Pencil Tool Properties

When you select the Pencil tool, its properties and options appears in the Tool Properties view.

NOTE: To learn how to use the Pencil tool, see About the Pencil Tool.

Pencil Tool Properties

Icon Tool Name Description
  Previewing the Stroke

The Preview area lets you see a preview of the selected or customized stroke. You can click on the Show Extended Properties arrow to display advanced customization parameters.

Preview Stroke

  Maximum Size

Defines the maximum size of your drawing tool. This parameter defines the width of the stroke.

  Smoothing

Defines the number of control points added to the centre line. The fewer the control points the smoother (but less faithful) the line.

  Shape

You can adjust the start, end, and joint style of a pencil line.

Pencil Line Style

  • Start: Lets you select the style of the start tip, which is the first tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • End: Lets you select the style of the end tip, which is the last tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • Join: Lets you select the joint style. The joints are where the line curves abruptly. You could also define the Join style as the corner style. You can choose between Round, Mitre and Bevel style.
  Presets

Harmony provides a variety of pencil presets and thickness stencils and also lets you create and save your own. It is a good idea to create and save pencils with precise sizes and parameters when you draw and design for efficiency and consistency.

A thickness stencil saves the thickness information across the length of the line. When drawing with a thickness stencil, the pressure sensitivity of the tablet is discarded. A thickness stencil can be used while drawing, or applied afterwards.

You also have the possibility to apply different textures to your lines by either using the default presets or importing your own See About Pencil Line Texture. .

You can export the pencil presets that you have created and import those that others have created. This is a good way for you and project collaborators to keep a consistent look for the project.

New Pen Template New Brush

Allows to create a new preset.

New Pen Template Delete Brush

Allows you to delete your custom presets.

  Rename Brush

Allows you to rename a custom preset.

  Import Brushes

Allows you to import a set of XML Harmony presets previously exported via the Export Brushes command.

  Export Brushes

Allows you to export Harmony presets to backup or import on a different computer.

  Small Thumbnail, Large Thumbnail, and Stroke View

Allows you to display the presets as small square thumbnails, large square thumbnails or a list of stroke preview.

Draw Behind

When drawing on vector layers, the Draw Behind mode lets you paint behind existing art. By default, strokes appear over your work until you release the tool.

Automatically Create Colour Art

As you draw in the Line Art layer, the Automatically Create Colour Art option instantly creates the corresponding strokes in the Colour Art layer.

Auto-Flatten Mode

When enabled, the Auto-Flatten mode automatically flattens the new lines created with the existing artwork as you draw in the Drawing or Camera view. Brush strokes will flatten with brush strokes and pencil lines will flatten with pencil lines.

NOTE:

Using the Select tool, you can use select and remove a segment of flattened pencil lines. Overlapping pencil lines drawn with the Auto-Flatten mode are essentially cut into segments by the overlap and can be treated as individual lines.

Auto-Close Gap

When using the pencil tool, you can automatically close strokes with an invisible stroke.

It is recommended to keep this option enabled when drawing with the Pencil tool.

Line Building Mode

The Line Building mode is very useful when drawing long lines and curves in small increments with pencil lines or the Line tool. As the pencil lines are central vector lines, it may be difficult to align the line tips perfectly to create a uniform stroke and close all gaps.

In this mode, you can draw lines in small increments and the tips are merge into one single stroke.

NOTE: This mode only works with pencil lines or the line tool.
Auto Adjust Thickness

The Auto Adjust Thickness tool is useful when you want to render a portion of a line thicker. When tracing a drawing on paper, you will often go back to a section of a curve to make it thicker to add dynamism to the line. Using the Auto Adjust Thickness tool, you can draw highlight strokes over the section to make thicker. Once you release the pen or mouse, the line becomes thicker following the shape and curve of the original stroke. This way is much faster and smoother than using the Pencil Editor tool. You do not have to add extra points and adjust the position and Bezier handles.

The default overlay colour is light yellow. If this colour is difficult to see because of the background or drawing colour, you can adjust the colour.

Line Pushing Mode

The Line Pushing Mode option lets you draw highlight strokes over existing pencil lines. You can reshape the curves. Depending how you draw the pushing stroke over your line, the highlighted section will be reshaped in one direction or the other.

The default overlay colour is light yellow. If this colour is difficult to see because of the background or drawing colour, you can adjust the colour.

  Colour

You can change the colour for the Line Pushing Mode anf the Auto Adjust Thickness option by clicking on the Colour swatch and selecting a new colour in the Colour Picking window.

Line Pushing Mode Colour

Size and Smoothness Tab

You can access advanced properties by clicking on the Previewing the Stoke button in the Tool Properties view.

Tool Name Description
Maximum Size Defines the maximum size of your drawing tool. This parameter defines the width of the stroke.
Minimum Size

Defines the minimum size of your stroke as a percentage of the maximum size. If you do not have pressure sensitivity from a pen table, the minimum size value will be ignored.

Smoothing Defines the number of control points added to the centre line. The fewer the control points the smoother (but less faithful) the line.
Contour Smoothing Defines the number of points on the contour share of your stroke. This will smooth out the bumps and waves on tour contour shape of your brush strokes.
Shape

You can adjust the start, end, and joint style of a pencil line.

Pencil Line Style

  • Start: Lets you select the style of the start tip, which is the first tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • End: Lets you select the style of the end tip, which is the last tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • Join: Lets you select the joint style. The joints are where the line curves abruptly. You could also define the Join style as the corner style. You can choose between Round, Mitre and Bevel style.

Texture Tab

You can access advanced properties by clicking on the Previewing the Stoke button in the Tool Properties view.

Icon Tool Name Description
Save to Preference Icon Copy to Preferences

You can add a pencil texture to your preset preferences.

  New Texture

Adds a new custom pencil texture to the list.

  Delete Texture Deletes a texture preset from the list.
  Rename Texture Renames the selected texture to keep the list organized.
  Presets

Harmony provides a variety of pencil texture presets and also lets you create and save your own.

  Pencil Texture Palette Displays the colour palette assigned to hold the pencil textures. Use the Colour View menu to assign a new palette.