5.02 Make a pencil

Start by making a pencil that you can use to draw on the Stage.

Open the ‘Paint box’ Scratch starter project.

Online: open the starter project at paint-box-on

In the starter project, you should see pencil and eraser sprites:

Add the Pen extension to your project.

How to add the Pen extension

To use the Pen blocks in Scratch, you need add the Pen extension.

• Click on the Add extension button in the bottom left-hand corner.

• Click on the Pen extension to add it.

• The Pen section then appears at the bottom of the blocks menu.

Add some code to the pencil sprite to make the sprite follow the mouse pointer forever so that you can draw:

Click the flag and then move the mouse pointer around the Stage to test whether your code works.

Next, make your pencil only draw if the mouse button is being clicked.

Add this code to your pencil sprite:

Test your code again. This time, move the pencil around the Stage and hold down the mouse button. Can you draw with your pencil?

Does your pencil not draw from its tip?

If the line your pencil draw looks like it is coming from the pencil’s middle, you need to change your pencil sprite’s so the tip is the sprite’s centre.

Click on the pencil sprite, and then click on the Costumes tab.

Move the costume’s so the tip of the pencil is just above the centre.

Now move the pencil around on the Stage and draw. The pencil should now draw a line from its tip.