by Didik Wijaya
This tutorial needs you to understand basic use of Adobe Flash.

Adobe Flash is an excellent vector animation software. However, before we animate, we should provide an image. We can create an image by drawing it. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have ability to draw well. Don't worry, by using several tools provided by Flash, you can draw a lot of things. This tutorial will show you how to draw a scorpion without you need to desperately drawing with your mouse. You don't need a tablet either. Just use your ordinary mouse. If you can draw rectangle or ellipse in Flash, that's enough. The technique is simple. Draw a common shape, rectangle or ellipse. Then, modify it. 

1. First, we will 'draw' scorpion's body. Open new document in Flash. Rename existing layer to 'body'. To rename layer, just double-click layer's name and change its name. Use Oval Tool to draw ellipse on Stage. No need to fill with color. Now you have a very simple shape.

2. Select ellipse. Activate Free Transform Tool, and in Options, click Envelope. Or, you can select ellipse and from the main menu, choose Modify>Transform>Envelope. This feature is used to modify a shape by moving several points and handles. Move black small squares like image below. We will use this adjusted ellipse as body

3. Leave your ellipse for a while. Draw a rectangle without fill color. Again, use Envelope and move small black squares like image below. As result, you will get a leg.

4. Now, select half of the leg (left side). Activate Free Transform Tool (don't use Envelope), and strecth down a little bit to make left side has more height. Upper part of leg (shown in red rectangle in image below) will need adjustment. Use Selection tool to move end point to make all line continuous.

5. Move leg adjacent to body. You may need to resize if necessary. After it is in position, select all strokes in leg. From main menu, choose Edit>Copy, then Edit>Paste in Place. You will get a duplicated leg in the same position. Click Modify>Transform>Flip Horizontal and move other leg in its position. Select and delete un-necessary strokes (shown with arrows at image below). Fill with your desired color.

6. Select all body and legs. Activate Free Transform Tool and use Distort option. Move 2 handles on the right to simulate a perspective view like image below.

7. Click on Selection Tool button. All legs and body should still be selected. While pressing Alt button in keyboard, move them diagonally 3 times. You will get 3 copies of them. Look at image below as reference.

Next, in Part 2 we will try to create a tail.

Any question or comments regarding this tutorial should be sent to:
Didik Wijaya, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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