Basic Drawing In Flash I

A lesson in Lines and fill

You will need this file

1. Open Flash and open a new movie by clicking file=> new.

2. Locate the Oval Tool on the tool box. Click it.

3. Find the Oval Tool Options on the  lower part of the tool box.

• Line Color - the color of the outlines, lines, ink bottle and pencil. Click the swatch to get the color picker and select the color.
• Fill Color - The color of fills, paint bucket and paintbrush. Click the swatch to get the color picker and select the color.
• Default colors - Sets Black for line, white for fill.
• No Color - Select the line or fill in the options and then click No Color to set it to no color.
• Reverse Colors will set the fill color to the line color, and the line color to the fill color.

4. Click the triangle next to the properties inspector below. Notice line and fill color are also represented there. The line thickness and style can be set on the properties inspector.

5. Set the oval tool options to the following. Click and drag to draw an oval. :

• blue line
• red fill
• line thickness of 4
• line style of dotted line

6. Set the oval tool to the following options. Click and drag to draw an oval with the shift key held down. Notice the shift key will constrain proportions.

• black line
• yellow fill
• line thickness of 1
• line style of solid.

7. Click the magnifying glass to zoom in on your figures. Notice the line and fill are very distinct and not pixilated. This is characteristic of vector drawing: no matter what magnification, the lines and fills are distinct, unpixelated.

Double click the hand tool to bring all into view. (View=> Magnification=> show all)

8. Click the rectangle tool in the tool box. The options for the rectangle tool will appear below. The option for this tool is the round rectangle radius. Click the button for the round rectangle radius so you can set the corner for the rectangle. A corner of 0 will give you a square corner. A corner of 10 will give you a rounded rectangle.

Set the rectangle to a radius of 20 points. Draw a rectangle by dragging the tool across the stage.
9. Click the pencil tool. Notice the options for the pen tool. The include

• straight line - used to draw straight lines, the shortest distance between two points. Select the Straight-line option to draw a pointy star.
• smooth - Used to create curves. Select the Smooth option to draw a smooth mountain range.

•  ink. - used for odd shapes.

Use the stoke color to change the color. Set the thickness of the lines in the properties window below. Draw a few shape outlines in different colors.

10.  Select the paintbrush tool from the toolbox. The options for the paint brush are shown on the lower part of the toolbox and include relative size and shape. There are 5 modes of paint.

• Normal paint will paint over anything, including lines and fill, replacing what is where you paint.
• Paint fills will only put fills in blank areas.
• Paint backgrounds will paint around any exhibiting paint
• Paint selection will fill in any selected area
• Paint inside will only paint inside closed objects.

11. Open Duck.fla by clicking file=> open and finding the file you downloaded.

• Select your paint brush set to a wide round brush set to a medium blue, and mode= inside. Paint the lower half of theimage, painting right through the duck shape.
  
•  Set the color to green and the brush mode to fill. paint the upper portion of the image with green
  
• Set the color to light blue and set mode to behind. paint the bottom half area around the darker blue to fill in the gaps by painting the entire area.
  
• Change the color to yellow and set the mode to selection. Select your arrow tool and click the inside of the duck to select it. Switch back to the paint brush and paint over the duck.
• Close your duck image when you are done playing.