Graphic and Web Designer London UK

You can use this tutorial to make weeds or grasses swaying in the wind as above. Or colour them orange, yellow and red and you’ve got flames. They are also a useful decorative feature that seems to be quite common these days.

Start with a line…

Go Filter > Distort > Zig Zag, or Effect > Distort & Transform > Zig Zag, and check the preview box so you can see what you are doing. The one above has 10px size, Absolute, 4 Ridges per segment and Smooth Points, but it’s up to you.

So you have your wavey line. Copy it (Cmd/Ctrl -C), Paste in Front (Cmd/Ctrl -V), and select the Rotate Tool (R). Now click on one of the ends of the wavey line and drag the other end up or down a bit (see above).

Now you have to connect the two lines so you can apply a fill. With your Direct Selection Tool (A) select the two end points in the apex by dragging a select over them so they look like the last example above. Then a simple Object > Path > Join (Cmd/Ctrl -J) (select Corner, of course) and you have your shape. Finally, add gradients and transparencies.

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This article was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 11:38 am and is filed under Illustrator.
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