That damn pen tool

[gRasole]

Well, so many people hate the damn thing or want to learn how to use it and since it was starting to run into a lot of other threads I figured if someone has a question they can just post it here and anyone who can will try and answer it. The best way to start off would probably be to post a link to the video that explains the basics really well here. I hope this thread will help people.

[Kalfireth]

Good idea, I've worked it out for myself now by fiddling but if you don't know what it does then clicking randomly will only confuse you. It's best to watch that movie and then get yourself a line to try it on (preferably curvy, since that's the point).

[DinoCow]

Wow. Thank you! That was incredibly helpful. I learned a lot from that tutorial. Anchors, paths... wow. LoL. I am one step closer to successfully inking a drawing online without breaking a wrist. Thank you gRasole!

[freddy]

heh, thats the video I uploaded on my site. Yeah, it's very good for anyone who wants to learn how to use the pen tool, i know lots of people who been helped out with it.

If you want to learn more about photoshop i suggest you head over to lynda.com. Great stuff there.

[gRasole]

Yeah, don't thank me, thank freddy he supplied the video, I just made a thread specially for it. So lets all thatnk him verry much for the video and the new avatar that will be causing us all to have siezures.

For someone who types so much I really am very bad at it.

[freddy]

heh, wasn't looking for thanks... i just know how much that pen tool bothered me, just glad you lot could benefit from this video also.

Thanks goes to Lynda.com! (credit where credit is due of course).

[Matthew J]

you know, it would just figure that i find a thread with a new video for me to download and i'm at work!  ah, i hope i remember to check that out when i get home!  (ps - thanks for the redirection hawk!)

[Hawk]

i just found this...

http://www.sketchpad.net/illustrator.htm

thought it would help

[Matthew J]

i just skimmed it really quick, and it looks pretty good.  thanks a lot hawk!

[bask]

Crud!

The link is broken. I wanted to watch it again.

[lukus001]

a good indepth tutorial, one being the pen tool (photoshop im afriad, but the pen tool is some what generic... so )
http://www.thegoldenmean.com/

click on technique

[Arclight]

try tracing the coca-cola logo. You'll figure out where to put control ponts really fast

It worked great for me. I'd already been using the pen tool for some time, and just tracing that logo taught me some new tricks.

[iforgot120]

Ah god, that was a good tutorial. I've been working with the pen tool for some time, but that just retaught me everything I knew and MORE!

[DinoCow]

Okay, the tutorial in the original post is now dead... and I think Illustrator has gone through a version or two since that post.

Anyway, since my question is about the pen tool, I guess I'll post a reply here.

I'm using Illustrator CS2 and its pen tool is a bit frustrating for me. I'm used to the Photoshop pen tool but not all the functions seem to translate between the two programs. The one thing that I need to know how to do is moving anchor points after they've been plotted. In Photoshop, it's Ctrl+Drag to move a single point. When I try this in Illustrator, it selects the entire group and moves the whole thing. I've tried Alt+Drag, but that pulls out the curve line. Just dragging from above the point pulls out the curve line as well. Ctrl+Alt+Drag doesn't work. Shift doesn't add much to the mix either.

How do I move a single anchor point in Illustrator?

Thank you.

[Shmi]

After you've drawn out your lines with the pen tool, you can click on the white mouse cursor in the tool pallete, then click on a point to move individual points around.

Hope that helped.