Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

Using the Divide Operation

Now that you’ve mastered the basic pathfi nder operations, we’ll

continue with one of the more advanced functions, Divide. In this

exercise, we’ll be focusing on the robot’s mouth and fi ngers, and

the cartoon speech bubble.

1. Open the ghost artwork in progress. If you still have

the artwork open from the last exercise, great. Other-

wise, open the fi le you saved from the previous exer-

cise, or the Unite and divide.ai fi le in the Lesson 06

inside the Lesson Files-AIcs5 1on1 folder.

2.

Select the paths that make up the mouth. First, we need to

clean up the robot’s mouth—the outer shapes are in the way.

Using the black arrow tool, click to select one of the paths that

makes up the mouth, and then Shift-click to select the other

two, as in Figure 6-22.

3. Divide the paths. Once you have the paths selected, click the

icon. Illustrator splits the three paths into all their overlap-

ping components—in this case, a total of six paths. Deselect

everything by pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (-Shift-A).

4. Delete the extraneous paths. Press the A key to switch to the

white arrow tool, and then Alt-click (or Option-click) the top

rectangle path, as in Figure 6-23. Press Backspace or Delete

to delete it. Repeat the process for the lower rectangular path.

It’s worth noting that the Divide command creates a group of paths

rather than a compound path. Divide suits our purposes in the next

step because a group’s individual elements can have stroke and path

attributes applied independently, but a compound path’s cannot.

5. Fill the inner mouth with blue. Alt-click (or Option-click) the

inner mouth segment (the one that resembles a pair of cartoon

shorts, shown in Figure 6-24) to select it. Switch to the eyedrop-

per tool by pressing the I key, and then click the outline of the

left blue oval to copy its attributes.

6.

Select and divide the two thumb shapes on the left hand. Now

to fi x our robot’s broken thumbs. Switch back to the white

arrow tool by pressing the A key, and while pressing and hold-

ing the Alt (or Option) key, marquee the two thumb shapes as

shown in Figure 6-25 on the facing page. Click the

icon to

split apart the paths. Press Ctrl+Shift+A (-Shift-A on the Mac)

to deselect the new group.

Figure 6-22 .

Figure 6-23 .

Figure 6-24 .

188

Lesson 6: Pathfi nder Operations

7.

Delete the extraneous pieces. We don’t need the two outer

pieces of the thumb. Alt-click (or Option-click) the fi rst, and

then Shift+Alt-click (Shift-Option-click) the second, as shown

in Figure 6-26. Press Backspace or Delete to remove the pieces.

8.

Unite the remaining pieces. Switch to the black arrow tool, and

select the remaining pieces. Click the icon in the Pathfi nder

panel to unite them. One thumb repaired!

9.

Repeat for the thumb on the right hand. Repeat Steps 6 through

8 for the other thumb, taking care to fi rst switch to the white

arrow tool before repeating Steps 6 and 7. Your results should

look like Figure 6-27.

10. Move the left endpoint to overlap the right. Now it’s time to

turn your attention to the talk balloon—which at the moment

looks more like two white fl ags waving under an oval. But don’t

surrender yet! You’ll whip the talk balloon into shape over the

next few steps.

• Switch to the white arrow tool.

•

Select the endpoint at the bottom of the left squiggle by

clicking it, as shown in Figure 6-28, and move it over to

overlap the squiggle on the right. If you have Smart Guides

turned on, you will see the word anchor in green when the

points are aligned.

• Finally, move the control handle to the left to soften the

curve, as indicated by the second arrow in the fi gure.

Figure 6-25 .

Figure 6-26 .

Figure 6-27 . Figure 6-28 .

189

Using the Divide Operation