How to Edit Grease Pencil Points in Blender

Editing individual Grease Pencil stroke points in Blender provides vector-level control over your 2D drawings and animations. This guide covers the essential steps to switch into Grease Pencil Edit Mode, enable point selection, transform individual stroke vertices, modify specific point properties such as thickness and opacity, and use advanced tools like proportional editing.

1. Switch to Edit Mode

  1. In the 3D Viewport, select your Grease Pencil object in Object Mode.
  2. Press the Tab key, or click the mode drop-down menu in the top-left corner of the viewport and select Edit Mode.

2. Set the Selection Mode to Points

Grease Pencil offers three selection modes located in the top-left header of the viewport:

  • Point Selection (Hotkey: 1): Allows selection and manipulation of individual vertices along a stroke.
  • Stroke Selection (Hotkey: 2): Selects entire continuous strokes.
  • Segment Selection (Hotkey: 3): Selects sections between stroke intersections.

Press 1 to ensure you are in Point Selection Mode.

3. Select the Points

  • Single Point: Left-click on any point along a stroke.
  • Multiple Points: Hold Shift and left-click additional points.
  • Box Select: Press B, then click and drag over the points you want to select.
  • Circle Select: Press C, use the scroll wheel to resize the brush, and paint over points to select them.
  • Select Connected: Hover over a stroke point and press L to select all connected points in that stroke.

4. Transform Selected Points

Use standard Blender transformation shortcuts to manipulate the selected points:

  • Move (Grab): Press G, move your cursor, and left-click to confirm.
  • Rotate: Press R, rotate the points around the pivot point, and left-click to confirm.
  • Scale: Press S, drag to resize the spacing between points, and left-click to confirm.

5. Adjust Point-Specific Properties

Grease Pencil allows you to adjust properties per point rather than for the whole stroke:

  • Change Point Thickness (Radius): Select the points and press Alt + S. Move your mouse to increase or decrease the stroke width at those specific points.
  • Adjust Point Opacity: With points selected, open the Sidebar (press N), navigate to the Item tab, and adjust the Opacity value under the Grease Pencil properties panel.

6. Add, Subdivide, and Delete Points

  • Extrude: Select an endpoint of a stroke and press E to extrude a new point from it.
  • Subdivide: Select two or more adjacent points, right-click, and choose Subdivide to add more editable points between them.
  • Delete Points: Select points, press X or Delete, and choose Points to remove them while leaving remaining disconnected segments intact, or choose Dissolve to remove the point without breaking the stroke continuity.

7. Use Proportional Editing

To create smooth transitions when moving points:

  1. Press O to toggle Proportional Editing on.
  2. Select a point and press G to move it.
  3. Use the mouse scroll wheel to adjust the radius of influence, which smoothly moves adjacent points along the stroke curve.