Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome everyone. I'm your
host Elias Rentablus. Over the past 28 years, I've been an educator teaching in universities and
social platforms. My expertise encompasses
vector design, page layout, and
animation techniques. For this ornamental design, we will use a variety of
illustrator techniques. Creating tapered brushes
and curved paths, working with a
shape builder tool, applying transform
effects, and understanding how to use Adobe Illustrator
for your on projects.
2. Creating the Tapered Brush: Inside a double illustrated
with a new document. Open end, a reference
photo placed into. Let's go ahead and start
the soft by creating a tapered brush which is going
to cover this stroke path. Now, tapered brushes
are based on circles. In this case, I will go ahead
and grab the ellipse tool and draw out a squashed ellipse. I'm going to a bit, I'm just going to click and to create a shape as
such. This is one thing. Then I will switch to
the selection tool. I'm just going to
squash this even more. All right, something
along those lines. Now, here's the
thing. This end here is very pointing
for my taste here, because we're trying
to do this right here. You see this path
here doesn't close, it doesn't have
such a tapered end. In this case, we're going to create two additional
anchor points here. We'll go ahead and grab
the Anch point tool. Just click once and
click once here. Then I will switch to the
direct selection tool. Mark you select this end Anch point and press delete on
the keyboard to remove it. Now we need to make sure that
this is a straight segment, grab this K point and make sure this is
a straight segment. Now what we are left is
basically an open path, but in this case, we need
to have a closed shape. I will switch to the pentul. I will click on this point, then I will hover over here. As you can see, we get a circle appearing
right next to the pentul. That means we are ready
to close the path. Click on that, and now
we have a closed shape. As for this end, I will
select this point. Just remove that using the
delete key on the keyboard. Then here again we
have an open shape, which means we're going to
click on this Q Point tool. We're going to close
the path right there, here is, here's the shape. But let me go ahead and actually
taper this in even more. I will use the direct
selection tool. Click on this Q Point tool and just bring this down a bit. And I'm holding the shift key. As I do, I will
do the same here. I will click and
bring this up a bit, something along those lines. Okay, for now, I
like what I see. We'll select this shape here. Then I will bring up
the brushes panel, which means I will
create a new brush. I will click and drag and bring this inside
the brushes panel. Now we are presented with
a new brush panel here. In this case, we're going
to create a new art brush. Now we're using art brushes
because art brushes stretch a brush shape or object
shape evenly along a path, along the length of a path. And that's what we're
going to do here. Before creating this
path all along. Just going to click Okay. Let me go ahead and
give it a name. Off tapered brush. There we go. As for colorization, I'm going to do is for
the method I'm going to use tense just in case I want to select
any color I wish. And then the brush will
take on that color. In this case, I'm just
going to click okay, Let me bring this
out of the way. I'm just going to
put it right here. Now let's go ahead and focus on this path we need to
create this path here.
3. Using the Pen tool to Draw the Outer Path: For that I will use the Pentul. All I'm going to do
is just click and drag to create smooth points. Now we have a field here. I
need to have just a stroke, so I'm going to
press the Shift X on the keyboard. Click and drag. Continue this till you have
a nice curved path here. This is not perfect yet. What we're going to do
is select that and then apply this taper
brush to this path. Just click once. Great. Now with this path selected, I'm going to up the stroke
size, perhaps three. You see three is
too much for me. Let me go ahead and use two. Or maybe you can go
to 2.3, perhaps. Okay, I have that. I'm still very happy with
the overall shape here. What I can do is I can
play around with this a bit and make sure that
I have a better shape. All right? You can spend time on this and make it
better and better and better. Any case I like what I see here, I'm just going to keep that. Maybe I can bring this up a bit. Here, there we go. All right, I got just in case I want to
use this in the future, I'm just going to
create duplicate. Bring this out of the way. Then select this path here. I'm going to go to
the object menu and use the expand appearance, because I want to
convert this to an actual shape. There you go. Now I'm going to mirror
this to the other side, which means we'll select
the reflect tool. Double click on that. We're
going to do this vertically, but we need, of course,
to create a copy. Select the selection tool, hold on the shift key, and
bring this to the other end. Now this is going to snap. Now these are two
different shapes, which means I will
mark select two. Then I will go ahead and
use the Shape Builder tool. Now I will select
those two paths and I'm going to merge them together by dragging along
this region right here. I'm not holding anything
on the keyboard, just dragging along this
region. Then release the mouse. Those two ridges now got
merged to form a new shape. Great. Now just bear in mind that this
overall shape here, this ornament, is not
correct geometrically, it's just a reference photo. I will select this one now. Let me go ahead
and create a copy. So I'm going to hold on
the Alk of the option key. I'm holding the shift key. As I do, I'm going to
bring this right here. Let's see, I can go back to the reflect tool.
Double click on that. Going to flip this
horizontally and click okay, let me go ahead
and zoom in a bit. Just place this right there. All right, great,
we've got those two. Mark you select those two. Now inside the object menu, go ahead and group
those two together. Now we need to create
a bunch of duplicates. For that, I will go ahead and
use the transform effect. Go up to the effect menu, Distort and transform, And
choose the Transform effect. Now this will reshape
the object without making permanent changes to
the underlying geometry. First I will have four copies. Then for the
rotation angle here, I'm just going to
use the aro key on the keyboard and do this interactively till all of
these shapes intersect. I think 36 degrees works for
me. Going to click okay. And here is now, as you can see, using this transform tool, right now the effect is live. Which means we can
actually modify this or remove the
effect at any time. But since I like what I see, I will go ahead and go
to the Object menu and expand its appearance to convert this whole thing to
an actual shape. Great. Everything
looks fantastic, except that we have the
overlapping regions. For that, we're going to go back to the Shape Builder tool. We're going to actually
use the arrays mode of the Shape Builder Dow by pressing the alky or the
option key on the Mac. Just click on that and click on these regions to delete them. I will do basically all
around the same thing. I'm holding the alky or the
option key, Removing those. There we go. Very few left. I believe I have two more to go. Yeah, that's it. Let me go ahead and double click
here on the zoom tool. Everything looks fine except
the fact that we still have some overlapping
shapes here. In this case, I will go to
the Window menu and I'm going to bring up the
Pathfinder. Here it is. Now what this 120 do is we're going to combine
this opposite and create one shape for that. Under the shape modes, I will go ahead and use
the United function. Just click once, and
here is the shape. If I toggle off the visibility, this template layer here, this is what we have so far. Things are looking great, and now we are ready to
go to the next step.
4. Pen tool to Draw the Inner Filled Path: For the next step,
we're going to work for this inner field
path right here. First, I will lock this
taped brush layer so I don't accidentally move it and
tuggle off its visibility. Then click on this
inner field path layer because the rest of
them are locked, so I won't be able
to do anything. All right, let me
go ahead and a bit. I will grab the pendul. I'll make sure that
there is no fill. I just want to have
a stroke color here. I'm going to do is click and create straight
segments like so. Because I just want to show
you another way how to bend straight segments and create
smooth curves out of them. Which means our I click to
grab the Anchor Point tool. All I'm going to do is just hover over here and
just click and dry. And what I do is it goes ahead and gives us those
control handles automatically, which as you can see,
it's a time savior. I will do the same one on
this straight segment here. Just bend this and on this one to go click
and drag and bend this. Then immediately
I'm going to switch to the direct selection tool
because I need to make sure that these control handles are straight which means I'm
holding down the shift Cas. I do this 12, let's
look at this one. This need be straight
and this 12, all right. I think things are
looking pretty good. I like what I see. I'm
just going to keep that. And then switch the
selection tool, select that. Now we're going to mirror
this to the other side, which means double click
on the reflect tool. We're going to reflect
this vertically. But of course we need to have a copy switch, the
selection tool, click and drag this, hold
on the sheet gas, you do, and this is going to
snap right here, great. Now these basically are two
different paths and we can see this inside
the layer spanel. All I'm going to do is
use the selection tool, marquee, select two endpoints. This time we need to join those. I will go up to the
Object menu path. I'm going to average those both. Click Ok and then back on the Object menu path
and join them together. You see this is now a
single path. Great. What's next? Well, we
need to do the same here. We're going to basically
create another duplicate and move
it right here. Mark you select this
with the selection tool. I'll double click on
the reflect tool. This time we're going to
reflect this horizontally, but we do need to have a copy. I'm just click on the copy here. Switch the selection tool, click and drag hold on
the shift as you do, Just move it right there. All right. All right, that looks good. I will market selectors two
and I'll group them together. So I will go up to the object
menu and group them again. We're going to run the same
effect, the transform effect. And that will receive the
object without making any permanent changes to
the ardonlining geometry. Back on the effect menu, Distort and transform,
and then transform. I'm going to have four copies again for the rotation angle. Just going to use the parochy to probably get to 36
degrees as I did before. Click okay, I like what I see. I will go up to the Object menu and again
expand its appearance. I have just single shape here. Great. Here's the overlapping
paths which we don't need, we need to remove those. For that we're
going to use again, the Shape builder tool. I will hold down the alky or the opion key and get
to the arrays mode. Just coin to click and drag those regions and remove
those overlapping paths here. There we go. We have
those two here. This one and this one. Great, everything
looks great here. The next logical step
is to select all this. Instead of a stroke, we're
going to have a field. But then we do run
in this issue, that is because all of these paths are actually
individual paths. Go ahead back and
switch to the stroke. Here, let me go ahead and
I'm going to show you. You see these are not
connected, they're not joined. What we need to do is
we need to join those. There's another easy way to do it is to actually
grab the joint tool. All I'm going to do with the joint tool is
drag over all of these corners in order to
fuse them together this way, way, way, just drag those over like thus you do the trick. How we're going to test
this, We're going to select all that and we're going to swap between stroke feel and I'm using the
keyboard shortcut. And as you can see,
things are working great. This is one thing.
Let me go ahead and talk at the
visibility of this layer. I also unlocked it, marquee, select this two and make sure they are aligned
horizontally and vertically. I believe both of them
are aligned. All right. Like all right, for
the next step for us is to work on this inner
circle with those spikes.
5. Circle with Spikes: All right, next up, let's go ahead and work on this circle with all
of these spikes. I have already created
the layer here, inside the layer span of
the circle with spikes. Which means I will re click
to get to the ElipstolI'm. Going to just click and
as I do I will hold down the all shift option
shift and create a perfect circle from the
very center and just release. Now no need to have
any strokes here, I'm just going to
disable the stroke. I do want to have a fill
here with black color. Great. Here is the
first ellipse. Now I need to have one
more of this ellipse. I'll go to the added menu. Copy this ellipse back on the added menu
and paste in front. Looking inside the layer spanel, here are the two
identical ellipse shapes. First of all, I will go ahead and lock this one and tuggle off its visibility and
work only on this ellipse. In this case, I will go ahead
and run another effect. I will go back to
the Effect menu and inside the Distort
and transform, I will use the zigzag. Now inside the options
here and the size, I will size up quite a bit. I'll set this to 90 points. This works on my end. The ridges past segment
is set to four, and I'll believe this as this. But for the points, instead of corner going to
have spot points. And then click. Okay. This
is still a live effect, but because I like what I see, I'm not going to go back to, it will go back to
the object menu and expand its appearance and
have just a flat shape. Here it is right here. You see that right there. All right, so what I'm going
to do is make sure that this here is total of the
visibility and it is unlocked. Mark you select those two here they are both
selected and I want to unite those two
and become this as one shape inside the pathfinder. All I'm going to do is just use the United function,
just clicking once. This is one shape now, but we're not done
with the shape. This is one more thing
that I want to do. Let me go ahead and toggle off its visibility and show you that here between the
spikes and the circle, we do have rounded corners. The way we're going to
achieve this is by switching to the dux selection tool and then just click
on the shape. The more way we do that, we get the live corner widgets. These are the live
corner widgets. Now we can do this
interactively, right? Let me go ahead and do this. Or we can do this up
in the control bar and up the corner size to
perhaps six points. Works on my end. Great, great, I think we have one more step
here that we're going to actually need to select
all of these here. This one, those two, basically we need
to cut this from the circle shapes
to cut through to the inner fill path now because I don't want
the change to be permanent. And use, for example
the shape builder tool. What I'm going to do is actually use the path finder here. In order for us
to do that, we're going to use the
exclude function. I'm not just going to click, I'm just going to
hold on the alky. Then click this. Creates here, looking at the layer spanel, it creates a compound shape. It's a grouped path here, it's a group layer. If I open this up, here are the two paths. I did this because that gives me the ability to manipulate the contents of
this compound shape in case of having a flat path. This is exactly what
I was going for. One more thing I'm
going to do is, first of all, I don't
need this anymore. Of course, I can just
dump it if I wish. But I do need to have these two. I will mark you, select
these two and make sure these are aligned
to each other, in relation to each other. So I'm just going to center
this horizontally and rally. And it seems both
of them are now. We are ready to go
to the next step and create those inner shapes here.
6. Creating the Dashed Circle: Moving right along.
Let's go ahead and work on the dashed circle.
This one right here. I have already created
the appropriate layer. Inside the layer spanelll I'm going to do is just
grab the ellipse tool, create a perfect circle
from the very center, which means I'm going to hold
Alt shift or Option shift. Just release that now. No need to have any field color, we just need to have a stroke. The strokes should
be set to black. There we go. All right. Now looking at the
original, as you can see, the thickness of stroke
is quite much more, Which means I will click on the drop down menu here and I'm going to set this to 16 points. All right, also let
me go ahead and just hold Shift option
Shift just sizes down. Then since I know that this is going to be a dashed circle, I'm going to go to the
Winter menu and I'm going to bring up
the stroke panel. First of all, let's go ahead
and select the stroke. Here's the weight of the stroke. I'll go ahead and click on the
icon to show more options. Here's the weight of the stroke. Now we need to check
what it says, Line. Now you're not going to see anything happening
because we need to put some numbers
here For that, I'm going to use the Aro
key on the keyboard. I'm going to set
this to 20 points. And then I'm going to press the tab key on the keyboard
to go to the next field. I'm also going to set
this to 20 points. Again, I'm going to
press the tab key to go to the next
field, which is the. I'm going to keep this to zero, but then the gap here, I'm going to keep this to 20 points. Now
this is one thing. Another thing that I need to do is instead of having a butt cap, we're going to have a
round cap. Here it is. Let me go ahead a bit, just slightly rotate this
to match the original. I think that is
enough here. This is. One thing I want to do is I want to make sure
that this is a path, this is an editable stroke. I will go to the optical
menu under Path. I'll go ahead and choose
the Outline stroke. Now this is a path
with colored feel. Let's go ahead and see
that, that looks good. This is just the shape here. As for this one, what we can do is we can just do the same. Create a circle right here, and just use stroke here. Again, I'm going to up the
stroke with two, perhaps ten. I think that's enough here. Again, go to the object menu and also outline the
stroke. Those two. I can select those two
and make sure they're aligned in relation
to each other. All right, things are
looking good and now we are ready to go to the next step.
7. Creating the Inner Circle: For this next step is this
inner circle, and again, I've created the
appropriate layer inside the layer spanel. I will go ahead and
grab the lips tool. I'm just going to
click and drag hold on the Alt shift or
Option shift to create a perfect circle from the
very center and just release. Now, no need to have
any stroke here. I'm just going to
remove the stroke. Just make sure this circle
here is around the center. More or less. I'm
going to send to this very soon in any case, because I need to be
able to draw these to these sections here,
the intersecting shapes. What I'm going to do is
just select the circle and then I will
reduce its opacity. All right, great. Now I will go ahead and grab the rectangle tool
and just click and drag to create a
rectangle as such. Great. Now I'm going
to duplicate this. I will hold down the
Alk of the option key and just press the
Shift key as I do select to go to the object menu and group
them together again, we're going to use
the transform effect, which means I will go back
to the effect menu and inside distorted transform I will use the transform effect. All right, again
we're going to use four copies for the
rotation angle. Again, I'm going to
use something like 36 degrees. I'll click okay. Now this is a live effect, but since I like what I see, I will go back to
the Object menu and expand its
Appearance grades. Now I will click on this
ellipse here and I will bring its opacity
back to 100% Target, those two layers here. Again, we're going to use this
time the Shape Bill tool. We're going to activate
the Erase mode, which means I'm going to hold on the Alk of the option key. Just drag this region
here to remove those. All right, just like that, it's a great tool to use and
it's extremely effective. Great. Now look at
the very original. We do have a very slight
curve, especially here. All I'm going to do is
with this tool selected, I'm going with this
shape selected. I will go ahead and grab
the direct selection tool. The moment I do, we get again the live corners
which is this 12. All I'm going to do
is just up this to perhaps one point or two. I think two will look
a little better. Let's zoom, and let's see,
that looks pretty good. Let me go ahead and create
the inner circle here. I'll shift option
shift. Create that. All right, make sure both of these are
selected and targeted. I want to make
sure that they are center in relation
to each other. I'm going to basically
create an empty hole here. I will grab the shape
of the tool again, activate the race mode holding down the Alt
key and click once. Great, I got the two. I'll make sure all of these
are selected, this 12. And I'm going to send
them in relation to each other and everything
looks pretty good. I believe the last step is to create those arrows all around.
8. Creating Arrows: All right, we reached the very last step of
this ornamental design. Let's go ahead and work
on these arrows here. I have already created
the appropriate layer inside the layers panel. I'm just going to zoom in a bit, grab the pento Just
create straight segments. I will use the same technique
as I used this earlier. Just create straight segments
which I'm going to bend, which means I will
grab the coin. I'm going to bend this
straight segment. This one a bit here too. And this one. All right, now I'm going to switch
the direct selection tool because I need to fix
this, especially here. Make sure this straight,
bring this up. Click on this anchor here and
just bring this down a bit, because I want to make sure
that I have a nice curve. Same thing here. There we go. That looks good. We switch
the selection tool, Mark you select the
whole shape here. And then double click
on the reflect tool. We're going to reflect
this vertically, but I need to have a copy. Click on that, switch
the selection tool, click and drag, hold
on the shift case, you do and this
is going to snap. Then I will switch
the direct selection to mark you select
two end points, object menu path, average both back on the object menu
and then join them together. I will do the same one here. I will mark you select
two end points with the direct selection
to object menu path. Average both and object menu
and join them together. Great, this is a
great shape here. Let's go ahead and
instead of a straw color, let's go ahead just have a fill color here.
We've got that. All right, I'm going to select and go back to the reflecto. Reflect this horizontally
with a copy switch, the selection tool, click
and drag downwards here. And place this around there. All right, just make sure
these are centered, all right. Then I will go ahead and
group them together again. We're going to use the
transform effects back of the effect menu Distort and
Transform, And Transform. We're going to use again
the same number of copies. That will be four copies for
the rotation angle to use the park till I get to the 36 degree angle and
can just click Okay. Now this is a live Effects, but since I like what I see, I'll go ahead and go to the Observe menu and
expand its appearance. Great, this is it. Go ahead and takle on the
visibility of the rest of the layers and make sure
that everything is unlocked. Kids, we can also mark you
select everything here. We can just center things
in relation to each other. This a little bit
off, that's okay. I'm just going to move this
to the very center lex. As you can see, we use some
great techniques to create such complicated ornamental
shape for your own projects.
Elias Sarantopoulos, Helping You Develop
