Pen tool

Draw a path one anchor point at a time, with full control over the bezier handles at each node.

The Pen tool (P) is the precise way to draw a vector path: click to drop a corner, drag to pull a curve out of it. Nothing needs to be selected first: a click on empty canvas starts a brand new Shape layer. With a Vector Cells layer or one of its drawings selected, the path is drawn into the cel on screen instead. Once it is closed or finished, the layer is selected again rather than the path, so the next click starts a new drawing and a colour picked next is for that one; select a finished drawing with the Node tool to recolour or reshape it.

Placing points#

Click to add a corner point. Click and drag to pull a curved handle out of that point at the same time: the opposite handle mirrors it unless you hold Alt, which breaks the tangent so the two sides of the curve can bend independently.

You can grab and adjust the last point's handles again before moving on: click its outgoing handle, then its incoming handle, then the anchor itself. Holding Alt while dragging a handle mid-draw breaks its tangent the same way.

Closing and finishing a path#

With three or more points placed, click close to the path's starting point to close it and end the stroke there. To stop without closing, press Escape or right-click: the path stays open and stays selected.

Clicking the endpoint of an existing open path (one you drew earlier and left unfinished, or came back to with the Pen tool selected) resumes drawing from that end, and the curve leading into that end keeps its shape.

Adding and removing points on a path#

On a selected path the Pen tool edits the way it does in Affinity. Click a segment to add a point there. Click an existing point to remove it. Press on a point or a handle and drag, and you move it instead: the point follows the cursor from where you grabbed it, without jumping. The two ends of an open path are never removed by a click, because a click on an end resumes drawing.

The cursor tells you which of these a click will do: a plus over a segment, a minus over a point that can be removed, and a close mark over the end that would finish the shape. A click that moves nothing writes no keyframe.

Pen modes#

A four-way switch at the left of the Tool Options bar changes what a click places:

Curve editing while drawing#

When a Shape layer is selected, six curve buttons appear in the Tool Options bar: Split Curve, Break Curve, Close Path, Simplify, Join Curves and Reverse. They act on the selected node of the shape's main contour and grey out when they do not apply: Close Path, for instance, only lights up on an open path with at least three points. Simplify is the exception that acts on the whole shape rather than the selected node: it cuts the node count while refitting the outline as curves. See the Node tool.

Preview and view options#

Rubber band, on by default, previews the segment the next click would add as you move the cursor. Turn it off if you prefer to see only what is already placed. Curve direction draws arrows along the path to show which way it runs; the Pen tool has its own switch for it, separate from the Node tool's.

For a selected Shape layer the bar also carries the fill and stroke swatches and the stroke width, so you can adjust the look without a trip to the Properties panel. Anti-alias is greyed out on Shape layers, because it only affects paint layers.