Change your character's pose in Adobe Illustrator without redrawing the entire figure.

Three bottles of Moondancer beverage feature figures posed differently

Start with our sample file or use your own. After you launch Illustrator, click Edit Toolbar (three dots) at the bottom of the Tools panel. Select the Puppet Warp tool and drag it into your Tools panel.

Group the parts of your artwork you wish to manipulate.

Figure skating figure with moon for a head. The arm is selected and Puppet Warp Tool is highlighted.

With the grouped objects selected, click the Puppet Warp tool. Some pins appear, indicating “joints” you can manipulate. Click and drag pins to transform the art, adding more pins as needed to sculpt your artwork. For example, we added a pin to anchor our character’s elbow joint and curved the arm up. To delete pins, select and press Delete.

Tip: You can turn off the mesh in the Properties panel if you find it distracting.

Pins appear on the arm, indicating “joints” that can be manipulated. A mesh appears over the arm and the elbow is bent.

Experiment with bending other body parts. You can introduce subtle curves by rotating the dotted circle around a pin.

Various body parts of the figure skater are bent using the Puppet Warp tool.

Now that you’ve seen how easy it is to create multiple poses, don’t stop there. You can apply these smooth adjustments to any vector artwork, including typography.

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