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- In this movie, I'll show you how

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to use the Polygon and Star tools,

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and the reason I'm pairing them

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together is because they
work very similarly,

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as you're about to see.

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All right, I want to create
a new layer to play on here,

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so I'm going to go ahead and
turn off the angled layer,

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then I'll click on a drawing layer,

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and the reason I'm doing this is because

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the next layer I create will appear

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in front of that layer,

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and I want everything to appear

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in back of the angled layer,

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so that we're seeing through
the magnifying glass.

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All right. Now I'm going to drop down

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to the little-page icon at the bottom

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of the layers panel,

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and I'll alt + option click on it

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to force the display of the
layer-option style log box.

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I'll call this new layer stars,

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and I'll change its color to dark blue,

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which will show up well against

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our ongoing artwork,

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and now I'll click OK in
order to create that layer.

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For the sake of reference, I'm also going

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to turn on the guides layer.

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All right, now the interesting thing

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about the Polygon and Star tools

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is unlike the rectangle and ellipse tools,

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which are designed to create shapes

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from corner to corner,

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these tools always create their shapes

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from the center outward,

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and to show you what I mean,

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I'll go ahead and select the Polygon tool,

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and then I'll position my cursor

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at the intersection of those two

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center guides right there,

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and I will drag out, and sure enough

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I'm creating the polygon from the

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center outward, no need to press

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the alt key or the option key on the Mac.

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In fact, your keyboard
options are pretty sparse.

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You can press the shift key if you

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want to constrain the angle of your shape,

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generally rendering it upright

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as we're seeing here,

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and then if you release the shift key

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you'll return to your
free-form orientation.

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If you want to move the shape on the fly

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then you can press and hold the spacebar

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just as you can with any
of the line or shape tools.

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And then, finally, if you want to

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increase the number of sides,

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you press the up-arrow key,

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and I'm doing this on the fly by the way.

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I still have my mouse button down.

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If you want to reduce the number of sides,

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then you press the down-arrow key

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all the way down to a triangle,

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making the Polygon tool the best tool

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for creating an equilateral triangle

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that there is inside of Illustrator.

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And now go ahead and press the shift key,

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to constrain that triangle to upright,

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and I'll use the spacebar in order

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to move it to, more or less,
the center of my art board,

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and then I'll release like so.

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The other thing you can do with

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the Polygon tool is click with it.

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In which case you'll bring up the

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Polygon dialogue box,

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and I'll just go ahead
and change the radius

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this time around to, let's say,

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250 points, and I'll
change the number of sides,

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not to four because that would

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give us a plane old square,

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but rather to five in
order to create a pentagon,

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and then I'll click OK
to create that new shape,

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and it's a little high, so I'll go ahead

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and drag it down and over
to the right like so.

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All right, so that's all that's

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going on with the Polygon tool.

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It's pretty basic, but it does

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let you create things like triangles,

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pentagons, hexagons, and so forth.

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All right, I'm going to press ctrl + a

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or cmd + a on a Mac in order to

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select both shapes, and I'll press

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the backspace key or the delete key

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on Mac to get rid of them.

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All right, now I'm going to switch over

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to the Star tool, which
has a lot more going on.

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All right, I'll start by dragging

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from the intersection of those

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two center guides, and sure enough

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once again, I create the
star from the center outward.

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If you press and hold the shift key

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as you're dragging, then you will

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make the shape upright
as we're seeing here.

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If you release shift, then you'll

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return to the free-form orientation.

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You can also press the spacebar

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in order to move that shape on the fly.

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If you want to add more
points to your star,

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then you press the up-arrow key.

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If you want to reduce
the number of points,

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then you can press the down-arrow key

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all the way down to a kind
of misshapen triangle.

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All right, I'm going to go ahead

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and press the up-arrow
key a couple of times

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until we get back to
the five-pointed star.

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You can change how pointy the points are

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by pressing and holding the control key,

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so notice if I make
the shape nice and big,

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and then I press the control key,

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or the command key on
the Mac, and drag inward,

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then I'm going to make
the points less pointy,

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and finally I'm going to move them inward,

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so they're no long points at all.

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They're the inside edges of that shape.

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Or I can go ahead and
drag way out here like so,

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and now go ahead and
make the star smaller,

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and then I'll press and
hold the control key,

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or the command key on the Mac again,

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and drag out in order to make

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the shape very spiky indeed.

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And your final option is to press

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and hold the alt key.

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Whenever you press the alt key

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or the option key on
a Mac, you're going to

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align the opposite sides.

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So in the case of a five-pointed star

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you're going to get the
classic American Flag star.

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If we're working with a six-pointed star,

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which I achieve just by
pressing the up-arrow key,

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and that went ahead and
reset the star as well.

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If I now press the alt key
or the option key on a Mac,

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I get a Star of David.

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And so that's how it works regardless

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of how many points your star may have,

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and to keep those opposite sides aligned

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just make sure that you keep the

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alt or option key down
until the end of your drag.

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And then, finally, you can click with

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the Star tool in order to bring up

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the Star dialogue box.

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This one's a little harder to envision,

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but we basically have an outside radius

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and an inside radius of points,

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and sadly we don't have a preview,

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so you're just going to have to wing it,

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but notice that you can set the

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values to anything you want.

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Right now radius 1 is
larger than radius 2,

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but I can change that if I want to.

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I can set radius 1 to 100 points,

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and I can set radius 2 to 200 points,

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and I might take the number of

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star points down to 5,
and then I'll click OK

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in order to create that star.

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And now I'll press the control key

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or the command key on a Mac to access

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my black-arrow tool on the fly,

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and I'll drag that shape a little bit over

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so that we can see both of the stars

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at the same time, and that's how you work

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with the Polygon and Star tools

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here inside Illustrator.

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In the next movie we'll see a practical

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application for the more interesting

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of the two, the Star tool.