How do I remain consistent when tracing a stroke in Illustrator?

Question

I've just recently gotten into Adobe Illustrator and am having trouble maintaining consistency when tracing various shapes that portray a stroke-like effect.

As an example I would like to point out this gray outline located around the purple filling:

As you can see, the width of the gray outline is clearly not consistent. How would I go about maintaining consistency when tracing similar images?

An idea that I had was to copy the bigger shape, and then simply size it down using the same center-point. Whilst this works sometimes, it doesn't on some more complex shapes.

Answer 1

Sizing it up, as you put it, or scaling won't accomplish what you are looking for.

If I understand you correctly, you want a grey outline around the purple shape that mirrors the outer path of the purple shape exactly. In oder to do that, select the outer path of the the purple shape and then offset it by clicking on Object -> Path -> Offset Path. Unfortunately, I'm not in front of a computer right now, I will add a more detailed explanation including some explanatory screenshots later. In the meantime, take a look here to get some more insight into what I'm talking about: Illustrator: Offset Path

Answer 2

Try, (menu) - OBJECT- PATH - OFFSET PATH, on any selected shape.