Quick custom shape creation in Illustrator

There are many ways to create custom shapes in Illustrator. The most obvious of these are to use the pen tool and draw the outline. However, there is not reason why you can't just get rough to simplify your workflow. Here are a number of tips to speed up your custom shape creation.

Pathfinder
With pathfinder you can easily make fun and weird shapes without fiddling with the pen tool. Below is a quick path I made with pathfinder for my dagger.

Basically, the dagger blade is made up of these shapes...

Then I used the divide tool from the pathfinder palette to cut all the pieces out and ungrouped the objects...

All you need to do is delete the parts you don't want and viola!

You may need to manually make small clean-ups here and there but your main shape is there.

Simplify
I've made an action for the simplify (object > path > simplify) command because I use it alot. The problem with drawing with a mouse is that you can get a really ugly line if you use the pencil tool for quick line work. This is especially bad if you have an unsteady hand or your mouse is just not cooperating. So, once you have the simplify command at your service, it can clean up your lines nicely. Like with the pathfinder technique, you may need to do a little manual cleaning but it is a small price to pay for a quick technique.

Here's a quick scribble...

Cleaned up using the simplify command (and a little scaling, rotating, etc...) ...

cut with pathfinder and...

mirrored (and a small tweak) to make a nice heart.

Lines and Simplify
This is just the same as using the simplify command except instead of using the pencil tool you use the pen tool. This idea originated from my use of 3D and subdivision surfaces. If you don't know what I mean, don't worry. Just have a look at the process and you'll see.

A quick line shape...

which is simplified...

and made into this...

You have to be careful not to be too rough with the shape because you may still end up with corners during your simplify action. If that's the case, just cancel the simplify command and add a point or two to round the shape a bit more before the final simplify.

The first shape is the original and the second shape is after applying the simplify command.
This is BAD.

The first shape has extra points added to the path and the second shape is after applying the simplify command.
This is GOOD.

With these three ways of making custom shapes in Illustrator, you can speed up your work and leave the stress behind.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful.

Regards,

Mix Mash

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