Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator
Lesson 5 from: Adobe Illustrator CC: Drawing & EditingBrian Wood
Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator
Lesson 5 from: Adobe Illustrator CC: Drawing & EditingBrian Wood
Lesson Info
5. Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator
Lessons
Select Like a Pro: Layers, Groups, & Other Unique Tools
34:16 2Edit Paths Like a Pro in Adobe Illustrator
08:40 3Editing Paths: Pen Tool in Adobe Illustrator
03:31 4Creating & Applying Brushes to Artwork in Adobe Illustrator
18:20 5Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator
03:08 6Editing Paths: Join Tool in Adobe Illustrator
10:44 7Editing Paths: Isolation Mode in Adobe Illustrator
02:09 8Pen Tool Shortcuts in Adobe Illustrator
16:43Lesson Info
Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator
We're gonna go through and talk just a little bit about working with some of the other options, here. We're gonna talk about the knife tool and the scissors tool, real quick. These are very useful for editing paths. What I'd like you to do is I want to go down. I'm using my hand tool here, holding the space bar, or going to the hand tool. Come down to the bird down here, this wacky, little bird thing. What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to zoom in a bit on the bird beak, so on the beak out there. I'm using a shortcut to get to the zoom tool. It's command space bar or control space bar. If you hold them down, you get the zoom tool. I can zoom in. Trying not to throw too many key commands out there, just because they get overwhelming, but there are a lot. What I wanna do now is I wanna take this bird beak, and go ahead and click on it with the selection tool. Make sure you have the selection tool selected. You're gonna see that it's basically just a couple paths, a couple shapes, rat...
her, and they are grouped together, you can see grouped up here. What I'd like to do is I wanna take the beak, and I wanna color it. I wanna have different colors as segments, kinda like a toucan or something like that, right? Just on the beak. To do that we probably have to take this orange-ish shape, and cut it up or do something to it. What we can do is we can actually use something like the knife tool or the scissors tool to do this. Come over here to the left, and you're gonna see that we have the eraser tool. The eraser tool, by the way, is probably my favorite tool ever. We're gonna use it a little bit maybe, we'll see. Go ahead and hold down on the eraser tool over here in the tools panel. You're gonna see we have the scissors and the knife. I confused these for a long time. I didn't quite understand what these were meant to do. This scissors tool is meant for you to go to a point on a path, like an anchor point, click on it, and what it's gonna do is it's gonna, like with scissors, it's gonna cut the path there. You can then basically take this path and do something like this, open it up. There's gonna be two endpoints now, on the path. Why don't you come to the knife tool here. We're gonna use the knife tool instead. Click on the knife tool. What I wanna do is I wanna come out here, and we're just gonna draw across the beak here. What the knife tool does that's different is as you drag across a shape, it's actually gonna close that shape. It's gonna basically connect the ends of the paths. This is a good thing. Come up here somewhere. Click and drag across the beak, just all the way across. Just pretend you're cutting right through it, like knife through butter kind of thing. Drag all the way across. Let go, and you've just cut it into pieces, which is kind of neat. Did you notice that it was not even close to a straight line? In order to make a straight line, we actually have to use the option and the shift keys or just the option key, you guys. The option key held down will let you draw a straight line across. The option shift will make it perfectly horizontal or vertical. It'll constrain it, let's just say that. So, you can do that pretty easily.
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Ratings and Reviews
Jody Boyle
Brian has solved some of the mysteries of the Illustrator tools for me with lots of great tips and useful examples. I have an Illustrator assignment due in a few days and this is really going to make it a lot easier! A fantastic course.
Sharnika Blacker
I LOVE this class! I have been using Illustrator for years just muddling my way through the use of the tools. In this class, Brian has shown how to use tools, features and shortcuts that are going to make my work better, easier and quicker. I'm a very happy student today :)
Cindy Graham
Brian Wood is the absolute Master Guru of Illustrator. He's great at teaching Illustrator. I've worked with Illustrator for a few things, and now I'm not scared of it anymore. I know how to use the power of it. Thanks!
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