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Shattered-Earth β Illustrator CS5 - EASY Line Width/Weight Tutorial
Published: 2012-02-17 18:21:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 20505; Favourites: 502; Downloads: 523
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Easy Line Width/Weight for Illustrator CS5Share on tumblr: [link] (:
As of right now I'm pretty sure this is a tool only for CS5, sorry if you do not have this version!
This is just a quick reference I made for people because I had a lot of trouble doing this the last few months until i found out there was a new tool @_@. Before this i would spend forever using a special triangle brush just fiddling with lines till they were how i wanted. Now there's no need to do it anymore omg SO EASY D:
Extra things you can do:
β’ Delete a width point: Just click on one and hit "delete"
β’ Select multiple points: Shift + Click each point
Official support page: [link]
This journal from =firstfear has a little animation showing what it would look like while adjusting line widths and more exameples:
Tapered Stroke (Illustrator)I just feel like sharing my joy at figuring this out haha xD
For the longest time I've not bothered with tapering my strokes in Illustrator b/c i couldn't figure out how to do it effectively. I knew one could achieve it by creating a tapered brush and applying that to the stroke, but I could just never get it to work right for me. It would seem that CS5 now has a built in function that allows you to alter the line thickness -anywhere there is a point along the path- by hitting shift+W and dragging :D
For those who do not have CS5, try this: [link]
If there are any other questions I will try to answer them but I am new to using this tool as well
You can also do something similar in Paint Tool Sai!
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Comments: 157
XD ikr, it's like mind blowing awesome XD
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Can you show me where the line width tool is in sai that lets you change individual segments of a line?
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Create a vector layer and draw a line then you can change the size using the wieght tool and the tip of the line using the pressure tool.
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Can can you adjust the width without making a direction point?
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Great, thanks 
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Yh I know that was kind of immature. Sorry
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Apology accepted, thank you. I may do a little tutorial like this for sai too since you brought it up, i don't think many people know of that feature.
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Ok ill check that out I can't watch you cause I'm on my phone can't you reply to this comment so I can watch you later
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Question, would you know if the width feature is in photoshop CS?
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There's just a generic width but i don't think there's a dynamic one.. i'm not 100% sure though, but as faaar as i know no.
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i've not long got illustrator cs5 so this is very handy for me, as im a noob with the program lol
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Haha there's a lot to learn @_@!
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T_T someone hates me up there XDDDDD
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One step at a time and don't cry LOL. /sigh google will be your best friend.
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i love google it has the answer to everything XD
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this is very usefull
You have a pen tol in PS5 too but i think that we canΒ΄t work with every facilities that Ai have
Thanks for sharing this
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Yea there's a pen tool in ps but it's not as flexible, it's still useful though
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xD Ai its better of corse xD
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OH MY GOD YES, pretty sure you're the best person IN THE WORLD for finding this. Wonder why nobody else has found it before... Maybe even adobe didn't know about it either... Amazing job though! I can actually experiment with line art outside SAI now! WOO!
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LOL people have found it, i linked both adobe and another deviant who talked about it but no one has made a step by step image tutorial for it on DA yet, so i did >_>
Did you know sai has a vector line tool too? but you can't adjust weight by point XD
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You kind of can, but defiantly not as much as in illustrator. With the pressure tool you can edit the weight of the points in SAI, It's one of the tools that pop up in the vector line layers. It isn't as flexible as what you've shown, but it's pretty simular.
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Ah yea someone just told me it was possible on sai! I haven't figured out how to do it on any point, and you defintely can't move the points i think.. not sure.. but yea, i might do a tutorial for that because i didn't even know it existed till today LOL
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You can move the points on SAI with the Edit tool thingo, it lets you grab points, move them and add new points (as well as a whole bunch of other point options). Theres quite a bit of vector tools when you make a vector layer, just play around with them to see what they all do. It's a pretty handy program for vectoring (vectorising? uh... vectoratoring...?... I think you get what i mean...
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Oh i mean move a width point, like if i made one segment fatter, and i change my mind is there a way to move it or do i have to manually make that part thinner then make another part fatter?
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Ah sorry, xD I misunderstood, the points you make thicker are the movement points, you can move them, but to make another section a different thickness, you just need to make a new point. Which kind of works the same way I guess, just a bit different xD
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Well the way illustrator works is that the width points and the points that actually make up the path are totally separate, so you can adjust the width of any part of the line independently from the actual shape of the line. I can't seem to get SAI to so that, so i'm guessing i can't?
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Yeah SAI's path and width are not separate, it's incredibly frustrating some times. xD Illustrator will defiantly be a nice change of pace in that regard. Thanks again for posting this! Oh by the way, I had a look through your gallery, your art is AWESOME!
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Aw thanks :3 I just wanted to make sure so if i do write a little tutorial for sai i know what it can or can't do. Have fun messing with illustrator XD
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You're welcome! And i defiantly shall! Looking forward to seeing you're sai tutorial!
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Thank you for the tutorial, that's mighty helpful!
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Aw gosh, Finni was laughing at me yesterday for not knowing this sooner TuT lol
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Do you work primarily in Illustrator? LOL I don't, but I dabble in it occasionally, so this helps a lot. XD
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When I was in school I did but i didn't do any like "art", it was mostly diagrams and plans, so line width wasn't an issue. But occasionally i would draw ponys (oh god..) and I wouldn't know how to do the line width other than [link] this way, so much wasted time v_v
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Luckily current Illustrator has a somewhat robust free-painting tool already, IMO. :U But thank you for that tutorial, it's really good to know. 8D
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Where has this been all my life???
I don't think I have an excuse for not finishing my comics anymore, except maybe being lazy.
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Hahahaha, i know right?
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And at last I see the liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. *w*
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I thought this could be kinda useful, but then I remembered that I use CS2. /shotshotshot
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too much work and the lines looks ridiculous
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Um well for one you customize what they look like so I'm not sure where the "ridiculous" comes from unless you are unable to make lines different from my example lol.
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LINES. They make a difference.
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