Chapter 2. Creating Artwork and Text with Flash

by Robert Cleveland

In this chapter

Freeform Drawing

Drafting with the Graphics Tools

Creating Paths with the Pen Tool

Setting and Manipulating Text

Troubleshooting Your Artwork and Text

Did You Know?

There's little doubt that creative designers are loath to give up their graphic programs for something as simple as an animation application. And certainly no one will boast that Flash 5 has competitive capabilities on par with software such as Photoshop or Illustrator.

However, it should be noted that Flash offers creative folks some excellent options for general brainstorming and even some cursory artwork development. Many artists and animators already have started using Flash to create animatics: living storyboards that often can tell a story more effectively than static pictures.

Animatics often are used in presentations to roughly imply the motion or events in a scene. The most notorious use is in commercials and movie-making. But increasingly, as the Web becomes more timeline-oriented, using the animatic step can help illustrate your ideas and create a foundation for the subsequent development work.

Conversely, Flash provides the rookie illustrator with some of the same tools found in the popular illustration software packages. Given the relative cost and complexity of Flash and these other packages, it might make sense for you to start out with the artwork development capacity in Flash 5, and then graduate some day to the more advanced applications— especially after you find someone else to buy them for you.