Hey everyone, in this video I'm going to show you... some Advanced Pen tool techniques... we're not going to cover too much of the basics, I'm going to show you... if you are finding it tricky to draw things in Figma... I'm going to show you two ways... the way that kind of makes more sense, but isn't as advanced...

and then I'll show you the advanced way that I use when I'm drawing in Figma... if you're already a Pen tool master you can skip along... if the Pen tool strikes fear into your heart... watch this video, and hopefully it'll make it a little more useful for you... when you are doing your drawing in Figma, let's get going. So I'm going to bring in an image, it is in your Images folder...

called Pen Tool Practice.png... bring that in, I'm going to go, just click once to place it... I'm going to lock it, 'Command Shift L', 'Ctrl Shift L' on a PC... just so I can't move it, and now we're going to draw... so 'P' for the Pen tool, I'll show you two techniques... the slightly more understandable way, and then the...

great hacky way that I like to do it, that tends to look better. So let's all start down here with the more understandable way... you click once for a corner... and you click, so you get a nice straight line... click and drag... so find the middle of the curve, we might have to turn snapping off...

so quick actions, let's turn, "snap"... all of these off... back to the Pen Tool, so down here, click once for a corner... where it's at the apex of the curve... click, hold, and drag for a corner, give it a wiggle, see what it does... and we'll kind of get it like this...

like we did earlier in the course, don't worry, you can fix it up later... but I find this is the easiest way to teach people... click once for a corner, click and drag for a curve... is this a corner? It is, click once, is this a corner or a curve? It is a corner, click once, another corner...

click once, another corner, click once... find the apex of the curve, click and drag out... don't be afraid to move it around... get it there, perfect, click all once... I'm going to get to the apex, I can't do this all one in one big go... I can try and get the apex, but you can see it's just not quite enough...

we're trying to do too much with one anchor point... so I'm going to need probably two... I'm going to need one there, and one here, let's click, hold, and drag... and one over here, click, hold, and drag... didn't get it right the first time, that's totally okay... get it somewhere close, and we can fix it up.

This one's a corner, it's okay, click and drag, curve... click once for a corner, click once for a corner, click and drag for a curve... click once for a corner, click and drag, you got the swing of it. So that's generally the easiest way to get started... you can move these around afterwards by using your Move tool, which is the V key... you can click on these and say, actually, you go there and move it that way...

you go there, and you need to go this way, and you go like that... and then just kind of like finesse it into some sort of... acceptable shape... then it comes down a lot to practice... practice, practice, practice with the Pen tool... once you've done a bit of practice, and you get good at doing it this way...

the better way or the more advanced way, is I'm going to click 'Done'... I'm going to delete that one, grab my 'P' tool again... and I'm going to use some different shortcuts. So it's pretty shortcut heavy, this one... so we're going to start somewhere easy, like a corner... click once for a corner, click once for a corner...

this is where it gets different... instead of clicking once and then trying to do the curve over here, which works... it looks much nicer when you don't have as many anchor points... what we can do is we can actually do a curve here... you're like, "Hey, we don't want a curve, we want a straight bit"... what we can do is start with a curve, kind of get it straightish, like that...

hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac, 'Alt' key on PC... and it kind of breaks the handles coming out of this anchor point... it's called Mirroring, when they match... I'm going to break that mirroring, no mirroring... it means that I can then go and try and project this next curve... that's where that comes down to practice.

I kind of know that that's going to get my curve going in the right direction... and before I carry on what you can do is... actually just grab this and drag it back to its Home... you can see, it becomes straight again... so there's no handle coming out that side, and just one from this side. So over here I'm going to do the same thing, click, hold, and drag...

my curve is totally off, Dan, good work... and I don't want to let go because if I do, it tries to curve that bit... so I'm going to click, hold, and drag, and then break it again... holding down that same key... 'Option' on a Mac, 'Alt' on PC, and then try and guess where this needs to go... about there, I'm going to put one anchor point there...

still not quite right, another one, kind of directly across... same sort of angle, still not quite right, and then work my way around... if you've drawn one that is curved you can break it afterwards... hold down that 'Option' key... go back to here, and what it'll do is it'll snap it... then I've got a corner, or if you do a corner...

where you want it to be a curve, you can hold down... the 'Command' key on a Mac, 'Ctrl' key on PC, and drag out new handles... 'Option' to break them... and 'Command' to drag out new ones, or 'Ctrl' on a PC... so yeah, I don't know, is this even helpful for you? Drag up my curves there...

click and drag up here... if it ever detaches you can just click on it once, and it will connect back up. Now this one here, you're like, "Oh, it's a corner," nope, want a curve again... so I'm going to go like this, get it kind of close, break it... and then continue on... but before I continue on I'm going to drag him back to his Home...

this one needs a straight bit here so I'm going to probably drag that out... go click, hold, and drag out... drag him back... grab that curve... drag this out, break it... come back here, get rid of this guy...

click and drag out, it lost my point, click that one once, drag it out... break it, actually, drag him back before I go to here... sweet drawing, Dan. To go and tidy it up I'm going to use my 'V' key... and just go through and move these things where I need it to go... and just kind of, again, I'm always looking for the anchor points to...

look very symmetrical, it ends up having a nicer curve... if these things are kind of balanced. These two here... are kind of directly across from each other... but not quite the same length, so these two here... this has an anchor point down the bottom, let's have a look at this one...

that looks about the same sort, this one needs to come out a little bit... a little give and take... little repositioning of anchor points to get them perfect... yes, this is a circle, I should just draw a circle... but we're practicing the Pen tool. That is how I do my vector drawings in Figma...

just a little short overview for those people... who haven't done much drawing in Figma... or at least have, kind of, maybe are bumbling their way through it... hopefully, there was some tips and tricks in there to help you... with your icon and logo making in Figma... all right, that is going to be it, I will see you in the next video.