- The topic of this chapter is
Illustrator's flagship drawing tool, the pen tool.
In case you've never heard of it,
the pen tool is that one tool
that lets you draw anything you want
with absolute precision in Illustrator's native language
so that when you describe a path outline
with a pen tool, Illustrator knows exactly
what you're talking about.
The pen tool creates a path as a series of anchor points,
and here's a new term, control handles.
These points and handles act like dots
in a connect-the-dot puzzle,
only each dot gives instructions to Illustrator
on how to precisely create the straight
and curving segments in between.
After all, this is not a child's connect-the-dot puzzle.
This is one for fully-grown adults
or very talented children.
Thing is, these dots, the anchor points
and the control handles,
they serve very different purposes.
As we saw in a previous chapter,
an anchor point locks down its neighboring segments.
One segment travels into the anchor point.
Another segment travels out.
As a result, the path outline invariably passes
through each and every anchor point.
The new element, the control handle,
it's not so much a dot as a magnet.
If you drag down on a control handle,
the segment bends down toward the handle.
If you drag up, the segment bends up.
The segment never really touches the handle.
It merely arcs toward it.
It's as if the segment is attracted to the handle
but doesn't dare get too close.
Every path has to include anchor points.
And for a straight-sided path
such as a freeform polygon,
anchor points are enough.
But if you want curvature, you need control handles.
Control handles are those things
that make segments curve.
Now you might say, "Wait a sec, Deke.
"In the last chapter, we saw the curvature tool
"making curving segments without control handles."
Actually, the control handles were there.
It's just that the curvature tool hides them.
The pen tool shows them to you in stark detail.
By the way, the mysteries of this one tool
are so big, so epic,
that I devote an entire course to it
called Adobe Pen Tool: Fundamentals.
And so, if this chapter intrigues you,
that course is going to blow you away.
Oh, and in case you're familiar with the pen tool,
Adobe has added a few features.
What are they?
Well, here, permit me to show you in the following movies.