Transcript:
Hello everyone and welcome back I am your host Elias sarantopoulos. In this Adobe Illustrator tutorial I will teach you how to create a Rotation Symmetry pattern based of an object around a central point. We will start off drawing the initial shape, adding a Variable Width stroke, making transformations, utilizing Illustrator’s Pattern tool for making this Symmetrical Motif and then apply our design to a Pillow Set Mock-up inside Photoshop. So to start off our Symmetry pattern Illustrator tutorial let’s go ahead and create a new Document, now the size of the new Illustrator document you’re going to create doesn’t really matter, I’m just going to use one of the Print presets, the A4 preset, Orientation Landscape, just going to give it a name of Rotation Symmetry Pattern and click to create. I’m also going to go up to the View menu and bring up the Grid because it helps me align things up. OK, let me zoom in a bit and the first thing I’m going to do is create a circle. So I’m going to use the ellipse tool, no need for a Fill color, just Stroke. So I’m going to hold the Alt key, Alt + Shift actually to create a perfect circle from the center point here, like so. OK, now with the Direct Selection tool I’m going to marquee you select this Anchor Point and then I’m going to press Delete on my keyboard and now we are left with just this single path. Now on this single path I’m actually going to create a variable width on this stroke. OK so for that we’re going to use the Width tool and there’s a shortcut for that which is the Shift + W. Now the Width tool actually resides right here inside your Toolbar which is this one so if you hover over it says Width tool and in parenthesis it gives you the shortcut which is Shift+W. OK, now just to demonstrate how the Width tool works, all you have to do is just hover over anywhere around the Stroke path and then on this center line just click and drag and just create the first width. Maybe another width here, add one there and so on so you get the idea how this tool works. So I’m going to Undo this, CTLR + Z/Cmd + Z, I’m going to focus on the first Anchor point right here so I’m going to hover over this last, this actually this first anchor point right here, going to click and drag to create the first width and then at the bottom here the last anchor point I’m going to hover over again, I’m going to taper this in like so. OK, all right now, here’s a tip for you; at the event that you want to save this custom Stroke for your next project what you do is select this, keep this line selected and go up to the Options Bar or you can actually go to the Stroke panel and then here on the Variable Width menu which is this one you can see this Profile, click on the drop down menu and then you can actually save this so this is the Save button. Click to add this to your profiles, give it a name and the next time you open Illustrator it will be there for you. OK, all right now let’s go ahead and create the Rotation Symmetry. Now the rotation symmetry actually happens around a point so let me show you what I mean. We’re going to use the Rotation tool, okay so click on that Rotation tool and the Reference point right now sits at the center so I’m going to change this Reference point and move it right here. So basically all you have to do is just click once, like so. OK, and now let’s go ahead and create a duplicate so hold down the Alt / Option key and then as you move ready hold down the Shift key to constrain the movement and now we have the first duplicate. Now instead of me going back and forth between Rotation tool and Alt + Shift / Option + Shift and so on the easiest way to continue this transformation is to go up to the Object menu, Transform and then Transform this again and the shortcut is CTRL + D or Cmd + D on the Mac. So let’s go ahead and run the shortcut, CTRL+ D for me like so. OK, all right so I’m going to marquee select all of these let’s also give it a Stroke color here, there we go and then if you look at inside the Layers panel we’re going to actually group all these paths so CTRL + G/ Cmd + G and that’s the first group. I need to actually have two groups so the second group actually will be reflected on the other side and the easiest way to do this is to click on hold to get the Reflect tool, double click on the Reflect to keep everything as is, as default but make sure you click a Copy and here you go. I’m also going to change the stroke color like so. OK, so let’s see let’s marquee select everything OK and then under the Align panel here let’s align this to the Artboard I’m going to align this Horizontally center and Vertically center, like so. OK, all right now at the event that you might need to go back I always keep a copy for this original work here so I’m going to click and drag to create a duplicate and I’m just going to lock this one and toggle off the visibility and then just going to size this down so Alt + Shift / Option + Shift, like so. OK, all right no need for the Grid anymore so you can hide it by going up to the View menu and I’m just going to save my work file up on my desktop. For the next step and work towards creating this symmetrical pattern inside Illustrator is to actually convert all these stroke paths into shapes into, filled paths so with the Selection tool I’m going to marquee select all the artwork and then go up to the Object menu, Path and then I’m going to use the Outline Stroke command, if I zoom here you can see that all these stroke paths have been converted into shapes. Now I would like to actually merge some of the shapes and for that I’m going to use the Shape Builder tool. So marquee select everything and the direct shortcut for the Shape Builder tool is Shift + M or you can also go to the Toolbar and if you hover over this is the Shape Builder tool and in parenthesis you can see the shortcut which is Shift + M so all you have to do is just simply click and drag while you’re holding over these objects they get combined. OK now I lost the color here that’s okay I’m going to deselect everything here I’m going to click away and then just use the Group Selection tool and then click to get your shape selected again, this object and then let’s go ahead and give the color again there we go. And then with the Selection tool marquee select again everything and let’s continue using the Shape Builder tool. So Shift + M again and I’m going to go on and continue combining shapes so first I’m going on the outside then slowly going to combine more shapes. You see when you create, when you convert paths into shapes then we end up having a lot of extra points, a lot of extra paths and that increases the size of your vector file so by using the Shape Builder tool and combining those paths, we’re actually decreasing the size of the the vector size of the file, of our vector so it’s a very good idea to combine shapes if you can of course, in this case I can because I don’t need all those shapes but I need some of them. OK, so I’m continuing doing this is clicking and dragging and just holding here and combining shapes. OK I think it’s almost over let me see, got a couple of here let’s see I thing I’m pretty much done here. All right there you go now the shape is ready and for the next step we’re going to go actually go ahead and create our pattern. Now in order to create a motif pattern inside our Illustrator document we’re first going to select all of the artwork, again I’m going to use the Selection tool and I’m going to marquee select everything then go up to the Object menu, Pattern and then Make. Now we get this message here that says “the new pattern has been added to the Swatches panel”, this is the Swatches panel and this is the pattern itself. Now we’re not finished yet just click OK and as you can see we are inside the Pattern Editing mode and also the first thing we see is that the default Tile Type is creating a Grid based pattern based off the size of the artwork itself, this is the artwork itself. Now the Tile Type right now is Grid but you can also have Brick by Row, Brick by Column and so on. Now the Grid Tile Type means that the center of each tile is horizontally and vertically aligned to the center of the adjacent tiles and these are the adjacent tiles all around but the thing is that I don’t have any breathing space between those adjacent tiles so in this case because I would like to have some more breathing room, let’s say on the Top on the Right space on the Bottom space or on the Left space I’m going to use the Pattern Tile tool which is this one right here. So click once and by the way this is our tile, the square. OK so the Pattern Tile tool give us access to adjusting our tile so we are going to tile this up to adjust the spacing by grabbing it from the corners and spacing it evenly. So for that open hold Alt + Shift / Option + Shift OK, I’m exaggerating here a bit so I’m just going to bring this down like so. And if you like what you see first let’s go ahead and give it a name that would be Symmetrical Pattern let’s say for example and actually I’m going to leave everything as is inside the Pattern Options, even the number of copies is fine 5 x 5 you could have 7 x 7 or 9 x 9 and so on. So let’s say you like what you see, just click Done and inside the Swatches panel, here’s the New pattern so you see if I hover over it says Symmetrical pattern. Now at the event that you want to go back to this pattern, you want to edit your Symmetrical pattern all you have to do is just double click on it and you’re back on the Pattern Editing mode in this case I’m just going to Cancel that out. Now that we have created our motif pattern inside Illustrator let’s go ahead and apply this into an object so I’m going to toggle off the visibility of this Layer, I am to going to create a new layer and inside that layer just going to use the Rectangle tool. Just going to draw a rectangle, like so and I’m going to fill this Rectangle with the Symmetrical pattern we created. So I’m going to click on the Swatches panel here and then click once on the Symmetrical pattern to apply it like so. OK, so the question is how can we position the pattern itself within that space. Well actually there’s a key for that on your keyboard that can help us do that and that is the Tilde key (~). The tilde key usually resides of the upper left corner on your keyboard so first select the object with a Selection tool and then holding the tilde key at the same time we can move the position of the pattern inside the object like so. You see I’m moving the pattern itself within that space because that space can be a rectangle, and can be a Circle, you name it. OK so that’s a great key on your keyboard that you can use. Now let’s not forget that the Tilde key can actually work with other tools such as the Rotate tool, the Shear tool, the Reflect tool, and the Scale tool. And talking about the Scale tool how about if we scale this up or down inside that object. So double-click on the Scale tool and we’re going to do this Uniformly so just make sure that the Transform Object is not checked but the Transform Patterns is checked and then place your mouse right here and hold it down the Shift key and using the Up arrow key on your keyboard we can size this up or we can use the Down arrow key and size it down, like so. One example we can use this Symmetrical pattern we created inside Adobe Illustrator is on pillow cases, bed sheets and so on, so in this case I’m using a Pillow Set Mockup, a link that also provide at the bottom of the video description. So this mock-up comes with layered Smart Objects, they all here, Smart Objects of course we can modify so in this case we can change the contents inside the frames on the wall, the pillowcases and so on. So let’s go ahead and jump back into Illustrator and actually I’m going to go back to the editing mode, the Pattern Editing mode so double click on the Symmetrical pattern, again I’m going to use the Pattern Tile tool and I’m going to create a bit more space between the adjacent tiles so ALT + Shift to do that and then click Done unless you want to click to Save a copy if you want to have two of them. And then let’s see let’s double click on the Scale tool, let’s scale this up or down depending and let’s see, let’s click OK. But I need to reposition the pattern itself inside the object so again select the Selection tool hold down the Tilde key (~) and then just position of this accordingly. OK back on the Scale tool…I like that. I’m going to click OK okay, I’m going to select all that, Edit menu, Copy and back in Photoshop now let’s double click on the Smart Object, all you have to do is, CTRL + V or Cmd + V to paste, you’re going to paste this as a Smart Object, click OK. And then let’s size this up, Alt + Shift / Option + Shift to do that like so. OK click to Save and then it’s going to be applied on the pillow case. So all you have to do is basically repeat the process, scale up or down the patterns, re-position them, even rotate them depending the place or the object you will apply to and this way you can create great compositions for your project or your clients. Thank you for spending time with me, let me know if you have any questions below the comments section, don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my channel and share the knowledge. Elias Sarantopoulos.