The Adobe Illustrator WOW! Book for CS6 and CC

3Rethinking Construction

Rethinking Construction

INTRODUCTION

Constructing objects is at the heart of artwork in Illustrator, and nowhere has Illustrator been more innovative than in finding new ways to construct new objects from the amalgamation of simple paths and shapes. The early days of painstakingly constructing and joining every path, anchor point by anchor point, is giving way to methods of coloring shapes in ways that create new objects or that more closely simulate drawing with pencil and paper. This chapter works its way from newer methods for combining and editing shapes—using the semi-automatic methods of the Eraser, Blob Brush, the Shape Builder tools, Live Paint, and Image Trace—to older methods such as the Pathfinder panel and ...