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I'm at the beginning of my learning journey with Illustrator and am watching this videos to learn Badge Drawing, I Appreciate people prefer not to watch in order to answer, but I'm not skilled enough to break it down into steps, I'll just write down what I hear for now. From minute 12:46 in the clip

She unites the shapes She then selects the "Group Selection Tool" Then holds the "shift" key Then presses on the edge of one part of the unified shape Lastly she then presses the "delete" key. Magically, something happens and the shape is filled all the way through.

Questions I have:

  1. What is the significance of pressing right on the edge of the shape?
  2. When clicking the edge only parts of it get deselected? Why does deselection of points only run for a part of the shape and not for the whole shape? How does illustrator know where to stop the deselection?
  3. What is "delete" doing when the key is pressed here and what causes the shape to be filled?
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  • Was this not explained in your previous question? graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/136638/…
    – Scott
    May 23, 2020 at 10:04
  • No as that was the same video but a different problem in that same video . This is now towards the end of that video .
    – Dan
    May 23, 2020 at 10:21
  • Hi. Welcome to GDSE. After having a quick look at the video (I'm not watching the whole thing), I have to say that the part where she creates the shadow is not how I would do it. It's often hard to unpick someone else's tutorial. As for deleting, it does what it says on the packet. It deletes the selected objects, leaving the unselected objects. If you have questions for the author of the tutorial, why not leave a comment on the video?
    – Billy Kerr
    May 23, 2020 at 10:38
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    I can tell you... in 30+ years of Illustrator use I have never once actually selected the Group Selection Tool from the toolbar. Not once. It's a pointless tool. That, and then Billy's comment above sort of makes me question the efficiency of the tutorial --which I have not watched.
    – Scott
    May 23, 2020 at 16:28
  • @Scott - same here. Can't think of a reason to use it.
    – Billy Kerr
    May 24, 2020 at 0:16

1 Answer 1

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I don't want to come across overly harsh, but after watching that tutorial, she is her own worst enemy in my opinion.

She is not "wildly" incorrect in many areas. But she does make things far, far, far, more convoluted and confusing than they should be for a tutorial. It's not a "great" tutorial but I don't think her overall workflow is horrible. It's simply not well-geared to teaching others.

I would strongly suggest avoiding tutorials that use random shortcuts as tool names. There is no "a tool" or "v tool" -- there's the Selection Tool whose shortcut is the v key - and the Direct Selection Tool whose shortcut is the a key. If the tutorial author can not be bothered to use correct tool names, all it's going to do is confuse the viewer.

In addition, there are entire areas in that tutorial where she simply spouts off a list of shortcuts one after the other. That makes for near impossible retention and only ensures you are doing a great deal of rewinding.

Great tutorials will use correct tool names and show you the menu items as opposed to just "reciting" a list of shortcuts.

The overall construction of merely the seal is so overly complicated in that tutorial.... In short.. the entire "duplicate and use group selection to delete everything else" is pointless. It is overly complex construction where it's not necessary. Just draw 2 simple circles and align them. Then apply the zig zag effect to the outer circle, it's that simple.

enter image description here

Don't use the Warp item in the Effect menu as she does. Use Object> Envelope Distort > Make with Warp It's the same appearance without being dependent upon the object's rotation.

To be honest, I quit watching the moment she used the Effect Menu Warp and then had to explain why it had problems. That's just bad tutorial writing in my opinion. Again, it's not like she's building things in a "bad" or "poor" fashion - she is not. She's simply making things far more difficult for a tutorial viewer than they should be.

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  • Fantastic Scott. Really appreciate the detailed feedback. It's really helpful to see that there is an alternative. I would also add support to your argument on the video. That video has been very difficult for me to follow, I've literally spent hours rewinding and trying to recreate. So I take your advice on this and will leave it and pick up another tutorial.
    – Dan
    May 26, 2020 at 11:19

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