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- [Instructor] In this
movie, we're going to trace

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a custom path outline, specifically,

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the perimeter of this artist palette here.

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And even though this palette
looks like it was born

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to be traced with a curvature
tool, it actually requires

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a fair amount of
experimentation and effort.

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Obviously, the first step is to go ahead

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and select the curvature tool,

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which you can get by
pressing shift + tilde.

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And then I'm going to start up here

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at the top of the palette, like so.

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Right there at the apex,
I'll lay down a point.

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And then over here on the far left side

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looks like a good second point.

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Then I'll come down to the very bottom

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of the palette, which is
right about here, and click.

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And I don't want to fill, so
I'm just going to go ahead

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and get rid of it while I'm
still working on the shape

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by clicking on this first color swatch

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up here in the control panel,
and changing it to none.

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And again, just so that you
can see another way to work,

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if the fill is active, as I can see it is

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in the upper left corner
of the swatches panel,

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you can just press the slash key.

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Alright, now I'll go ahead and click

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right about there, so
I'm just trying to click.

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I'm really not paying that much attention

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to the rubber band here.

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I'm just trying to click
on the most extreme points

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along the perimeter of this palette.

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And now I'll click right about there,

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and I know, if we are paying any attention

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to the rubber band, that would
seem like a terrible idea.

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The thing is, the second I click

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and then move my cursor to a new location,

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you can see that that rubber band preview

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is going to change dramatically.

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Alright, now I'll click
on this extreme point

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and then finally, I'll come back

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to the beginning, and click again.

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And we end up with not the right shape,

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that's for sure, but it's
not a half bad start.

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Now what we need to do is add points,

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and move them around, and see
what kind of results we get.

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I'm going to start by adding
a point right about there,

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and notice that that
has a pretty bad effect.

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It's flattening out the shape.

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It's turning this point
into quite the corner,

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but you can see, if I move
the point a little bit,

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things are getting better.

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And now I'm going to click to set

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a point right there, and
I'm going to move it down.

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One of the keys, by the
way, when you're working

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with this tool is to make
sure that your points

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are not in a straight line
because once they are,

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you're going to get a lot of flatness.

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Now I'm going to click here in order

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to create a point that is more or less

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along a straight line,
which is why we're seeing

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such flatness, and then I'll
go ahead and move this guy

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down, and I'll also move
this guy up a little bit.

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And I'm doing this based on
a lot of experimentation.

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It may be hardly a
surprise, but I've tried

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this out a couple of times here.

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And now I'll go ahead
and move this guy down,

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and I'm going to drag this point
over to about here, let's say.

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And that makes it clear
we need another point

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on the left-hand side, so I'll click right

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about there to add one, and
then I'll move it down and over.

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And now actually I am moving it up,

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and that means that I've got to move

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this guy up a little bit as well.

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It might be tempting to throw a point

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over here and move it
down, but our better bet

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is to move this guy over to the left,

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this top point, and see
what we come up with.

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And then I'll move this guy down,

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and notice, as a result, we
get this nice, smooth arc.

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Another lesson is the
fewer points you can use

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with the curvature tool, the better

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because, as we've been
seeing with our ellipses,

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we get the smoothest results

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with just four points and no more.

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Now I might sort of noodle around here

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a little bit, and just try things out.

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But what I found was that
this area right here,

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the interior edge, kept looking lumpy

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regardless of just about anything I did,

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which is why it's totally okay,

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if you see something like this,

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to switch to a different tool.

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And the great thing about the tools

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that we've been seeing is
that they're perfectly capable

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of editing each other's results.

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For example, if I wanted
to, at this point,

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I could go ahead and
switch to the pencil tool,

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which, of course, I can
get by pressing the n key,

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and then, with this path selected,

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I could go ahead and drag along it,

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taking special care, by the way,

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to make sure that I'm
beginning and ending my drag

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on the path outline, and then
I'll go ahead and release.

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And I got that result,
which I really don't like,

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by the way, so I'm going to undo

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by pressing control + z
or command + z on the Mac.

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And I'm going to try again, see
if I can get a smoother result.

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This does not look smooth at all.

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You know what?

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What I could do, I could
keep doing that if I want to,

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or why don't we try a different tool.

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Just want to make the point
that that is totally possible,

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and, incidentally, I am
working with the mouse,

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in case that's any defense.

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Let's go ahead and switch over

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to the smooth tool right here.

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And I'm going to press the enter key

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or the return key on the Mac to bring

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up the smooth tool
options, and I'll make sure

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this guy here is cranked
all the way to smooth,

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and then I'll click okay.

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And now, let's see what
happens if I just drag

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up like that, if we
start smoothing this out.

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The thing is, that's not really
seeming very right to me,

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so I'm going to switch
back to the pencil tool.

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Hopefully this is giving you a sense

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of how much back and forthing
you can do if you want.

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And now I'll press the enter key

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or the return key on the Mac to bring

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up the pencil tool options,
and I'm going to crank

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this guy to smooth and click okay.

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And now, I'll try it
again, cross my fingers,

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and release at this
point, and that's getting

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to be pretty good, I guess.

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We're not really following
the path outline very well.

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So let me see if I can
do that a little better.

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And I end up with this result here.

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After which point, I could switch back

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to the curvature tool, if I want to.

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And notice now, I have way more points,

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but this is what I want you to see.

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If I start adjusting these points,

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it's very possible, well, in
that case nothing happened.

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But it's very possible that I'm
going to get different results.

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And this guy, it looks to me
like we don't really need him,

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so I'll just click on him
and press the backspace key,

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or the delete key on the
Mac, to get rid of him.

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Then I'll select this guy and
press backspace or delete.

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That looks like that was a mistake,

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so I'll put him back by
pressing control + z.

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Let's see if I get rid
of this guy what happens.

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Well, that looks pretty
similar to what I had

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before I started with the pencil
tool, but you get the idea.

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Eventually, you can move these guys around

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until you start getting smoother results.

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And having demonstrated that about as well

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as I think I'm going to, I'll go ahead

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and switch back to the black arrow tool,

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and click off of the
shape, and you can see,

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even though it didn't occur on video,

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that in the final
version that I drew here,

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that I do have a pretty
darn smooth path outline.

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So it is ultimately possible to achieve

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the effects you're looking for.

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And that's how you draw a highly specific,

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custom path outline, with varying degrees

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of success, using, at least in part,

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the curvature tool,
here inside Illustrator.