: Create a 2D posable stick man in Illustrator I need to design some aide memoir cards for a martial arts club, to help people learn the forms (kata - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kata). These

@Odierno310

There is no way to create a puppet armature in Illustrator.
Armatures is more of an animation tool so looking at that type of software.
Flash has the bone tool which could do what you are looking to do.

Character animation with the Bone tool in Flash

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@Kaufman565

I'm not aware of any way to lock line lengths. Maybe someone knows a better trick, but I think the best option would be:


Each stick guy as a group of paths or lines where each segment (left hand, lower left arm, upper left arm, lower torso, upper torso, etc etc) is a separate path or line
...then when editing each one, you double click into the group and rotate and move each segment into place.
I'm not aware of any way to lock joints, I think you'd just have to be careful with that. Some flow chart programs have features like that but they'd most likely be too limiting in other ways. Smart guides (cmd-u to toggle on and off) can help with things like this, but can also get in the way.


Like this (but hopefully better...!):

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