Need help with sharp/semi-rounded line corners/endings

Question

Hey guys,

I've started learning Adobe Illustrator today and wanted to trace over an image. I'm having fun, but also a hard time because I can't figure out how to do these specific, pretty sharp but semi-rounded corners on these characters. I've added a screenshot on the issue I'm having.

So my line has the color blue, I made it transparant so you can see the black line I'm trying to trace. As you can see, the black line has a somewhat soft corner, not nearly as sharp as my line. How can I achieve this effect? I've played around with rounded corners, but that's way too round and thick.

Also, a bit to the left you can see that the black line is gradually getting thinner. Is the 'Width Tool' the easiest tool to get this effect?

Thank you in advance.

Jacob Bugge · Accepted Answer

Serellyn,

To get the slight rounding, I am afraid you will need to outline the stroke, and then round the outermost corner.

That will give you the opportunity to set the actual radius of that corner Anchor Point.

As long as you have the stroked path, the rounding will apply to the corner Anchor Point of the spine (the middle of the path width) and therefore the radius of the rounding will be (at least) half the Stroke Weight, which you can get by using a very small rounding or by applying Round Join, (but) that will apply to all corner Anchor Points and is still (far) too round and thick.

You can always obtain a varying width of a stroked path with the Width Tool, which you can do first, before outlining and rounding the corner.

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