Illustrator help ( technical question)

~edf Aug 30, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Here is the deal- and i hope I can explain it so yous can understand it. I may know what is causing it, but not sure, and am trying to eliminate retracing.

I drew a picture on paper, and traced it in illustrator ([link]) that is all good....

Now, I want to play with line width and all. I did this successfully before, but it was not nearly as complicated- and I can do it with this piece, but I am having some issues.

What i do is select everything- then go to Object<Path<Outline stroke. Then I use the direct select arrow ( white one) and start pulling at the lines. I have to pull every single pen tracing line to make things work- that is fine, I understand that- is there any way to combine them? Object<path<join don't work. I can deal with that tho.

My main issue is when I outline stroke- it is adding in a lot of extra anchor points. Around the curved sections- when I pull the lines to vary the width- it comes in soooo many sections that when I am done- it doesn't really keep the integrity of the line ( its not smooth) Is there any way I can make it so there is not as many anchor points like in the initial trace? Or am I just stuck with eyeballing it painstakingly slow?

I hope you understand what I am saying.

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Devious Comments

~egypturnash Aug 30, 2012 Professional Digital Artist

I personally just dispense with the outlines, for the most part. It feels like a ton of extra work to trace everything from my sketch twice.

If you're using CS5 or better, you can edit the width of a stroke. The tool to do this is called, surprisingly enough, the "width tool". According to the manual the key equivalent for it is shift-W.

~Black-Allison Aug 30, 2012

There's a width tool for outlines.

`ziinyu Aug 30, 2012 Student Interface Designer

Follow up, just try grouping your paths. Select all the paths (by dragging an box around them with the [Selection Tool] (black arrow) or just using [All] from the [Select] menu). Then go into the [Object] menu and select [Group]. Now clicking any of these paths with the [Selection Tool] will select all of them! If you want to edit their points independently you can do so by using the [Direct Selection Tool] (white arrow), even while they're in a group.

`ziinyu Aug 30, 2012 Student Interface Designer

It sounds like what you should be doing is messing with the [Stroke] properties (in this case weight) rather than the [Outline Stroke] function. The method you are using is literally designed to take an already stroked path and turn it into a shape (complete with an inside and an outside edge. So if you were to outline stroke a circle, it would turn into two concentric circles (still a single compound path) - like a very thin donut. When you outline a stroke you remove the stroke, create two entirely new paths on the edges of the stroke (this is where the extra anchor points come in, and convert the stroke itself to a filled area between them. It's usually not necessary unless you are doing some pretty complex things with your paths.

What you want is [Stroke] -> [Weight]. I don't know what version of AI you're using, but in your tool bar should be an icon with three horizontal lines. That's the stroke panel, and from it you can change the appearance of a stroke. The weight drop down gives you thickness options for the stroke, simply select a heavier weight. If you don't see the stroke icon of panel, you can open them from the [Window] overhead menu.

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Illustrator help ( technical question)

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