Trying to recreate this shape. I've got this far but would like to add smooth curvature my attempt is the purple stroked shape.
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1This shape is easily done manually with the Pen Tool. There are hundreds of tutorials out there on learning how to draw with the Pen Tool and @BillyKerr's recommendation from your previous question for the bezier game is excellent for practicing using and learning the Pen Tool.– KyleAug 21, 2021 at 3:23
3 Answers
Use the Pen Tool to draw the shape. There's nothing particularly difficult here if you learn how to use the tool. If you don't get the curves perfect first time, you can adjust them later using the Direct Selection tool to tweak the Bézier handles.
Example
You can create this by merely drawing a perfect circle. It's several extra steps but it takes absolutely no skill with the Pen tool.
To draw a circle, hold down the Shift key while dragging with the Ellipse Tool.
Obviously, you can start by merely drawing a path for the arc (step 4) if you are at least that confident with the Pen Tool.
Once you have the final shape, you can use Object > Envelope Distort > Make With Warp
again using Flag
to tweak the shape more...
Incase the image gets lost or broken...
- Draw a circle
- Use the Convert Anchor Point Tool and Click the side anchors, changing them to corner anchors
- Double-click the Scale Tool - Non-Uniform - 150%H, 50%V
- Delete the bottom anchor point
Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Warp
- Flag +100% BendObject > Expand
Object > Ungroup
- Double-click Reflect Tool - Flip Horizontal COPY
- Double-click Reflect Tool - Flip Vertical
- Manually move to align ends
- Join end anchors
In case you want to make both 'edges' of the leaf look same, you can use pen tool and copy & rotation.
First draw on edge using any method which works best for you. There are many ways. I'd use a pen tool. You can use
Object > Path > Simplify
to make it a bit smoother or manually adjust the anchor points.Then copy the same path, reflect it (using Transform tools) both horizontally and vertically and then drag it so it snaps to the end of 1st path. Then you can join them using
Object > Path > Join
option.
Note: I'm not very sure if CS6 has all of these features, especially snapping, but I just saw some tutorials about CS6 and I think it should work fine. But importantly, it's more of a practice and what works best for you, rather than using some particular tool or feature that exists or doesn't exist. You can spend some time on learning to draw with pen tool which will make things easier.