The Pen Tool Masterclass - Learn to use Adobe Illustrator's Pen Tool to make awesome vector graphics

1. The Pen Tool Masterclass - Promo Video: Hello, glass and welcome to another and they'll be illustrator class in this class. I'm going to teach you how to use the mental in and illustrator. Now I'm going to teach you from the very basics. So we're going to learn the different kind of path that we can create with the pencil, and we're going to also learn the different elements that create a path. Then I'm going to teach you the basics off the pencil, and after that, I'm going to show you more advanced options. Then I'm going to give you some exercises so you can really master the pencil and to finish I'm going to show you how I trace an image using the mental. So these classes for anyone who wants to learn and master the pencil in hand, Witness trainer In this class, we're going to learn how to use the pencil from the very basics to the more advanced stuff . So if you're a beginner, this is the perfect class for you. By the end of this class, you will have all of the elements to really master dependable. So open up a debate illustrator and I will see you inside 2. The Pen Tool: Hello class and welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to learn how to use the Pen tool, which is one of the most important tools in Illustrator. So let's start. One of the most important tools in Adobe Illustrator is the pen tool. And we're going to use this tool for almost every single project that we work. Now, the pen tool works by creating paths. And I'm going to explain the three main kind of pads that we're going to create in Illustrator. So we have the straight paths, the curved paths, and the closed paths. The straight paths are the issues one of them. And they start with an anchor point or vertex point. And you can see the names here. So this is an anchor point and a straight path starts with an anchor point and ends with another anchor point. And the line that is created between the two anchor points is the path. Now, if we go to the career paths, you can see that they are similar. They also have anchor points here, here, and here. And they also have a path. But in this case, the path is curved. Now, the curved paths have an additional component, which is the control handle. And in this diagram, the control handle is this one here, the one in pink color. Now, as you can see, this control handle has two different parts. This part over here, which is going to control this part of the curve. And this other part here of the handle is going to control these other part of the curve. Now, the two parts of the control handle are usually connected. And that means that if I move this part of the control handle, let's say I move it to the left. This other part of the control handle is going to move to the right because they are connected. And when I increase the size of one of the parts of this handle, the other part is going to increase to the same size. And again, this is because the two parts of the handle are connected at the beginning. Now, there are ways in which we can break that connection. So we can manipulate the two different parts of the handle independently. And I'm going to show you how to do that later on. Now, let's take a look at the closed paths. As you can see, they are very similar to the curved path. The only difference is that the closed paths start and finish at the exact same anchor point. And that way we get a closed path. Now, closed paths come in different forums. We can create them using different straight paths. For example, if we want to make a triangle, we can also create them using different career paths. For example, if we wanted to create a circle, and we can also create closed paths by using a combination of straight paths and curved paths. The only thing that we have to make sure is that we close the path by creating the last anchor point at the exact same place as the first anchor point. And now that you know that different kinds of paths that we can create using the pen tool, it is going to be much easier for you to learn and understand how to use it. Now, as you can see, I am in Illustrator already bad. We cannot see the different elements of the interface because I have the interface hidden. Now to bring it back, all I have to do is press Tab on my keyboard. And as you can see, we have the interface back. Now. I'm going to zoom out a little bit and I'm going to select the Pen tool. And I can do that by coming to their tools panel and selecting the pen tool here. Or I can use the shortcut, which is the letter P for the Pen tool. And now with the pencil selected, I'm going to create a simple shape. I'm just going to create a triangle like this. And I'm going to change the color for the field and also for the stroke. So I'm going to make sure that the fill is selected. And I'm going to select the option like so. And now I'm going to select option. I'm going to double-click on it. And I'm going to select red. I'm going to click Okay. And now I'm going to use the selection tool. I'm going to deselect this shape and I'm going to select it again. And I'm going to increase the stroke thickness. So I'm going to click here and I'm going to use 16, like so. Perfect. Now I'm going to select this shape and I'm going to delete it because I don't need it anymore. I'm going to collapse this panel. And now again, using the Pen Tool, remember that you can bring it by pressing P on your keyboard. Or by coming over here and selecting it from the Tools panel. So with the pen tool, we're going to make a straight path. I'm going to create the same path that we have here. So I'm going to click here in the middle of this rectangle, which represents the anchor point. And I'm going to go all the way to the other side where I have these other anchor point. And I'm going to click here. So as you can see, now we have a straight path. Now, you can see that if I move the cursor, there is another line, a very thin line, that is connecting from the last anchor point that I created to the cursor. And that means that we can continue clicking and we're going to create new anchor points. And that way we can create shapes with many anchor points. Now if I want to create another anchor point, or they have to do is click again and the anchor point is going to be created. But since I finished the path that I wanted to make, I'm going to press the Escape key on my keyboard. And as you can see now, the path is complete. Okay, so now let's create a curved path. And I'm going to start by clicking in the middle these anchor point. And now I'm going to go to the second anchor point. But this time, instead of only clicking, I'm going to click and drag. And as you can see, by clicking and dragging using the pen tool, we get the control handle. And now, as you can see, by moving this handle, I can manipulate the shape of the curve. And for this example, I'm going to leave the control handle in the same position as the handle in the picture that we have below. So I'm going to leave it like that. And to finish this path, I'm going to click on the next anchor point. And now on my keyboard, I'm going to press this. So this bath is complete. Now let's create a closed path. And for that, I'm going to use the pen tool again. Remember the shortcut letter P on your keyboard. And I'm going to click and drag right in the middle of these anchor point. And as you can see, I am following the same position and direction of the anchor points and the control handles that we have in the picture below. So I'm going to go to the second anchor point. And I'm going to do exactly the same. Just click and drag. And now we can continue doing the same for the other anchor points. And for the last anchor point, this is very important. I'm going to finish in the exact same anchor point as we started. So I'm going to click and drag. And as you can see, our closed path is complete. Now, I have prepared a few exercises for you. So you're going to be able to download this image that I have here. And as you can see here, we have different shapes and different paths. And we're going to use the pen tool to trace these different shapes that we have here. So I'm going to get a little bit closer here. And you can see that we have shapes with straight baths, shapes with curved paths, and shapes with mixed path. So I'm going to start with the straight bats. And again, I have the Pentel selected. And I'm going to start creating this rectangle. So I'm going to start here, I'm going to click here, and I'm going to move down. Now, you can see that I have this line here and I can move it freely to any angle that I want. But if I want to have a straight angle, I can press and hold the Shift key on my keyboard. And you can see that the line is going to snap to a straight angle. Now if I really shift, you can see that I can move it freely again. So I'm going to move down and I'm going to press on hold Shift. And you can see that if I move this, it is going to snap to 45 degrees. If I move it again, and it's going to snap to 90 degrees, like this. It is going to work only in 45 and 90 degrees. Like so. So I'm going to press and hold Shift, and I'm going to come down here and create a new anchor point. Then I'm going to move to the right. And again, I'm going to press Shift. And I'm going to click here. I'm going to go up, make sure that I'm pressing Shift, click here. And then I'm going to move back to the first that I created. And I'm going to click on that anchor point. And now we have our rectangle. Now I'm going to select the Selection Tool. I'm going to make sure that this shape is selected. And I'm going to reduce the stroke thickness because I think it's too thick. I'm just going to reduce it to something about eight. And now I'm going to use the pen tool again. Remember the shortcut B on your keyboard. And then I'm going to move to the next path. And this is going to be really easy. All I have to do is click on every single one of these different points where the line changes directions. So I'm going to click here. I'm going to go over here. I'm going to click, I'm going to come down here and I'm going to click again. And note that this time I am not using the Shift key because I want to have angles that are not 90 degrees or 45 degrees like this. Then I'm going to press the Escape key on my keyboard. So we have this shape complete. And we're going to do the same for every single one of these shapes. I'm just going to work on this last one. I'm going to leave you to work on these ones on your own. But let's work on this one really quickly. You can see that all I'm doing here is clicking. And for this line, I want a straight angle. So I'm going to press and hold the Shift key. And I'm going to click here. Then for the next ones, I'm going to release shift because now I don't need straight angles. So all I'm doing here is clicking on the different points where the line changes directions. You can see that this is actually very easy to do. And to finish, since this is a closed path with straight lines, I'm going to click back on the first anchor point that I created. Like so. And now you can continue making the next shapes. Now I'm going to go to the other shapes, the ones with curved paths. And I'm going to start with this one. And again, I'm going to use the pen tool and I'm going to create this shape. Now, curved shapes are a little bit harder to make. And I'm going to start over here on this curve here, I'm going to click and drag like these to create these control handle. Then I'm going to come over here and I'm going to click and drag again. As you can see, now we have the curve that we need. Now notice that depending on the direction and size of the control handle, it is going to be the shape and the direction of the shape of the curve that I'm making. So make these control handles are a little bigger. You can see that the curve is going to be more pronounced. If I make them smaller, you can see that the curve is going to get less pronounced. So we have to play around with the size and direction of the control handles to make sure that we get the curve that we need. So this is going to look nice like this. And then I'm going to come over here. I'm going to click and drag like this. And if I want to move the current anchor point that I'm working in, I can do it by pressing the space bar on my keyboard. So I'm going to press and hold the space bar, and I'm going to drag the mouse. And as you can see in this way, we can move the position of the anchor point that we are currently working on. So I'm pressing the space bar and I'm dragging. So I'm going to move this anchor point around here. I'm going to release and I'm going to continue with the curve. So I'm going to click and drag here like this. And I'm going to click and drag over here like this. And this way, I can continue with this shape. As you can see, it is actually very easy to make curves in Illustrator. Now to finish, I'm just going to come over here to the first anchor point that we created. And I'm going to click and drag until we get the shape that we need. Like so now we're going to make these other shape. And I'm going to start again with the pencil. I'm going to create these curve here. So you can see that this curve is bigger than these other curves. So I'm going to click and drag. And I'm going to make, these handles are a little bigger, like so. And then I'm going to come over here. I'm going to click and drag. And remember that their direction and the size of the control handle is going to define the curve. So I'm going to click and drag like this. And click and drag here. I'm going to come here, click and drag. I'm going to do the same here. And here I'm going to move the anchor point. So I'm going to press and hold the space bar. I'm going to move it like so. And I'm going to continue clicking and dragging to make this shape. And you can see that I'm using very few anchor points because there is no need to use a lot of anchor points. I'm going to finish like that. And as you can see, now we have these two different shapes with curved path. Now here at the bottom, we have shapes that have both straight and curved path. So this ones are going to be a little bit different. So I'm going to get closer here. And I'm going to start with this shape here. Now, before creating this shape, I want to show you something important really quickly. Remember that if we click and drag with the Pentel, we can create these control handle. And remember that the control handle at the beginning is connected. So if I move this part of the handle, the other part of the handle is going to move as well. But remember that I told you that we can break that connection. And to do that, I'm going to press the Alt key on my keyboard and I'm going to hold it. So I'm going to press and hold Alt. And then I'm going to move the mouse again. And as you can see now, the two parts of the control handle are independent. Now, if I release the key, the control handle is going to be connected again. So if I release it, you can see that it is connected again. So if I want to break the connection, I have to press and hold the Alt key. Move the mouse. So these mostly independently. And when I have it in the position that I needed, I'm going to release the mouse. And then I can release the Alt key. As you can see now, this handle is broken. If I want to do it again, I can click and drag here. And then I can press and hold the Alt key. Move the mouse, then release the mouse, and then release Alt key. And now you can see that this handle is broken as well. And I can do this as many times as I want. Now, I'm going to select the Selection Tool. And I'm going to delete this shape because I don't need it anymore. Okay, so now let's create this shape. And I'm going to grab the pen tool again. And I'm going to start on these corner. So I'm going to click here. I'm going to come over here where the curve starts. And I'm going to click and drag here like this. And then I'm going to come over here to this other part of the curve. And I'm going to click and drag. I'm going to do the same over here. Just click and drag. And the same over here. So I'm going to click and drag here like this. And then I'm going to continue over here. Click and drag. And I'm going to do the same here. And I'm going to finish where I started. Like so. Perfect. Now let's go to these are their shape. This is going to be a little bit trickier because we're going to have to break the handle on one of these points here. So I'm going to start with the easiest part, which is this one here. And I'm going to click here. And then I'm going to click on every single one of these different areas where the line changes directions. So I'm just clicking. And like I said, this part is really easy to do. Like so. And here is where I have to break the handle. So I'm going to click and drag here until I get this handle. And I'm going to make sure that the handle is small. And I'm going to press and hold the Alt key. And then I can move this other part of the handle freely. So I'm going to move it right over here. I'm going to come here. And I'm going to click and drag to add another anchor point. And then I'm going to finish right here, just going to click and drag. And as you can see, we have this shape complete. Now, let me select this shape. And I'm going to change the stroke size because I think it's a little bit too thick. Like so. I'm going to do the same with this other one. Like so. Okay. And now I'm going to do the same with these other shape. So I'm going to use the pen tool again. And I'm going to start with the easy part. And as you can see, all I'm doing here is clicking on these different points. Like so. Now in this one here, I have to click and drag because here I have a curve. So I'm going to click and drag. I'm going to use the alt key to break the connection. So I can bring this part of the handle like this. And I can come all the way to the end. And I can click and drag, so I can get this curve here. Now, I'm going to use the alt key again to break this handle. And I'm going to make sure that this handle is pointing in this direction. So I'm going to leave it like this. And I'm going to click and drag here, break the connection using the Alt key. And I'm going to bring this handle down. And I'm going to click and drag here, this curve here. And I'm going to finish right here. So I'm going to click and drag like this. I'm going to use the alt key to break the handle. I'm going to point this handle like this. And I'm going to come over here, click and drag. Like that. You use the alt key to break the handle and pointed this way. And I'm going to come over here, click and drag. Use the alt key to break the handle. Bring this handle like this. And I'm going to finish right here. I'm going to click and drag like that. And I'm going to press Kp Ki to finish this path. Now, I'm going to zoom out. And as you can see, I didn't make all of these different shapes. But I recommend you to download these files so you can practice and make each and every single one of these different shapes. And that's going to help you to really understand and really master the pen tool, which like I said, is one of the most important tools in Adobe Illustrator. And that's all for this lesson. Thanks a lot for watching. And I will see you in the following lesson. 3. The Pen Tool - Additional options: Hello class and welcome back. In this lesson, I'm going to show you some additional options that we have when working with the pen tool. So let's start. All right, so in the previous lesson, we learned the basics of working with the Pen tool. But now we're going to learn some additional techniques that are going to improve our workflow. And I'm going to start by making a copy of this shape. So I'm going to select it and I'm going to go Control C, Control V. And I'm going to take it and move it over here, like so. Now, as you can see, this is a rectangle. And if I use the direct selection tool, which is the one with the white arrow, you can see that I can select the different anchor points that make this rectangle. Now as you can see, these anchor points do not have control handles. But if I want to get a control handle for one of these anchor points, I can do it very easily by coming to the tools panel. And here on the pen tool, I can click and hold and I can select the anchor point tool. So I'm going to select it. And now you can see that if I click and drag on any of these different anchor points, I'm going to get the control handles. And that's going to get me a curved shape. So I'm going to click and drag here. And you can see that now I have these control handles and this way I get a curve on the shape. So I'm going to release here. You can see that now we have this curve and I can do it with any anchor point that I want, like this. So as you can see, now we have a curve here. Now, with this still selected, I can click and drag on any of the parts of this handles, and that's going to break the handle. So I can click and drag here. And you can see that now the handle is broken into two pieces. And I can do the same with these other one like this. And if I want to delete the control handles, all I have to do is click again on the anchor point. So I'm going to click here. And as you can see, now we don't have those control handles anymore. So if I want to delete this other handles for this anchor point, I can click on this anchor point here. And as you can see, now we're back to our original shape, which is a rectangle. And I can do it again using this tool. I can click and drag. And I'm getting back to the curved shape with the control handles. Now, I'm showing you this in this lesson because we can actually do the same using the pen tool. We don't need to use these special tool. So I'm going to go back, click and hold. And I'm going to select the Pen tool again like this. And now to get these other tool, I have to do is press and hold the Alt key on my keyboard. And as you can see now I'm back to that other tool. If I release the archae and back to the pen tool. So I don't need to go over here, click and hold and select these special tool. I can do it from the pen tool. So again, I can press and hold the Alt key. And then I can click and drag on any anchor point. And I'm going to get those control handles, which are going to give me a curved shape. And as long as the Alt key is pressed, I will have these other tool. And again, if I click on any of these anchor points, I'm going to delete the control handles. So I'm going to do it again here, like so. And now if I release the Alt key again, you can see that now I am back to the pen tool. Now another important key that I can use is the Command key. If I use the Command key, I press and hold it. You can see that I get the direct selection tool, which is this one. But as you can see, the pen tool is still active. If I release the Command key, you can see that I am back to the pen tool. So I'm going to press and hold the Command key. And now I can select these anchor points and move them if I need them. Like so. I'm going to release the command key. And as you can see, I am back to the pen tool. Now, this is very important because if I want to delete one of these anchor points, I can do it by coming over here, pressing the Command key, selecting the anchor point that I want to delete, and then press the Delete key on my keyboard. As you can see now, I deleted that anchor point. Now, as you can see, if I delete the anchor point that way, the two lines that connect it to that point get deleted as well. But if I want to keep the closed path, because as you can see now, this is an open path because there is no connection between these two anchor points. If I want to give the closed path, I can do it the following way. So I'm going to undo that like this. So I have the closed path again. And I can do it by coming over here to the anchor point. And as you can see, if I place the cursor over the anchor point, the icon of the tool changes, and now it's showing a minus sign. So that means if I click here the anchor point, it's going to be deleted. So I'm going to click there. And as you can see, the anchor point get deleted. But I still have a closed path. And that's how you delete anchor points if you want to keep a closed path. Now, if you want to add anchor points, all you have to do is hover the cursor over the area where you want to add the additional anchor point, like here. And clicking. Now, as you can see, I have a new anchor point. So I'm going to press the command key and I'm going to select these new anchor point that I created. And I'm going to move it like this. I'm going to release the command key. So we go back to the pen tool. I'm going to click here. And as you can see, I have a new anchor point. I'm going to move it like that. And this way I can add as many anchor points as I want. Again, if I want to delete an anchor point, all I have to do is click on that anchor point that I don't need anymore using the pen tool. So I'm going to click here. And as you can see, these anchor point got deleted. But I still have a closed path. Now if I want to delete an anchor point and have an open path, I can select the anchor point, and I can use the Delete key on my keyboard like that. So as you can see this time, I deleted this anchor point, but we are left with an open path. So as you can see, the pencil has a lot of different options that we can use on the fly to modify our paths. And that makes it a very powerful tool. So I really recommend you to practice with this tool. So you can really master the tool because you are going to use it a lot in Illustrator. And that's all for this lesson. Thanks a lot for watching, and I'll see you in the following lesson. 4. How to master the Pen Tool: Hello class, and welcome back. In this lesson, I'm going to show you three different methods to practice using the pen tool and mastery in no time. So Let's start. The pen tool is perhaps the most important tool in Adobe Illustrator. And it is also one of the harder stores to master when it comes to new Illustrator users. But once you learn how to use it, it becomes second nature. And Illustrator suddenly becomes extremely easy. Knowing how to use the pen tool properly with all of the different options that we learned in the previous two lessons. We'll get you ahead of the game. And that way, it is very important to practice using the pen tool until you master it, until it becomes second nature. Now, there are different ways in which you can practice using the pencil. And I want you to start by doing the exercises that I gave you in the previous two lessons. Remember that you can download the exercise files from the resources section of this lesson. So start with those simple exercises. Then, I want you to go to Google Images and search for the following term, color book. And then I want you to select an image that you like and trays that image in Illustrator using the pen tool. You can do this with different images. Just make sure that you use a simple image first. And as you get more used to the pen tool, you can select more complex images. Doing those exercises will help you to really understand and master the pencil in very little time. Now, there is another way to practice with the pen tool, and it is by playing the best game, you can go to the following website. And there you can practice using the pen tool in a fun way. The Bezier Game is a great way to practice using the pen tool because it challenges you to make different shapes with as little anchor points as possible. And that's usually good when working with vectors, because the fewer the anchor points, this mother, the curves. Okay, so those are the three ways in which you can practice and master the Pentel in no time. I guarantee you that if you do this different exercises, you will become a pen tool master in very little time. And that's all for this lesson. Thanks a lot for watching, and I will see you in the next lesson. 5. Tracing an image using the Pen Tool: Hello class and welcome back. In this lesson, I'm going to show you how easy it is to trace an image using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. So let's start. Okay, So as you can see here, I am in Illustrator and I have a new empty document. Now, you can create a new document and the size doesn't really matter. So just make sure that you have a new empty document. Now, I'm going to go back to my Finder. And here I have an image that I got from the Internet. And as you can see, this is a very simple image that we're going to trace. And in the previous lesson, I showed you how you can get these kind of images. So I'm just going to grab this image. I'm going to go back to Illustrator. And I'm going to drop it here. I'm going to scale it out a little bit and I'm going to press the Shift key. So this is Schelling proportionally like that. And now I'm going to make sure that this layer is selected. So I'm going to click here. And now I'm going to go to the transparency panel here. And I'm going to reduce the opacity. Now if you don't see the transparency panel right now, you can go to Window and are here. You will have the transparency panel. Okay? So here are the transparency panel. I'm going to reduce the opacity to about 20 percent like that. And I'm going to select this layer and I'm going to lag it clicking here. So now we cannot modify this layer by accident. Okay, now I'm going to create a new layer. And I'm going to use the pen tool. I'm going to select it. I'm going to come over here. I'm going to select the fill option and I'm going to select the man option because for now we don't want to have any fill. Now I'm going to select the stroke option and I'm going to use a different color. I think red is going to work like so. And now I'm just going to increase the stroke size. I'm going to use six for now. And I'm just going to start tracing this image using the pencil. So I'm going to get closer here. And I'm going to start here. I'm just going to click and drag the handles like this. I'm going to come over here, click and drag. Come down over here. Another one here. As you can see, I am creating different anchor points. And those anchor points are going to help me to create these different lines. As you can see now we have this part of this image. Now I'm going to get back over here. I'm going to press B on my keyboard. So I get back the pen tool. And now I'm going to make this part here. So I'm going to click and drag, come over here, click and drag. Over here. Click and drag. And I'm going to finish right here, click and drag. Okay? And now I'm going to press Escape. So I finish this path and I'm going to continue over here. Just click and drag. And remember that if you want to move an anchor point, you can press the Space key on your keyboard. And that way you can move the anchor point. So I'm going to move it like this over here. And I'm going to continue creating these horn like that. And again, I'm going to press the Escape key on my keyboard. And I'm going to continue. Over here. I'm going to click and drag. And this way, you can see that we can create these different shapes that make this character. This time I'm going to close this path at the same place where we started. So I'm going to come over here to this anchor point. And I'm going to click and drag like so. Now if I want to modify some of these anchor points, I can come over here. Let's say I want to modify this one. I can move it and modify these anchor points. And that way we're going to modify the shape. Now over here you can see that we have a new line. And this line is going to continue from here all the way over here, that we have to have a space in-between that we're not going to use. So when we have these kind of situations, like over here too, you can see that the head is going to come over here. And we have the ear here. But the line is going to cut right over here. So we can create the whole line and then we're going to cut it. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to press the P key on my keyboard to bring the pen tool again. I'm going to click and drag here. Also here. And I'm going to continue doing the same here. Now you can see that here we have a corner, so I'm going to click and drag. And remember that if we press the Alt key on our keyboard, we are going to be able to break this handle. So that's what I'm going to do here. And then I'm going to continue creating these bath. Now I'm going to press the Alt key on my keyboard to modify these handle. I'm just going to make it a little bit shorter like this. And I'm going to continue over here. I'm going to click here, like that. And I'm going to come all the way over here, click and drag like this. And then I'm going to come over here, click and drag like this. I'm going to press the Alt key on my keyboard to break this handle. I'm going to bring it down here. And I'm going to finish over here, click and drag. And now I'm going to press the Escape key on my keyboard. And as you can see, now, this path is complete. Now I'm going to go to the selection tool. I'm going to select it here. I'm going to deselect everything. And now I'm going to get into isolation mode for this path here. So I'm going to select it and we want to get into isolation mode. We have to double-click on this path. So I'm going to double-click on it. As you can see now, it is isolated, so I cannot select or modify the rest of the elements. And this is going to help us because we are going to cut this piece. But I don't want to cut any of the pieces below. So now that we have these in isolation mode, I'm going to select the Pen tool again. Remember, press B on your keyboard and we can cut it in different ways. But since we're using the pen tool, I'm going to use the Pen Tool to cut it. So I'm going to come over here and I'm going to add a new anchor point. So I'm going to click here. And now I'm going to add another anchor point here in the middle. So you can see that now I have an anchor point here where these two lines collapsed. And they have another anchor point here where these two lines collapsed. And I have one in the middle. So I'm going to select the one in the middle. And I'm going to delete it by pressing the Delete key on my keyboard. Like so. And now you can see that we have the space in the middle. But this path is going to have a really good flow because it was a single bef before. We're going to do the same over here. As you can see, I have one anchor point here and another one over here, which is where we have these area where we have to make the ear. And I'm going to click here to create another one in the middle of these two anchor points. I'm going to use the direct selection tool. Select this anchor point in the middle, and use the Delete key on my keyboard to get rid of this point. Like so. I'm going to do the same here. As you can see here. I have an anchor point already, but I need another one here. So I'm going to use the pencil. I'm going to click here to add another anchor point. And I'm going to add another one in the middle. Now, I'm going to select this one in the middle. And I'm going to press the Delete key on my keyboard. So as you're gonna see this way, we can create a single path first so we can get a really good flow like this. And then we can cut the path to create the other elements. So now I'm going to get out of isolation mode. And to do that, well, they have to do is double-click outside like that. And now I can continue tracing these image. So I'm going to use the pen tool. I'm going to do it again the same way that we have been doing it. So you can see this is really, really simple. Okay, so I'm going to continue making these Illustration. And as you can see, it is actually very simple. All I'm doing is creating different anchor points to create the different lines that I need. Like so now I'm going to make the nose and I'm going to continue with the rest of the body. Now as you can see, I am using as few anchor points as possible. Because that way I can ensure that these lines are going to be really, really smooth. And that's something that you want to apply when you work with the pen tool. You don't want to have too many anchor points, only the ones that you need. And again, that's going to help you to get really smooth lines like you can see here. Okay? I'm going to continue with this part. And now I'm going to continue with the hair. Now, if you don't have any experience with the pen tool and you are just learning. I recommend you to practice because the pen tool is one of the most important tools in Illustrator. So as you can see for me, it is very Any line that I want. And if you practice enough, you are going to be able to do the same. So any line that you want to create, it is going to be extremely easy to do it. Now, since the pencil has different options that we can use, I recommend you to go back and watch the different videos of the pen tool again, because maybe there's something that you missed. So if you're just starting, I recommend you to go back, watch the videos again, and then come back and practice again. That's the only way that you're going to be able to master the pen tool. And again, the pen tool is perhaps the most important tool in Adobe Illustrator. And you are going to be using it a lot, maybe in every single project that you work. Okay, Now let's continue here. I'm going to make this heart. You can see that I'm just creating different anchor points. And for the stroke, I'm going to use a round cap, so we don't have that pointy end there. And now I'm going to select the heart, make a copy. I'm going to move it into place, resize it, and rotate it like so. And I'm going to the same to create this other one. I'm just going to rotate it and move it into place. Perfect. Now let's continue over here. And as you can see, this is going to be really easy to do. I'm going to do the same here. I'm just creating different lines. And remember that you can use the Alt key on your keyboard to break the connection of the handle to create those corners. So I'm going to continue with this other part of the grass, like so. And for this last one, I'm just going to make a copy of this one. And I'm going to move it into place. Like so. I'm going to continue here. And finally, I'm going to create the eye. Now to create the, I can use the Ellipse tool to create a perfect circle. But since we're learning how to use the pen tool, I'm just going to use the pen tool for this circle. Now, it is not going to be a perfect circle, but we are practicing with the Pentel. Now. I'm going to select it and I'm going to invert it. So we have a field instead of a stroke, and I'm going to duplicate it and change the color to white so we can get the reflections on the eye. And I'm just going to scale it out a little bit. I'm going to make a copy and scale it down. Like so. And now I'm just going to use the pen tool again and create the eyelashes. Now I'm going to move the reflections in the layer hierarchy like so. So they are on top of the eyelashes. And this is our final result. As you can see, it looks very clean and it was really easy to do it. Now what I want you to do is to search for a different image and practice using the pen tool by tracing that image. Now, you may want to start with a simple image. And as you get more used to working with the Pen tool, you may want to try with more complex images. The important thing is that you practice using the pen tool because it is one of the most important tools in Illustrator. Okay, so that's all for this lesson. Thanks a lot for watching, and I will see you in the next one.