You may already be creating works of art in photoshop using brushes, shape layers, blending modes and various effects but you will not have harnessed the most powerful tool of all until you have mastered the pen tool!

With the pen tool you can easily create your own shapes with unique anchor points, lines, and curves with a few quick clicks of your mouse. It can be as easy as dragging out a curve… or click a spot to extend a line from your previous anchor. It is always best to learn how to properly use the Pen Tool using Adobe Illustrator because it is much more powerful than the Pen Tool available for us in Adobe Photoshop.

The easiest way to learn is to practice tracing pictures and shapes. So I am going to have a short tutorial to help you. I am going to take two simple objects (they are both stars from the Mario video game series). The first one is just a simple star with straight lines, and the second one is basically the same star with curved tips. Learning how to trace these two easy objects will help you learn the basics of the pen tool.

1. Open the vectortutorial.ai file that I have up for download here on the website. You will need Adobe Illustrator CS3 in order to be able to do this tutorial.

2. You will notice that there are two images of stars on your screen. Usually if I want to trace an image I will use the place command from the file menu… but since this tutorial is only about vectors, I have already done this for you.



3. The first thing that you will have to do to make your working conditions a lot easier will be to unlock the startemplate layers and make star images semi-transparent. To do this… click the lock icon on the startemplate1 & startemplate2 layers… click on both stars one by one and reduce transparency to 35%.



4. Now you are ready to start making vectors. First you will have to select the layer that you would like to create your vector on. For the purpose of the tutorial I created a layer called vector1(for the first star) and vector2(for the second star) but to make it easier you will be creating it on the layers named ‘tryyourvector1′ and ‘tryyourvector2′. Click the layer “tryyourvector1” to select it as the current layer.



5. Select the Pen Tool. This is usually within the toolbar on the left side of the screen. If you have a custom layout then this could be different, but the generic default is on the left. The Pen Tool is the third icon down… right next to the Text Tool. Click on it and get ready to start working.



6. The first step to creating a vector object is to create your starting anchor point. To do this… you just simple have to click on any vertex (corners) of the object. You will now see a green dot.



7. To create your first line… all you have to do is click on the next corner.



8. Continue this process until you make your way around the object completely. Once you reach the end you can close the object by click on your original starting point… When you hover over it you will see a little circle which indicates that this object can be closed at this point.

That wasn’t so hard was it? In fact… this is a very simple procedure. You can easily create a lot of beautiful lineart with this tool alone! This is obviously an easy shape to make because it doesn’t require any curves or bends, but this is always a good point to start learn. You have just learned the first part of creating a great vector drawing.

Keep the vectortutorial.ai file open because you are now going to learn how to trace the second star image! This one is a little more complex because it involves curves at the tips. Even though it may seem simple it still takes a lot of practice to be able to make these rounded corners perfect.

1. Start by selecting the “tryyourvector2″ layer.



2. This time when creating your starting point; unlike in the previous lesson, you will be clicking on a part of the border of the star that isn’t curved. A good spot to choose would be at the point where the line becomes straight. You will then click again on the same line right before it becomes curvy. You should see a green line.



3. This is where it gets a little bit tricky for beginners. You will now click the end of the curve and drag your mouse to a point where the ‘potential line’ matches perfectly over the image. Let go of your mouse once you are perfectly over the existing line.



4. You have just created your first curve! The next step to continue on with this object is to click your anchor point to make sure that the next line isn’t automatically curved. All you do is click it and you will see that one of the angled lines disappears.



5. Continue the same process until you go all around the star. This can be a little bit hard if you have never done this before but as you gain more experience with the pen tool, you can create wonders! A simple image like this will take seconds to do.



Try out a few combinations and add detail to your star to make it look more complete! There is so much that you can do with the line tool that it is amazing.

Congratulations, you have just completed the “Basic Vector Tutorial”. Just keep practicing with easy objects and move your way up to more complex ones. You will be surprised at how amazing some of the illustrations can be created from one simple; yet powerful tool!

For more information on creating vector drawings you can check out Peach Pit. They have an awesome more advanced tutorial that will have you understanding intermediate elements of vectoring!

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