Chapter 2. Drawing in Flash CS5

In This Chapter

  • Creating shapes and lines

  • Editing and selecting shapes

  • Tweaking and splicing shapes and lines

  • Transforming shapes and artwork

  • Creating and modifying text

  • Working with colors and gradients

  • Using the Brush tool

Many great creations start with the most basic shapes and build from there. In this chapter, you discover the secrets of drawing shapes and lines and working with colors in Flash.

Drawing Shapes and Lines

To get your creation started, become familiar with the Shape and Line tools on the Tools panel and use them as the starting point for everything from basic buttons to complex illustrations.

When you're ready to create more complex artwork beyond the capabilities offered by the Shape and Line tools, the Pen and Pencil tools are standing by. These tools work quite differently, and for that reason should be chosen based on the kind of artwork you want to create.

The following sections show you how to get started creating basic shapes and lines.

Drawing basic shapes with the shape tools

Drawing basic shapes with the shape tools

Before you draw the shape, set some colors for it by using the two swatches at the bottom of the Tools panel. The Fill color swatch (indicated by the paint bucket icon) lets you specify a color to fill your shape. The Stroke Color swatch (indicated by the pencil icon) controls the outline color.

Flash lets you choose colors from the Swatches panel. You can add your ...

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