Introduction to Flash Drawing
Lloyd Rieber

This short tutorial will introduce you to the basics of Flash drawing. Here is one graphic I'll show you how to draw:

As you can see, my graphic talent is rather limited! It should be easy for you to outdo my abilities!

Before we begin

If you have experience creating computer graphics in other packages, you will certainly recognize many of the same tools in Flash, such as the pencil, line, oval, and rectangle makers. However, Drawing in Flash is very different than other graphics packages with which you may be familiar. It is not strictly a paint environment nor a drawing environment. Flash drawing is a combination of both plus has distinct drawing features not found elsewhere. It is best to begin drawing with Flash with a fresh perspective and an open mind. Once you accept the fact that things will be different, you'll really start enjoying the unique drawing capabilities of Flash.

The following movies are some of my first attempts at creating tool demos. They're pretty rough. Also, they were produced for 1280X1024 screen size in order to show the best clarity. I realize that this may be too large for some monitors. Let me know if this poses a big problem for you.

These movies are only available in the Windows Media Player format. My apologies to Mac users!

The first movie demonstrates the two essential parts to any Flash drawing - the fill and the stroke. Although these resemble the background and foreground elements common in objects in other graphics packages, you'll soon notice some unique differences in Flash.

As you watch all the movies in this lesson, take note that all of the work takes place in frame 1 of layer 1 of the timeline. We'll explore the significance of the timeline and layers in the next lesson on basic animation in Flash.

Movie 2: Exploring the pencil and paintbrush tools
1:26

This movie shows some of the features of the pencil and paintbrush tools. The pencil only has stroke characteristics and the paintbrush only has fill characteristics. Notice some of the unique options that come with these tools.

Movie 3: Drawing a submarine
1:37

This movie applies the skills covered so far to draw a picture of a submarine using only 4 rectangles.

You have to keep an open mind when working in computer graphics. Sometimes one's best efforts and plans lead to very unexpected results. In this example, I tried to make a submarine, but wound up making a blue sock.