Tracing Wave Pattern in Illustrator

Question

I have this pattern that is made of all shapes (not strokes). I'd like it to be made of strokes so I can easily adjust the thickness of the lines. Many people have told me the only way to do that would be to redraw all of it out of strokes. Does anyone have a shortcut? If not, I don't mind taking the time to redraw it, but what would be the best tool? Pen tool? Curvature? When I've started trying to redraw it with those tools, it's very tricky and never looks very good. It might be because I'm just not very good at using these tools. Any advice or tutorials would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Monika Gause · Accepted Answer

There is no automatic way or Shortcut.You might check out if there are similar patterns in this. So maybe you need to only draw 2 or 3 waves and then can repeat them, flip them, rotate, whatever.But basically this means: practice drawingIf all you want to do is make the lines thicker or thinner, you could try and apply Object > Path > Offset path to the whole thing. Then you don't need to redraw. This won't turn them into strokes, but will make them thicker or thinner. Make sure to input small values.

Bobby Henderson · Answer

You'll need to re-draw the artwork by hand, especially if you're wanting to use pen stroke features and have the artwork adjustable. Like Monika said, it takes practice drawing using the pen tool. That includes learning how to draw paths with as few anchor points as possible so curves will flow more smoothly. Also, the fewer points you have along a path will (usually) make the path easier to adjust. If you don't already know the keyboard shortcuts associated with the pen tool (for adjusting paths on the fly while you're drawing them) it pays big dividends to learn them. Fewer trips back and forth to the tool bars for different tools and a good bit of time saved.

Best procedure to use is to lock your original artwork down on one layer and then create a new layer above to draw/trace your new line work. Once you have laid down the base center lines of your artwork you can use the variable width profile on the line stroke to adjust its width and taper at the ends. The Width Tool can add more control over stroke widths along the path.

Creating a seam-less, repeating wave pattern might save additional work.

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