Quote (Nereaux @ Dec 18 2014 06:44am)
the best you can hope for in a pen tool tutorial is one that explains the modifiers for the basic pen tool, how they function, and how you can manipulate anchors to understand how they will affect your path.
the latter is something that you have to "feel" because it's not something that can really be taught, you just have to practice.
i always tell people to start simple, with a banana or an apple, just to learn how the tool functions at different curve angles.
the ultimate goal would be to vector your reference image in as few anchors as possible.
http://i.imgur.com/SkqkBdC.png
this is an example of poor control. the anchors are indicated in with red dots
compared to this:
http://i.imgur.com/7dQBsZ1.png
which is a better example, as there are fewer anchors, which results in a smoother vector.
furthermore you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS use illustrator for vector. the pen tool in illy is much better than the photoshop counterpart, and it's not possible to get true vector works in photoshop. the paths themselves are vector components, but the fill is rasterized so it's essentially lower quality no matter what you do.
