# Drawing Shapes

These tools are used to create straight lines and shapes in Toon Boom Storyboard.

Before you draw a shape, you may want to change the look of the shape’s line. You can do this using the Pen Tab. For more information, see Working with Colours and Pen Styles.

To draw straight lines, ellipses and rectangles:

1. Select the tool you want to use from the Tools Toolbar. You have the following choices:

- Line tool: draws straight lines.
- Rectangle tool: draws rectangular or square shapes.
- Ellipse tool: draws round shapes.

2. Drag the cursor in the Drawing View window until you have the shape you want.

Tip

Other ways to activate these tools:

- From the Tools Toolbar, click the Line , Rectangle or Ellipse buttons.
- Select Line, Rectangle or Ellipse in the panel’s pop-up menu.

After activating a tool, you can use keyboard shortcuts to have more control as you draw:

- Press [Shift] to draw perfect circles and squares or to draw lines in 15 degree increments.
- Press [Alt] to draw shapes from the centre, or connect lines as you draw.

The Drawing View provides an enlarged area for you to draw, but you can also draw in the Panel View.