Drawing
The tools #
| Tool | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Pencil | B | Freehand strokes with the current brush |
| Spray | Shift+B | Scattered dots inside a radius |
| Eraser | E | Erases; a stroke is cut where it was erased, a shape keeps the hole |
| Fill | G | Fills the connected area you click |
| Gradient | Shift+G | Fills the area a fill would find (or the selection) with a dithered gradient from the first colour to the second, along your drag |
| Pick colour | I | Takes the colour under the pointer |
| Rectangle | R | Drag a rectangle; stays editable |
| Ellipse | U | Drag an ellipse; stays editable |
| Line | L | Drag a line; Shift snaps to 15 degrees |
| Contour | D | Fills inside a closed outline you draw |
| Polygon | Shift+D | Click corner by corner |
| Curve | Shift+L | Click to place points, drag as you place one to pull out handles |
| Text | Shift+T | Click, then type |
| Slice | C | Draws a named rectangle for exports |
| Move | V | Moves the layer or selection; shows the rotate and scale gizmo |
| Hand | H | Pans (or hold Space) |
| Zoom | Z | Click to zoom in, Alt+click to zoom out |
The selection tools are in Selecting and moving.
The brush #
The Tool panel on the left shows the options of the tool in hand. For the pencil, spray and eraser:
- Size, and Round or Square.
Shift+]andShift+[make the brush larger or smaller. - Pixel-perfect keeps a diagonal one pixel wide, with no doubled corners.
- Stabiliser smooths a shaky hand by following the pointer a little behind.
- A custom brush: select pixels and press
Ctrl+B. - A pen tablet works as it is: pressure drives the size, and the eraser end erases.
Hold Shift and click to draw a straight line from the last stroke. Right-click draws with
the second colour; X swaps the two.
Inks #
The pencil and spray have four inks: what a stroke does to what is under it.
- Simple paints every pixel the brush covers.
- Lock alpha paints only where something is already drawn.
- Replace colour paints only over the second colour.
- Shading steps each pixel to the neighbouring slot of the palette, so a shaded area still follows the palette.
Each ink is part of the stroke, so it turns and scales with the drawing.
Symmetry #
View > Symmetry across and Symmetry down mirror what you draw about axes that start in the middle of the canvas. Drag an axis to move it.
Shapes that stay shapes #
A rectangle, ellipse, line, polygon or curve keeps its parameters. Pick it in the
Elements panel and its handles appear on the canvas: drag a corner to resize, drag a
point to reshape. Properties shows its numbers, rounding, outline and shadow, and
changes them without redrawing anything. Shift keeps a rectangle square and an ellipse round.
Drawing a shape on a layer does not touch what was there. Painting over a colour lays the new colour on top, and removing the top element in the Elements panel brings the old one back exactly as it was.
Text #
Choose the Text tool, click where it should go and type. The result is an element made of words, a place and a size: select it in the Elements panel and edit the text in Properties, and the pixels are rebuilt. The face is Fast's own five-by-seven pixel font.
Outlines, shadows and dither #
In Properties, Outline draws a line around what a layer draws, or around the whole figure across layers, with no seam where parts meet; Drop shadow casts a shadow from the layer or the whole figure. Both are generated from the drawing as it is now, so they follow any change.
Dithered fill turns a layer's colour into a dither between two colours: constant density, or a linear, radial or angular gradient, with twelve patterns. The anchor decides what the pattern does when the artwork turns: Local turns with it, Global stays level with the canvas, and Fixed pins it to the canvas as the artwork moves.
Next #
Colour and palettes, Layers and elements.
This is the guide that ships inside the program (F1).