Vectordiary

Illustrator Trick #2: Tilde Fun

By Tony Soh Posted on May 7th, 2008

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 learning illustrator in 30 days 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 all articles writen by this author

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

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+Add Comment26 Comments

1. 
   marizmendi May 15th, 2008

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

2. 
   Jamie.G May 28th, 2008

   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, 2008

   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, 2008

   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, 2008

   yay! fun to play with! thanks!

6. 
   mickey August 5th, 2008

   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, 2008

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

8. 
   Steff August 5th, 2008

   love it!

9. 
   pub August 16th, 2008

   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, 2008

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

11. 
    Anneke September 26th, 2008

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

12. 
    Love Malhotra October 3rd, 2008

    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, 2008

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

14. 
    Gui October 12th, 2008

    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, 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.

16. 
    Jan October 20th, 2008

    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, 2008

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

18. 
    Vectordiary October 26th, 2008

    The Alt key.

19. 
    Steven October 29th, 2008

    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, 2008

    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, 2008

    that is really cool. thanks man.

22. 
    Amanda January 31st, 2009

    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, 2009

    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, 2009

    german keyboard: use ö instead of tilde

25. 
    hind al hussaini June 11th, 2009

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

26. 
    bem69 June 15th, 2009

    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.