Illustrating With Flash
By Gary Ferrington

Macromedia's Flash software is frequently used for animation, web design, and illustration. Here is a listing of useful online information on drawing with Flash.

Drawing Illustrations in Flash. "Techniques for creating symbols, drawings, and illustrations in Macromedia Flash. Includes tips for working with vector drawing tools and making your illustrations more realistic. Learn about tracing bitmaps to create vector clip art, importing clip art and fonts to use as symbols, editing and manipulating shapes, working with fills, and more."

Drawing in Flash by Matthew David. "There are two predominant types of graphical formats on the Internet: raster graphics and vector graphics. The difference between the two can be seen through this simple experiment."

Flash Drawing. This tutorial explains the Flash toolbox, how to draw basic lines and shapes.

A guide to drawing with Flash MX. By Bryan Boyer. "A very short tutorial on using Flash MX's drawing tools."

Introduction to Flash Drawing by Lloyd Reiber. "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."

Nuts & Bolts. Drawing Tools. "In Flash MX, new Movieclip methods are included (the Flash MX Drawing API) which allow dynamic creation of movieclips at runtime. This powerful feature, together with the new createTextField method, allows movies to be created completely from script, with nothing on the stage or in the library if desired, or for existing movieclips to be modified at runtime. Source: Actionscript-Toolbox.com

Scanning in Drawings for Flash Animations. "A good graphics artist can use a special drawing tablet or even a mouse to create illustrations and graphics to use in Flash animations. For those of us that do not have such skills, a sheet of paper, a pen and a scanner can provide the pictures you need."