The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword

Although I’ve tried various programs before, the one I feel most comfortable in is Photoshop (by far). I’ve been seeing some truly amazing vector traces lately, and I’ve decided that the next skill I want to work on is mastering the pen tool.

I have to admit that early, uneducated attempts at using the pen tool were not very successful. It seems a strange beast, with the way anchor points and curves are used, and I had a hard time getting the pen to do what I wanted. It didn’t help that I did not understand layer masks at the time. Additionally, many tutorials that I read at first dealt with creating vector shapes as opposed to vector paths. But really, I just didn’t know what I was doing.

A quick search on Google actually turns up quite a few tutorials on using the pen tool. The main reason I want to use the pen tool is that inking over my sketches takes way too long. I usually love the sketching portion, and I sometimes love coloring, but I almost always hate the inking portion. The most difficult sections to ink are always the long lines, especially those with curves. Legs, hair, arms, and props all take way longer than they should; fortunately, these are the types of things that a vector path would be perfect for. The other nice thing about using the pen tool is that you do not need a tablet to ink with the pen tool; in fact, the mouse is probably better for dropping anchors and pulling curves.

I probably won’t use the pen tool for every stroke, as it would be annoying to have to draw a path and taper every single small detail, but it could really help on long, sweeping strokes. I’m currently working on a Kaze no Stigma piece, that will be a guinea pig for the pen tool tricks I’m learning.

Art Thoughts | Kabitzin 05/16/2007