To make a straight line when dragging, hold down the SHIFT key.
6. Click on the first point to CLOSE the SHAPE.
Congratulations. You have created your first CUSTOM SHAPE with the Pen Tool. Now you can continue to Page 2. Don’t forget to quickly save it as you go by holding the CTRL key and pressing S or go to FILE and SAVE.
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