In part one of this series, we opened a new file and imported our reference sketch. In this instalment, we will look at a couple ways to draw some vector contours.
Drawing (a Shield) With Polyarcs
Before we start drawing our vector contours, we should make sure we have “snap to endpoints” toggled on. (This is by far the most useful snap and I almost always have it enabled.)
With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, we can take a look at our first drawing tool — “draw polyarc.”
I started by clicking once on the top left corner (of the sketched shield) then moved to the top right and bottom corners — the polyarc tool draws a line between your corners. I clicked one last time on my starting corner to finish the shape. Because we have “snap to endpoint” toggled, our polyarc becomes a “closed contour.”
Obviously however, our contour isn’t exactly shield shaped at the moment…
Editing Contour segments
Happily, curving the shield’s edges is a straightforward process. We will use the (erroneously named?) “edit points” tool to edit our lines. Simply click and hold anywhere on a line and pull it — it automatically changes from a line into an arc!
Incidentally, you can see why I chose to import a green version of my sketch; my contour lines/arcs are clearly visible. They would be nigh impossible to see if I had used my original black and white sketch.
Drawing (A Shield) With Shapes
As you can see, “draw polyarcs” and “edit points” are a handy pair of tools. However, I would like to show you a second drawing method — it requires a few more steps but, as you will see, it can be useful when you want a little more accuracy.
Select the “rectangle” tool and click on one of the shield’s top corners — then drag down diagonally and click again to form the rectangle shown below.
Notice that the shield’s two upper corners are automatically lined up at the same height.
Editing Contour segments (Again)
Select Objects
Now draw a second rectangle by clicking on the previous rectangle’s bottom left corner. Drag the new rectangle out and click again. Now, choose the “select objects” tool and click and hold on the midpoint of the right side of your new rectangle. Then drag the curser to the bottom right corner of the original rectangle and release — the new rectangle is now exactly as wide as the old one.
Next, press F2 to open the precision input center, type “/2” into the width box and click OK — your new rectangle is now exactly half the width of the old one.
At this point, you can switch to the edit points tool and move the original rectangles bottom right corner until it snaps to the new rectangle’s bottom right corner (this places the shield’s bottom corner exactly in the middle). Now, switch back to the select objects tool and delete the smaller rectangle.
Lastly, switch back to the edit points tool one more time to select and delete the bottom left corner. Notice that this creates an arc. As with the previous method — click, hold and drag the lines/arcs to finish shaping the shield. As you can see, this method allows us to be a little more precise about where we place our shield’s corners.
In our next instalment, we will trace the crown and look at mirroring and joining contour shapes.