Basic Tools

Where you see a small arrow in the corner of one of the tool buttons, it means there are other tools that can be accessed using the same button. Hold your mouse down on it and the others will 'pop out'.

Selection Tools

The top selection tool is for selecting entire objects.

The next one is the subselection tool for selecting parts of or points on an object.

Transform Tools

The free transform tool can be used for resizing, rotating and skewing objects. You can also adjust the rotation point.

To resize: Hold your mouse on one of the square block handles and click and drag.
To skew: Hold your mouse on the line between two of the handles and click and drag.
To move rotation point: Click on the white circle in the middle of an object and drag.
To rotate: Sit your mouse just out from one of the corner handles until it becomes a rotation arrow.

If you hold your mouse down over the free transform tool, you will see that there is a second hidden tool which can be used to modify gradient fills in objects.

Drawing Tools

Rectangle Tool

Options for the rectangle tool include oval and polystar (multisided shape). You choose the number of sides for the polystar in the properties panel.

These shapes also all include an option for stroke and fill. Stroke is the outline.

Stroke width, style and colour is set either in the properties panel or in the lower part of the tool pane.

You can choose to have no stroke on a shape by choosing the white square with the red line.

If you want to add a stroke later, use the ink tool (hidden behind the paintbrush)

Brush Tool

When you use the brush tool, there are several options for it that you can find at the bottom of the tool panel.

The first one selects object drawing mode.

The second option is lock fill. It is a little complex, but at this stage it's best to leave it unlocked.

The third option has a fly out for a range of options:

Paint fills will not paint the stroke (or outline) of objects
Paint behind paints behind objects
Paint selection will only paint within the selected area.
Paint inside will paint inside whichever object you start painting in.

The final option is brush size.

Pencil Tool

As you would expect, the pencil tool is great for drawing. It gives a consistent line weight which is useful if using a drawing tablet. It has some very useful options at the bottom of the tool panel (straighten, smooth, ink) to assist you to make smooth drawings, even when using the mouse to draw.

Object and Merge Drawing

There are two different drawing modes in Flash CS4 - object and merge drawing modes.Object drawing mode is available for the brush, pencil and rectangle/oval tools, and when they are selected you will see the object mode option in the bottom section of the tool pane.

The green line on the left was drawn using merge mode and it has merged and become one with the red shape. When you move it, you can see that it leaves a gap in the red shape.

The green line on the right was drawn in object mode. It does not merge with the red shape beneath it, so can be moved without affecting the shape beneath it.

You can make use of merge mode to draw interesting shapes. This one was done starting with a red circle, then by drawing different coloured overlapping circles on it, then deleting them.

Getting started with the drawing tools:

If you still need more help, this video may be useful:

Object Drawing and Merge Modes

If you are unsure about object drawing mode, this video may help:

Use the drawing tools to create a very simple cartoon style character of your own that you can use in your later animations.

fred mary

If (like me) you need a little help with your drawing, have a look at http://www.drawingcoach.com/cartoon-animals.html

Add a second layer and draw in a background for your character. (It's important to do this on a different layer so that you can easily separate out your character later)

There is a useful tutorial for designing characters for animation at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/design_character_pt1.html