Adobe

Adobe Illustrator CS6 How-to Guide introducing the pattern creation tool.

I felt very honored when Adobe contacted me and asked me to create a How-to Guide using Adobe Illustrator CS6. You can find the complete How-to Guide and the Source File at Adobe and of course in the “How did they do it!” folder of your Adobe Illustrator CS6 version.

Step by Step.

I started my design using pencil and paper and divided the image into five main parts. The four corners represent air, trees, water, and earth — with Venus at the center representing feminine beauty. I put Botticelli’s Birth of Venus into Illustrator and outlined the figures.

I created elements and symbols to highlight the main parts: Birds for the air part, owl and leaves for the tree part, fish and waves for the water part, gecko and flowers for the earth part, and finally butterflies, paradise bird and flowers for the beauty part in the center.

I combined these elements with the main figures of the painting.
With the great new Pattern Creation feature in Adobe Illustrator CS6 I created my patterns and applied them. As an example, Venus’ hair consists of three layers that I later substituted with light and dark patterns.

This is the fantastic new pattern creation tool in Adobe Illustrator CS6.

I took this same approach with patterns for other design elements. Using different colors in the original design, I then created corresponding patterns.

For the trees, I outlined and arranged leaves and branches. In this example, you can see I dimmed the copies, which is really useful when creating complex patterns. You can change the overlaps with just one click. Then I added my little owl.

Here you can see some details of the earth part with a gecko and flowers.

And this is the water part with frog, fish and waves. Even my little frog was filled with different patterns.

Because it’s the 25th anniversary of Adobe Illustrator, I substituted the seashell typically associated with Venus with the words 25 Years. I created two ellipses and typed along the path. Later, I expanded and ungrouped the font so I could rearrange the letters and number.

Here you can see the complete image.

Thank you for viewing. Wishing you much fun with the new pattern creation tool in Adobe Illustrator CS6.