samcarter
In the following example, I would like to decorate only the arc at the bottom of the shape with decorate,decoration=snake, the Bézier curves at the top of the shape should remain as they are.

- shifting the decoration with pre length=60pt, but this converted the Bézier curves into straight lines

- decomposing the shape into two parts, but then I face problems when only drawing the outlines or filling with a ballshade in orer to imitate a 3D look


\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikzlings}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=3]
\fill
( -0.39, 1.40)
.. controls (-0.32, 1.58) and (-0.32, 2.09) .. ( 0.00, 2.09)
.. controls ( 0.32, 2.09) and ( 0.32, 1.58) .. ( 0.39, 1.40)
arc [start angle=-60,end angle=-120,radius=0.77]
-- cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}


![Screen Shot 2021-03-22 at 17.39.53.png](/image?hash=ba67391b41bb0c4bda219a8d8dd42ae4e6759ce6c997e541deb54bc884382771)
marmot
Uii, a black ghost. :smile_cat:. You can just use decorate inside a path to decorate certain seqments.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikzlings}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=3]
\fill[decoration=snake]
( -0.39, 1.40)
.. controls (-0.32, 1.58) and (-0.32, 2.09) .. ( 0.00, 2.09)
.. controls ( 0.32, 2.09) and ( 0.32, 1.58) .. ( 0.39, 1.40)
decorate {arc [start angle=-60,end angle=-120,radius=0.77]}
-- cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

![Screen Shot 2021-03-22 at 9.51.54 AM.png](/image?hash=74358168b3f561e6f598be28ec778057ac5fd493e3e6275c2209f3c7bf87908d)

BTW, pre length also works, you only need to add pre=curevto. (In this very case this is not what you want to do, I think, because you would have to tune the pre length by hand, which I did not do.)

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikzlings}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=3]
\fill[decorate,decoration={snake,pre length=145pt,pre=curveto}]
( -0.39, 1.40)
.. controls (-0.32, 1.58) and (-0.32, 2.09) .. ( 0.00, 2.09)
.. controls ( 0.32, 2.09) and ( 0.32, 1.58) .. ( 0.39, 1.40)
arc [start angle=-60,end angle=-120,radius=0.77]
-- cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

![Screen Shot 2021-03-22 at 9.54.53 AM.png](/image?hash=188694b821cc556409b215e941b0acfbb87aafb87fd39a5000d4dbbfd870ace8)

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