- [Instructor] In this movie, I'll show you
the basics of drawing with the Curvature Tool,
which is very different than anything
that we've seen so far.
I'm going to start things off like usual
by going up to the File menu
and choosing New from Template,
and then I'll find that center guides template
that I created oh so long ago now,
and I'll go ahead and click on the New button
in order to create a blank document.
Now notice for starters that the Curvature Tool
is located between the traditional Pen Tool
and the Type Tool in the single column tool box.
Also notice that it has a
keyboard shortcut of Shift + ~.
Tilde being that key once again
in the upper left corner of an American keyboard.
That's a pretty easy shortcut to remember
because after all the Tilde character
looks like that wiggly line coming out
of the Curvature Tool's icon,
and once I select the tool, there's literally
a Tilde coming out of the cursor.
Which in your case may be black by the way,
but that's the only difference.
We're also seeing an asterisk next to the cursor,
and that tells us that we're about to begin
a new path outline, and you do so
just by clicking with the tool.
At which point you create an anchor point.
Now notice that we're not seeing any kind of line
coming out of that first point,
but we know that we're now in path creation mode,
because we're no longer seeing an asterisk
next to the cursor.
Now I'll go ahead and click a second time
with the tool, at which point you'll not only
create an anchor point, but you'll initially
see a straight segment between the two anchor points.
That is to say until you begin moving your cursor,
at which time, everything begins to bend,
and so we're not only bending the segment
that we just drew, we also see a preview
of the next segment that we're about to create.
This is known as the rubber band function
inside of Illustrator, because after all
the segments are bending like rubber bands.
Now I'll go ahead and click again down at
the bottom of the screen to create a third point,
and now notice as I move my cursor
that all three of my segments are bending.
That is to say, the first two that I drew
as well as the next one that I'm about to draw,
and that's because there's a kind of
codependency between the anchor points
when you're working with the curve tool.
All right now I'll go ahead and click
to create a fourth point over here
on the right side of the screen.
At which point things begin to settle down a little bit.
Notice that the segment I just drew
continues to bend as I move my cursor,
but the first two segments have more or less settled down.
All right now I'll go ahead and hover
over the first anchor point,
at which time I will see a little circle
next to my cursor telling me that I'm about to
close this path outline.
Then if I move cursor away,
I once again see the asterisk, which tells me
that if I click, I will begin a new path outline.
Now, the interesting thing about the Curvature Tool
is that it's not only a path creation tool,
but it's also a path editing tool
analogous to the arrow tools.
So for example, let's say I want to add
another anchor point to this path outline.
Then I could just go ahead and hover over
one of the segments, at which point
I'll see a little plus sign next to the cursor,
which shows me that if I click,
I will create a new anchor point
at that location, and I will modify
the curvature of the neighboring segments.
Notice that things flattened out just a little bit.
Now if I want to, I could go ahead
and drag that segment to a different location.
So you can see, once again,
Curvature Tool not just a path creation tool,
but also a path editing tool.
All right now I'll go ahead and create
an anchor point on the upper right segment,
and I want you to see, as I drag it down,
not only does it move, but its neighboring segments
move as well, again demonstrating the codependent
relationship of all of the anchor points
as you add them and drag them around.
All right now just to polish things off here,
I'm going to click on the fill icon,
the very first swatch up here in the control panel,
and change the fill to None,
and then I'm going to take the line weight up to,
let's say six points, like so,
and so you can see, unlike when using
say the Shape Builder Tool,
I can modify the fill and stroke attributes
on the fly as I work with the Curvature Tool,
and that is a very basic introduction
to how you draw with the Curvature Tool
here inside Illustrator.