Any way to improve drawing with a mouse in Illustrator?

Question

I was wondering if there's any way to make drawing with a mouse in Illustrator be much smoother, have more control and as much as possible much closer than having a pen input/tablet pen. Any tips, hacks, plugins that lets you do this.I'm broke so I can't afford any of those touch/pen enabled PCs and tablet pen

Answer 1

I worked with vector tools for over a decade before I found a pen tablet so I learned to draw very well with a 3-button mouse. The stylus tablet is great for sketching in Illustrator but if you want precise construction of lines and curves the most powerful go-to tool is the Pen Tool or the Curvature Tool and these work best with a mouse. As opposed to the Paint Brush or the Pencil tool that are more useful for "sketching" the Pen Tool is much better for "constructing" lines and curves very accurately much like using CAD or 3D modeling software.

I often use an analogy of an artist approaching a canvas with a paint brush or a pencil and expressing themselves organically, while a designer plots and plans and edits the design until the solution is found. And that is what is actually being done with the Pen Tool, you are plotting X and Y coordinates and connecting them precisely with lines and curves that are scaleable. If you can master all the aspects of this powerful Pen Tool then you will truly understand the power of vector art.

I'm gonna make a short video explaining how to use this Pen Tool and see how this Beta Test of the Video Answer function works. Stay t00ned!

Answer 2

Might take a bit longer but if stroke smoothing isnt already on. Make use of pen lines and control with anchor point curves. for a more natural feel. draw as best you can with the brush, then on a new layer trace with anchor points using the pen tool like connect the dots and bring out curves from the lines. Illustrator is all about vectors and precision. Nothing better than bezier curves