How to use Star Tool effectively in Illustrator

07.10.07

Filed Under: Art & Design, Tutorial



Star Tool secret tip... unveiled!

Adobe Illustrator’s Star Tool is a tool that not only can create lovely star shapes, it also can create the web badges which is popular right now in web design. To use Star Tool is very simple, just point your cursor to Illustrator’s Tools panel and select the Star Shape icon which grouped together with Rectangular Shape tool.

Then, you can start doing Star shapes by dragging across the canvas. Release the cursor to finalize the shape. It’s just that simple. But what if I want to have more controls to customize my Star shape? In this post I will teach you some essential tips so that you can use the Star Tool effectively.

Star Tool tips

The Star Tool consists of Radius 1, Radius 2 and Points, you can see this when clicking the canvas while using Star Tool and a windows appeared. Radius 1 is the outer point, Radius 2 is the inner point. Basically, the picture above sums up the essential controls to use while using the tool. But there is one thing I not very sure about the ALT, because I don’t know whether I got it right or not. Because when hitting ALT, the Radius 1 becomes inner point and Radius 2 becomes outer. However hitting ALT again does not change anything.

But the most useful tip is hitting the CTRL while dragging because, it can modify the Radius 1 and 2 easily. Plus, the minimum points you can decrease is down to 3. When writing until here, I found out that when hitting ALT with a 3 points Star shape, it becomes a triangle! I think it will make the Star shape in perfect angle, for example, 6 points star shape is made of 2 perfect triangles, 2 rectangles form a 8 points Star. But it won’t work for 4 points star shape, because it can’t be split to two!.

Haha, I learn something new while writing the post. Hope you learn something from this post too :D


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12 Responses to “How to use Star Tool effectively in Illustrator”
    Leonard
  1. Leonard

    Hi, nice to meet you! I’ve supported you! Link Me, I’ll link you back :)

  2. jayhan
  3. jayhan

    Hi Leonard, thanks for the support! :D

    Linked you ;)

  4. Tim
  5. Tim

    Thanks for the tip!

  6. jayhan
    jc
  7. jc

    Was just playing around with your tip and noticed something odd…but fun….when creating the shape using the ctrl pressed and bringing the points down to 3 with the arrows…..press and hold the alt + ctrl and move your mouse then let go of the alt key…..you should get a figure with lines on the inside rather than an empty fill….makes for some pretty interesting shapes..

    jc

  8. jayhan
  9. jayhan

    Really? i tried but can’t achieve the interesting shapes that you said.

  10. jc
  11. jc

    I’m using CS3 on a Vista system…..

  12. Heartburn Home Remedy
  13. Heartburn Home Remedy

    If you want to hear a reader’s feedback :) , I rate this post for 4/5. Decent info, but I just have to go to that damn yahoo to find the missed parts. Thank you, anyway!

  14. How to use Star Tool effectively in Illustrator – Tutorial Collection
  15. How to use Star Tool effectively in Illustrator - Tutorial Collection

    [...] View Tutorial No Comment var addthis_pub=”izwan00″; BOOKMARK This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Illustrator Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]

  16. casinos
  17. casinos

    I’ve been searching the Internet for exactly what you’ve posted.

  18. Kyle Griffin
  19. Kyle Griffin

    I always use Adobe illustrator at work because i work in an animation studio. this is really a serious tool for the graphic artist.;~`

  20. frederik
  21. frederik

    very usefull thanks ;) i need it for my exam tomorrow

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