Fri
09Drawing in Photoshop: The Pen Tool
People are constantly asking me how I go about doing my illustrations, and since I have nothing relevant to blog about I thought this would be the perfect time to elaborate on that. I’ll also be writing a tutorial for drawing in Illustrator, but that comes later. For simple drawings with a minimum amount of detail, I use Photoshop. Mostly because I’m lazy, and because it’s almost always open on my computer. If you know how to use the pen tool in Photoshop, you’ll already have a firm base to start working in Illustrator later on, even if the two programs do have remarkable differences.
I’m going to assume you know a few basics in Photoshop. Photoshop is a Raster based image editing program, meaning the things you draw are made with pixels. Illustrator is a Vector based image editing program, meaning the things you draw are made with mathematical number values, and don’t lose quality when you resize them. Also, I use Photoshop CS 3, but the pen tool basics are essentially the same in most other versions.
The pen tool is one of the more difficult things to master in Photoshop, so if you have no patience for this kind of thing, then this tutorial probably isn’t for you. It’s actually incredibly easy to use once you figure out how it works, because then your brain can start to think like the pen tool, making drawing more intuitive and in the end, quicker.
Let’s start with a blank canvas. Click your pen tool, and go up to your toolbar and look at your settings:
There are two ways to draw in Photoshop. One, with shape layers (solid color) and two, with paths. You’ll work with paths a lot if you delve into this further and begin using illustrator, but we’re going to ignore them for now. I have my shape layers box selected (#1) and my pen tool option selected (#2) and we’re ready to get started. Also, make sure your Auto Add/Delete setting is checked. By default, the pen tool automatically adds anchor points to an existing path, and deletes existing anchor points. This should only be unchecked if you know what you’re doing, especially if you’re creating a path extremely close to an already existing one.
Go back to your canvas and create a point. This point is called an “anchor” and looks like this:
One of the biggest complains I hear is that the pen tool isn’t cooperative, and it’s difficult to use. Not so. You just have to learn it’s quirks, and you’ll be able to do almost anything with it.
Now, make another point, and move your mouse around until you get a nice curvature to your line:
You see that big line with arrows on either end? This indicates what direction your next line is going to go based on the points you’ve already made. We don’t want to follow that, so we’re going to bust out our handy ALT key.
After you have the curve you want, hold down your ALT key and click on that last anchor. This is a little tip that makes the pen tool SO much easier to work with. Holding down your ALT key and clicking on the last anchor you made clears the path, so you can freely move on to the next one without getting a big line jutting out of nowhere. You’ll notice a little crooked V shape next to your pen tool cursor when you hold down your alt key. After you’ve cleared that anchor, it should look like this:
See how easy that is? It’s mostly about figuring out how the pen tool thinks, and forcing it to do what you want it to. It may seem like a super time consuming thing, but once you get the hang of it and it becomes second nature, you’ll start knocking out drawings like crazy. Trust me, it won’t take long.
This is where the tutorial abruptly ends, because without you actually doing it, there isn’t much else I can tell you. Practice with some simple shapes, or maybe even tracing a photo. It will probably look like crap, but you’ll be getting great practice in figuring out your pen tool.
In the next tutorial, I’ll show you how I go about tracing photos and shading. Until then, practice! After that, I’ll let you in on some of the little tips I know for Illustrator that make things a lot easier. I’ll also finally be getting around to doing a more in-depth guest tutorial for Jem over at Tutorialtastic before she up and chokes me, so keep an eye out for that. Go practice, and show me what you make!