Twist and distort your shapes freely

Illustrator has some powerful - and really fun ways to transform artwork freely.

One of them is called - the Puppet Warp Tool.

The Puppet Warp Tool - lets you twist and distort artwork without having to even select - individual objects.

Let's take a look at our project - and see how we can use it.

I'll zoom in to this part.

I want this woman to look like - she's going faster on her bike.

Kind of like this.

We'll start by warping the scarf.

It might actually look better - if it had some movement because she's kind of - riding into the wind.

To do that, we're going to twist - and distort using the Puppet Warp Tool.

Go ahead and select all the artwork - for the woman.

You don't really need to select the bike.

Now, to warp the scarf, - you need the Puppet Warp Tool, you won't find it in the default Toolbar.

So to find it, - you can show a more advanced Toolbar.

Choose Window, Toolbars, Advanced.

Now the Puppet Warp Tool - lives here under the Free Transform Tool over here in the Toolbar.

Go ahead and select it.

With the tool selected, notice the circles - that Illustrator added to your artwork.

Those are called pins.

They're where you can control the warp.

Illustrator automatically adds those - so you can move, rotate or pin parts of artwork to even keep it still.

You'll also see a mesh - that covers the artwork.

You can leave this on, - but I find it easier if you turn it off.

You can turn it off over here - in the Properties panel by de-selecting this Mesh option.

Let's get to warping.

Come out to the artwork and move the pointer - into the middle of the scarf here.

When you see a + next to the pointer, - click and you'll add a pin.

If you drag that pin, you can see - the effect it's having on the artwork especially at the scarf here.

Now, the other pins in the artwork, - like the one in her hair, they keep that artwork in place.

They keep it pinned.

But notice how her back - is moving a little bit.

You can set a pin there to keep it still.

So click to add one here - roughly around her shoulder.

Then try moving the scarf pin again.

Now you can also rotate artwork - using these pins.

With this pin still selected - you'll see a dashed circle around it.

Move the pointer over that circle and drag.

I think that looks pretty good.

Now the scarf has some movement to it.

Now I want to get her - into a more aggressive riding position.

We want to rotate her head down, - bring her body down a little bit.

So if we're going to rotate her head, think of where the pivot point - for that might be.

I'm thinking probably here at the neck.

Click to add a new pin.

Now I want to rotate this pin, - which would rotate the head but the problem is, if I do that watch.

It's going to look weird - because we already have a pin in the head.

To rotate the head freely, - we need to remove all pins.

So I will undo what I just did.

Select any pins in the head here and press Delete or Backspace - to remove them.

Now you can select that pin again - at the neck and try rotating it.

That's better.

Her torso needs to be - a little more horizontal, so we'll move the pin - you added at her shoulders.

But before you move it, if you move it, you're going to see that only that one moves, - and the rest are going to stay still.

The hands on the bike and her hips - shouldn't really move.

So there need to be pins there.

Now I've got a pin here at the elbow - and if you do too, let's remove it.

So select it and delete it, and then add a pin somewhere down here - near her wrist or forearm.

That's going to keep that area still.

Now, I've got a pin here - in the lower back.

If you don't have one, - go ahead and add one.

We need to move the head, body - and scarf down.

You can drag these pins one at a time, but it'll be faster - if you drag them all at once.

So to select multiple pins, - you can press the Shift key and click on all of them.

Now you can drag one of them down.

That looks pretty good.

I don't want to crush the artwork - too much here.

There we go.

A little adjusting here.

Once I think it looks good, now the head - will need to get rotated again.

She's looking down.

She needs to kind of look straight ahead.

So go to the neck pin and rotate the head, - and, there it is.

That's pretty fun.

You can keep exploring and practicing.

Go ahead and remove some of the pins, add more pins, rotate, - try different things.

If you look to the right in the asset file, there are actually a few examples - of practice artwork and what I wound up with, - to the right there, the final, and if you want to see how I did it, - you can select the final artwork and then select the Puppet Warp Tool - and you can see the pins. -