Illustrator Trick #2: Tilde Fun

By Tony Soh

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Many beginners may not have heard of the “tilde” key trick. It’s the ~ key just beside the number 1 keypad. By holding the tilde key, you can drag to create new shapes following your mouse direction. You can only use it with other shape tools in your tool palette. Combine it with Alt/Option, Shift/Command and spacebar to create new effects. Have fun with the tilde key, below are some experiments I have done with it.

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About The Author: Tony Soh

Hi. I'm the founder of Vector Diary. Illustrator is my passion and I have written numerous tutorials on illustrator helping people learn illustrator. My most popular tutorial on learn illustrator has been a hit. It makes learning illustrator so easy and has benefited more than 20,000 people worldwide. Also, I've revealed some of my secret techniques in the premium tutorials. So don't forget to check it out!

Read more by Tony Soh

• Illustrator Trick #3: Repeated Patterns
• Illustrator Trick #9: Colorful Waves
• Illustrator Trick #5: Art Brush Direction
• Illustrator Trick #8: Scaling Strokes & Effects
• Illustrator Trick #7: Aligning to objects

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+Add Comment47 Comments

1. 
   marizmendi May 15th

   Excellent, Exactly what I’ve been looking for, thanks

2. 
   Jamie.G May 28th

   never ever heard of that technique.. really nice effect and so simple! I’ve been expirimenting with this technique for half an hour now and there are so many possibilities thanks for sharing!

3. 
   dev June 2nd

   hi dear friends
   i don’t know how to make this style pls teach to me and where is the “tilde” options.
   tnks.

4. 
   iStockdiary June 3rd

   The “tilde” key is right under Esc Key. Select the Circle Tool, hold down the “tilde” key and drag on the canvas to start drawing shapes. You can also try it with other shape tools.

5. 
   arly June 6th

   yay! fun to play with! thanks!

6. 
   mickey August 5th

   hopefully i’ll get a reply?

   i was just wondering how i could add the gradient effect (as seen in your opening banner) to the lines? i’ve tried everything i can think of, but nothing seems to work!

7. 
   iStockdiary August 5th

   Hi Mickey, Go Object>Epxand to expand the lines into shapes. Select all and apply gradient to it.

8. 
   Steff August 5th

   love it!

9. 
   pub August 16th

   well…i dont know this trick…f***m
   well if use a keyboard portuguese ur ~ key in this tut is “ç” key :d
   tks for the trick :d

10. 
    Per September 3rd

    For spanish keyboards is the “ñ” letter, thanks god i found it! Great trick!

11. 
    Anneke September 26th

    For French keyboards it’s the “<” key. Very glad to have finally found it! Cool trick

12. 
    Love Malhotra October 3rd

    Hello dear friends
    I don’t know how to make this style pls teach to me and where is the “tilde” options.my email ID is love_malhotra2007@yahoo.co.in
    thanxs.

13. 
    dinesh October 6th

    cooooooooooooooool that’s really awesome, great trick. M Loving it. thanks for sharing.

14. 
    Gui October 12th

    Hey!

    Great tutorial!
    I would like to know what is the bet way to paint inside the draw. I made something like the stars and i don’t know how to paint the “other inside” draws that i’ve made by the experiment. It’s to much work to paint one piece by one

    *sorry for my english haha

    thanks

15. 
    Vectordiary October 12th

    Go Object>Expand to expand the lines. Next select all lines and fill it with gradient. Pull and drag to set the direction of the gradient. You will achieve something like what I have done.

16. 
    Jan October 20th

    Hi!
    Can’t get this to work…
    I have a Norwegian keyboard layout, and where the tilde / ~ symbol should be, I have ‘ and § instead. I have to press alt and ^ to get the ~ symbol. I can’t figure out how to do this trick..!

17. 
    Ranja October 25th

    Very good trick! Let me ask something. Which key replaces the mac’s option key, in the pc keyboard?

18. 
    Vectordiary October 26th

    The Alt key.

19. 
    Steven October 29th

    Oh my god! Why did I not know this Awesome, thanks for sharing.. I’ll be using this alot from now on

20. 
    Steven October 29th

    Btw. I have the new Mac keyboard with a danish layout. In case some of you can’t find the tilde key, you just need to press the key and go crazy

21. 
    Masum December 13th

    that is really cool. thanks man.

22. 
    Amanda January 31st

    Nope, this jsut does not work for me. My tilde is above the right shift key and shares space with the #. Even with shift ~ and drag, there is no effect. The line segment will twirl around anyway (even without the shift ~) but I get no duplicates. This is annoying, as I suspect it is an important part of Illustrator

23. 
    K.W Grippen March 19th

    Amanda: I have the same keyboard as you do. Instead of the tilde key, hold down the @ key. You’ll get the same effect.

24. 
    goldbraun March 27th

    german keyboard: use ö instead of tilde

25. 
    hind al hussaini June 11th

    I was wondering how do you make the lines with different colors. Like the one shown above.

26. 
    bem69 June 15th

    This is a great find, thanks for sharing!

    hind al hussaini – the method is here

    Vectordiary October 12th, 2008

    Go Object>Expand to expand the lines. Next select all lines and fill it with gradient. Pull and drag to set the direction of the gradient. You will achieve something like what I have done.

27. 
    Robin September 21st

    Have a Mac Keyboard with a German Layout. I CAN´T FIND THE KEY!!! Can anyone help me?

28. 
    Toni October 6th

    Robin September 21st, 2009
    Have a Mac Keyboard with a German Layout. I CAN´T FIND THE KEY!!! Can anyone help me?
    —–

    alt + n

    

29. 
    neo January 14th

    hell

30. 
    neo January 14th

    hell with this program

31. 
    neo January 19th

    this program sucks yosh arigato man

32. 
    vectordiary January 19th

    everyone here is a loser if you listen to vector arts haha

33. 
    vectordiary March 2nd

    i vector diary am gay

34. 
    Lawrence J April 5th

    I have a Mac Keyboard (UK Layout) and its the small wireless one that comes with the new imacs. I cant work it out. I’ve tried ~ § ^ and everything else i can think of. if anyone has any ideas please post.

    P.S. As many people seem to have similar issues, do we know the name for this function? so that we can look it up?

35. 
    Tidle Key Windows AZERTY August 1st

    If some one on a pc don’t get it.
    Just try “SHIFT+ ù” Key =>(ù/%).
    Thx for the trick.

36. 
    Fernanda September 25th

    I followed the instructions previously mentioned, but once I select all the lines and fill them with a gradient, every ellipse has ‘its own gradient’ :S getting a very wierd efect (it’s interesting anyway, but not what i’m looking for)
    how can I do it to fill the entire shape with just one gradient??, like in of the opening banner????

37. 
    sara October 28th

    WOW WOW WOW!!! Thank you SO much for posting such a useful thing! I wish I knew about this a few years ago… I had no idea I could do stuff like this so easily!

38. 
    elencek November 2nd

    it can be a single quote ‘ in some keyboards instead of tilde key..

39. 
    Rahim November 24th

    Machi – Really superb dear .. Thanks for sharing.. Cooll

40. 
    Jyo April 15th

    Hey its really nice

41. 
    Sumer June 28th

    I can’t stand without thanking u VECTOR .. I am just a begineer in Illustrator and u made me like professional .. All appreciates my desings and specially This TRICKS …

42. 
    mukesh sharma August 10th

    ITis nice tutorial, Thanks Tony

43. 
    VINEETH October 17th

    VEERY USEFUL

44. 
    Shibin Rajan November 24th

    Wow,nice, thank so much……….

45. 
    swizzly December 3rd

    For Swiss keyboard layouts it is the exclamation mark “!”, between the “ü” and “return” keys. Have fun!

46. 
    victor January 9th

    I have a macbook pro with Spanish keyboard, ñ will not do the trick. I have Illustrator CS5, does anyone know how to help me?

47. 
    Dulon Mree February 1st

    I have to know many things.