Another effect used in a lot of Manga and comics is the focus line. These lines radiate from a central point and can show shock or surprise, indicate an action, or draw the eye.
The following steps will teach you how to use the Scattered saturated line tool:
- Select the Figure(U) tool from the toolbox. Then go to Saturated line | Scattered saturated line.
- Click on the spot from where you want all the lines to radiate and hold down the mouse button.
- While still holding down the mouse button, drag out to form an ellipse around the area to focus on. In the example shown here, the lines will be focused on the character's face:
- Release the mouse button to generate the lines.
This tool, like the line tools that we've already covered this chapter, draws lines based on the settings of the tool and the line (or in this case, the circle!) that we've already set. The focus lines radiate from the central point of the ellipse, fading at its outer edges. We can change the settings of the existing lines by selecting them with the Object tool, then going back to the Scattered saturated line tool, and opening the Sub Tool Detail palette, as detailed in the How it works… section of the Making action lines with the Scattered stream line tool recipe.
Here, you can see the focus lines created with the ellipse pictured in the preceding screenshot:
