Create Vector GEOMETRIC Background Illustrator Tutorial Video Lecture | Adobe Illustrator: Become a Pro at Designing - Design Softwares

hey everybody I'm Nathaniel Dodds from
cut vidcom and today we have a new
illustrator tutorial for you we're going
to take a look at creating this super
cool like faux 3d hexagon style
background the best way to check it out
is just take a look at it yeah yeah it
looks pretty cool doesn't it we're going
to create that from scratch there's
nothing you need but a copy of
Illustrator and your own two eyes to
watch this video now if you do enjoy
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tutorial we'll consider supporting a
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link for the course appeared up there in
the corner there's also a link in the
bio you know if you're interested if not
the video is free and well we're going
to get started right now alright so here
in Adobe Illustrator we're going to go
file new and we're going to create a
brand new document I'm going to roll
with 2560 by 1440 if you're following
along we are going to be doing some
stuff that's exact to the pixel
dimension so it might be a the best idea
to follow along the sides and then once
you have a down pat create your own
document at your own size alright so
here we are we've got a double click
here to open up my layers panel and I'm
actually going to make my layers a
little bit bigger so they're a little
easier to see I'm going to go with like
75 pixels or something just to blow them
up a little bit now I'm going to grab
the polygon tool which is located here
underneath the rectangle tool and I'm
going to click a single time and I want
the radius of my polygon here to be 128
pixels and I want it to have six sides
so I'm going to hit OK you can see here
we have our polygon now I'm going to
grab a my a black arrow my selection
tool here hold down shift and I'm going
to rotate the polygon so the pointed
side is on the top and at the bottom
alright I can just click and drag this
anywhere I'm going to zoom in on it a
little so you can really see what's
going on here let's just get rid of the
stroke here by selecting the stroke over
here on our toolbar and hitting the none
option there and the fill don't fill can
really be anything we're going to change
it I'm going to go with red just so it's
very easy here for everybody to see it
and follow along with exactly what I'm
doing
now we want to select this shape while
we have it selected and we want to copy
its we're going to go edit copy and then
we're going to choose to paste it in
front which is essentially going to
paste it in place if I open up my layers
panel here you're going to see I've got
two polygons
now the topmost polygon here I'm going
to change the H value or the height
value up here in the top control panel
here with the selection tool I'm going
to change this to 164 164 pixels now I
do have the little chain link here
clicked on before I make this change so
the width will scale accordingly and
I'll just commit that you can see it
gives me a nice little polygon kind of
in the middle if you need you can select
both shapes and just align them to the
center I don't need to do that here what
I'm going to do is I'm going to select
both shapes maybe we'll just swap the
fill and the stroke just so that makes
this this part of the tutorial a little
bit easier to visualize I'm going to
select both these bits and I'm going to
go view guides and choose to make guides
and you're going to see there we now
have guides in the shapes of our
polygons right well this might seem
weird but it's actually perfect for us
because what we need to do next is come
right over here we'll grab the pins well
in fact I'm going to swap my fill and
Stroke again so I'm working with that
red fill and we want to draw three
shapes so now you can see how this is
going to be very easy for me to draw
these shapes because it's like
illustrator knows exactly where I want
to draw that's because under the View
menu I have smart guides turned on smart
guides are going to be so super helpful
for this step so I'm going to hover over
here you can see it says anchor that
means I'm going to place my anchor point
exactly on that anchor point of the
guide there we go and then I'm to come
right down and place it on that point of
the guide and I'm gonna place it on this
point of the guide and then I'm going to
place it on that anchor point of the
guide and then right out here and then
Bing right up there and boom we have our
first shape great now I'm going to come
right down here I'm going to place one
right down on that anchor point right
there on that anchor point come up to
that anchor point
boom anchor point anchor point anchor
point and I don't think I got the exact
anchor point I want to be really careful
and get it on every anchor point just to
make sure that there's no no funny
business going on alright we're going to
begin here on this anchor point come
down to this anchor point to this anchor
point and to this anchor point wrong on
that anchor point and another anchor
point and it finally closed at all so
what we've essentially done is we've
used these guides to create these three
pieces of shape that give us kind of
that polygon thick border shape that we
had we can actually get rid of our
guides I'm just going to hide them I'm
going to shut them off for right now
because we don't need them we're going
to be
add ingredients to each of our shapes
right now let's just grab the top left
shape again working on this first let's
come over here select the gradient panel
right and what we'll double-click on the
gradient panel and double click again
and then I'm going to click on this
gradient stripe a little thumbnail there
a little swatch that's giving me just a
straight white to black gradient all
right what I want to do here is I want
to select the white point right down
here and then we'll collect it in the
color panel and hit that little flyout
menu icon in the top right corner and
I'm going to choose RGB and you can see
here I can input a hex code so I'm going
to input D 8 D 8 D 8 alright so that's
kind of my lighter gray then I'm going
to select the black slider once more
we're going to go to RGB and I'm going
to input here CD CD CD so you can see
we've got kind of a light gray on the
one side going to a dark gray on the
other side and just to make sure we get
this gradient as we like it we'll grab
the gradient tool here and I'm going to
just select right here and I'm going to
pull a gradient straight back into that
corner man we try flipping it the other
way let's say now I definitely I think I
want my highlight out on this side so
the lighter gray is out here the darker
gray is kind of up over here that's
great
alright let's go ahead now and choose
the top right shape so grab a selection
tool select the top right straight shape
we're going to just click on our
gradient swatch here it's going to fill
it with about the same gradient but
that's not right we do want to make some
changes here we're going to double click
on the orbital just single click on the
left color stop excuse me and we're
going to punch in D 1 D 1 D 1 and then
over here for the right-hand color stock
we're going to go BA B 8 b 8 that's the
opacity you just want to select the
color swatch once some go for some
happen here I'm double click and
everything there we go ba ba ba so we've
got kind of a lighter going to a darker
gray and again we could probably mess
with this and maybe pull this more like
this something like that so we kind of
have the dark gray relegated to this
part of the shape whereas the lighter
gray kind of dominates the rest of it
that's pretty cool let's go ahead and
select the shape on the bottom here and
this one we're going to add the gradient
but I think I'm going to switch it to a
radial gradient here so we'll just use
this drop down menu and choose radial
gradient and then for the lighter gray
here we're going to go with something a
bit lighter so let's try like f1f1f1
it's essentially a white but not quite
it's just a very very light gray and
then for the darker we're going to go
with like DB DB DB something like that
so it's darker then the you know the
very light gray but still not as dark as
the stuff on the side and I'm gonna take
my gradient tool here once again and
I'll probably pull
kind of like that I want there to be a
reasonably large highlight kind of in
the bottom middle and if I deselect you
you're starting to see how we're giving
our polygons some shape with these
subtle gray gradients in fact as I'm
looking at I want to select this bottom
shape
let's try pulling this color stop over a
bit just to make that highlight on the
bottom a little bit more intense you can
see I'm dragging it over to the location
let's just call it 35% well just they
were dropping that at about 35% so we're
really placing a hot spot like the
bottom center of our polygon that looks
pretty cool alright we're going to grab
our pen tool and now we're going to draw
some triangles in some of these corners
to add a little bit of shadowing so I'm
going to click there to draw along the
anchor click there and come out this way
and I'm going to draw back across to
create that shadow now we're going to
fill this with black so over here in the
color panel I'm just gonna hit this
little black swatch here you can see
well it's just at that color to black we
need to come here to the bottom of the
toolbar and we need to actually select
the solid color swatch down here you can
see there we go
fills our shape with solid color great I
can just take this now and I can number
one I can stretch it out a little bit
and then just nudge it upward a little
just kind of something like that that'll
probably be perfect and we will draw now
another another little shadow in this
corner let's go right along here but a
Bing there we go got that and we can
mess I'm probably just going to leave
that exactly how it is and then last but
not least we'll draw a shadow for this
side of things here so let's bring this
actually I'm going to bring this
straight back across we'll make the
triangle this way there we go
now what I want to do I want to select
these three shapes so select the first
one hold down shift and select each of
the others you can see it's selected all
three of them now and what we're going
to do is we're going to group them
together so I'm going to go object group
and now we're going to apply a Gaussian
blur to them so go effect blur Gaussian
blur and let's give these a Gaussian
blur if probably I don't see what 35
pixels looks like that might not quite
be enough let's go like 55 and might be
a little bit too much let's nudge this
down to like I don't know between 45 and
50 we'll probably be good let's hit OK
and now we need to mask these shadows to
a polygon so let's select those three
polygon shapes to select one well then
shift select the other shift select the
other and we're going to copy them so
we're going to go edit edit there we go
copy and now we will select our shadows
group it selects all three shadow
because we've grouped them together now
let's select the transparency panel here
and we'll double click on this little
thumbnail double click to add a mask and
now we're going to go edit paste in
front which is going to paste our
polygon back in place but we just want
to fill each of these shapes with white
so let's first of all hit the solid
color change right there and the bottom
of our toolbar and we can double click
on the swatch and just set it to white
so we fully reveal those shadows and now
we'll just click here on this thumbnail
to return to like normal editing mode
and at this point if we want we can
reduce the opacity of these shadows if
we need I think I'm going to leave them
at full power full strength for right
now we'll see later on if they need to
be adjusted but I kind of like the way
they look right now now next we're going
to be duplicating this entire shape so
let's select everything here the shadows
and the three little shapes and go
object group to group these together and
we're going to duplicate this group this
by the way also is going to be very
helpful if you turn on smart guides it
is going to make this little thing that
we're going to do here so so easy now in
order to duplicate this you want to hold
down your alter option key and I'm going
to hold down my shift key as well I'm
going to drag this upward so the edges
of my shape kind of line up with the
inner the inner crotch or corner of the
polygon just like that that's probably
just about right now I'm going to hold
my alter option drag out another copy of
this and position it down here you
should pretty much feel it snap or click
into place when it's about where it
needs to be and then hold down alt or
option drag out another copy and it
should pretty well click into place over
there and you can see here we have this
sort of three pointed triangular shape
of our polygon now well now we have
three additional instances of that
polygon but our goal is just to create
kind of a shape here that's going to
appear in the middle over polygon so we
really need to hide all this junk out
here so first and foremost let's just
select each of these groups so I'm
holding down shift and selecting each of
them and then we're going to go object
object and choose to ungroup them
because first and foremost we can select
all the shadows we can just delete the
shadows from those three outer polygons
but also we can just delete all these
additional shapes out here we don't need
any of these shapes right so now we have
this kind of funky / cool-looking 3d bit
and what I'm going to do is I'm going to
select these three shapes holding down
shift and clicking all of them and I'm
going to group these together so we got
with those selectable objects group and
now we have these group together you can
see the shape right there and our layers
panel pretty cool if you find the need
you could
select and adjust the gradient for any
one of these shapes I think I like the
way it is I think I'll just leave it how
it is for now we'll see if we need to
adjust it later but most importantly
let's grab our polygon tool again click
a single time and this time create a
polygon with a radius of 100 hit ok once
more we're going to hold down shift and
rotate it to the points are up and we're
just going to bring this down and align
it right to the middle of our shape
having smart guides turned on allows it
to just snap right into place let's fill
this with the color white so let's go
ahead down here bottom toolbar solid
color and double click and we're just
going to fill it with solid white and
then we're going to cut this to our
clipboard so we're going to go edit cut
and we're going to select that group of
shapes and we want to mask this so
double click here to create your layer
mask and we're going to go object paste
in from sorry edit paste in front you
can see we'll have clipped our shape now
it still looks pretty bad because it
doesn't look like it's just seamlessly
perfectly underneath our original
polygon but let's click this thumb now
to get back to normal editing and at
this point all we have to do is drag
this group behind our polygons so just
drag it down the layer stack boom and
there we go now we have the center of
our polygon shape just like that now in
order to complete the shadow weenus of
this we're going to select this middle
shape and we're going to add a double
outer glow to it so let's go effect
stylize and choose outer glow we're
going to add our initial outer glow here
the mode is going to be normal color
will be solid black now we're going to
set the opacity here to 90% it's going
to be oops we're going to set the
opacity to 90% the blur is only going to
be about 5 pixels we can preview this
you can see it's just a strong kind of
stout little blur that we've got going
on we're going to hit OK and by the way
you don't see outer glow all the way out
here because if we shut off this front
polygon you can see that we've trimmed
it back and the mask is covering any of
that stuff up so let's turn our initial
polygon back on let's go ahead and add a
second outer glow so we'll go effect and
choose the outer glow option and that's
because say hey would you like to apply
a new effect yep we do want to apply a
new effect let's just preview this and I
think an opacity of 90% with a blur of 5
I think this is going to be about
perfect for us so she's gonna be a very
heavy thick strong outer glow and you
really need to double it up to get this
kind of choked effect I'm going to hit
OK the next step we want to add a shadow
for the for the entire object here so
we're going to add basically our outer
polygons should be casting a shadow
on this inner bit so we're going to
select our original outer polygon here
we're going to copy it and paste it in
place we're going to go edit copy edit
paste in front but once more we need to
open this group up we're just going to
select those corner shadows we're going
to delete them get rid of them and we
can select here select the entire group
and we're going to set the fill to just
solid black so you can see here we have
a question mark because we have multiple
gradients right now let's just hit the
color option converted all the solid
black that's great and let's set the H
value the height here of this group
we're going to reduce it from 256 to 215
I remember again we have the chain link
checked on or turned on so the width is
going to move with the height you can
see we just have a much smaller version
of that outer polygon shape we're going
to go effect here we're going to blur
this so we're going to go blur Gaussian
blur and we're going to blur this I want
to say like 30 35 pixels 47 is probably
bit too much let's go like 35 35 I think
will work for us great and we're also
going to go effect artistic and choose
film grain we're going to throw like a
10 10 grain a sexual predator perfect 10
grain a zero in the highlight area we're
not really need to worry about highlight
area here and then an intensity of 10 is
perfect we'll hit OK here you can see
it's applying that crazy-looking grain
we're going to set this to the blend
mode of multiply and I'm just going to
reduce the opacity to 50% now obviously
it looks weird because it's on top of
that front most polygon so we need to
take the shadow which is this we can
even name it shadow effect I'll name is
shadow 1 and I'm going to drag it
beneath the frontmost polygon and now
you can see we have the shadowy shape so
we can if we turn this on or shut it off
shut it off there it is no shadow there
it is with a shadow and we added that
grain just just for good measure I think
actually looking at the shadow I'm going
to click here to select it I'm going to
nudge it to the left about 5 pixels so
I'm going to look 1 2 3 4 5 something
like that you maybe could take it even a
little bit further in one or any of
those directions just to make the the
cube looking a shape in the middle not
quite we don't want it to quite look so
perfect I'll put it to you that way
that's what I'm trying to say that's
what I'm trying to say so there we go
that looks pretty good and I think
finally we need to add one we basically
need to duplicate the center of the
piece of beam looking artwork and
duplicate it and place it behind all
this to add our last layer of effect to
this so I am going to select the center
group right here in the layers panel
there it is right there I'm going to
duplicate it by going edits copy and
then I'm going to choose edit paste in
front here you can see it pasted it
right there in front of the group
I think I'll drag it all the way up to
the front just so we can really see
what's about to go on here the first and
foremost we want to delete those outer
glows how do we do that well we have
this place here called the appearance
panel if we double click there we can
simply select each outer glow and drag
it to the garbage cans of boom boom get
rid of that and I think also we want to
get rid of the layer mask here so up in
the transparency panel we can choose the
release button which is going to release
the mask now it looks like we screwed
all kinds of stuff up we didn't going to
collapse the appearance panel we just
have right here this polygon layer
that's the mask that's the shape that
was the mask we don't need that anymore
so I'm going to select it just delete it
and there is our group without an outer
glow don't worry if the preview doesn't
catch up in time here in the illustrator
layers panel it is it is what it is what
we see out here on our artboard and next
we want to we want to rotate the shape
so I'm going to object transform and
choose to rotate it and specifically 60
degrees is what works and gives us the
exact shape that we want you see I'll
just flipped it exactly how we need it
I'm going to go ahead and hit OK and
we'll just drag this we'll drag it until
it's exactly aligned where it should be
with all of our corners and then we're
going to go object transform and choose
to scale this and I think we'll scale it
to like I don't know 70% we're using
uniform scale here yeah 70% is probably
great we'll hit OK now the one thing we
do need to do is we want our lines to
really line up perfectly you see how the
center of our little triangulated shape
here is not aligned with the center of
the polygon shape or not really shape
but the crevice or corner there so just
the down arrow key Bing and just line
those up and pretty much as best as we
can and I will select this shape or this
group of shapes really you can see there
it is it's in front of everything
currently we'll go object arrange and
just tell this look send all send
yourself all the way to the back so you
can see we have that really deep in
there it really looks like two beams
coming out of nowhere and just plug-in
themselves into the corners looks pretty
cool now we want to add an overall layer
of grain to this because we already
added that grain in the shadow so let's
go ahead and grab our original polygon
here and we'll duplicate it we'll go
edit copy and we'll just paste this guy
right in front pasted in front and I'm
once more I'm going to open up the group
I'm going to select those shadows I'm
going to select them straight up and
just delete them get rid of them and
then I'm going to select a group here
which is going to select all three
shapes and we want to double click we
want to open up our Pathfinder panel
that's what we're looking for it's up
here under window Pathfinder it's
for helpful one of my favorite places in
Illustrator we're going to choose this
unite option here and that should join
all of your shapes together you see how
now you just have one continuous solid
gray gradient filled polygon shape but
what we really want to do is get rid of
the hole that's being punched in the
middle of it so we can do that by
grabbing our direct selection tool and
you can see the path here on the middle
has these anchor points so we can just
select one of those anchor points I just
selected this one right here and you can
see the rest of the anchor points kind
of activate but they're not selected hit
the Delete key it's going to delete that
one anchor point but most importantly
it's going to select the entire rest of
the path you can delete it and you just
get the solid gray polygon which is
covering up all of our artwork at the
moment now we need to fill this with a
50% gray so let's come over here and
choose to fill it with a solid color
double click on the color swatch set our
saturation here to 50 I'm sorry you
don't want the saturation to be 50% with
the saturation to be zero you want your
brightness to be 50% there's nice 50%
gray hit okay and once more we'll go
effect will go artistic and choose film
grain now in this case I'm going to go
with the grain I'm not quite ten maybe
I'll go like five and I don't need the
intensity to be very high so I'm going
to just set that back to zero as well
and I'm going to hit OK and what we can
do here is with this grain polygon
selected we can set it to the blend mode
of soft light which will drop away all
of that 50% gray and just leave the
grain and I think I'll even reduce the
opacity to like 50 percent so there we
go we have this really cool little shape
now in order to create that full pattern
that we saw earlier you just want to
select all the shapes you have and we're
going to go object group to group them
all together so they're easily
duplicatable we can select our polygons
at this point just drag them to the
trash closed polygon guides remember way
back at the beginning of this thing and
once we have this shape we can drag it
wherever we want you can see it kind of
hangs out sticks together and again this
is an area where having smart guides
turned on can be helpful hold down alt
or option just drag out a copy hold on
altered option I'm also holding down
shift by the way to make sure they're
constrained to that perfect line but
boom we dragged out the first four I'm
going to select all four of these hold
down alt or option and the shift key and
just create another grouping of them and
the same thing there alright cool so we
have like our first row if you will up
not quite we still need to add one more
to the end we want to make sure we have
more than an entire extra bit of artwork
because we're going to stagger this here
in a moment so what I'm gonna do is I'm
going to nudge this over kind of
something like that
that should work it'll be very close if
it doesn't let's go ahead and nudge this
into place let's select all this let's
just nudge it back this way a little bit
there we go cool and you can just you
know as you create more of these you can
just click and duplicate this one nudge
it into place and do the same down here
drop that into place you'll kind of feel
and click into place a little bit
there's a lot of like paths and stuff
and stuff going on so it's going to be
difficult to get an exact feel for where
the path should be but you'll get it and
we go click that right into place and
then I'll just select this I'll nudge
enlarge the whole bit downward a little
bit just to make sure we have full
coverage now once we have all of our
shapes in place we want to select all of
these shapes and we want to group these
together object group and we'll just
create a simple mask just to constrain
these to our artboard so go ahead and
grab your rectangle tool just click
anywhere and we know that our artboard
was 2560 by 1440 remember way back when
we began this whole thing hit OK and
we're going to change our fill here to
solid white so up here in the color
panel we can hit the little white swatch
but boom fill it with white and with our
selection tool select that and now we're
just going to align the horizontal and
vertical centers and then we're going to
cut this shape to our clipboard edit cut
we will select this entire group right
down here so this group of comprises all
these polygons double click to add the
mask and then go edit paste in front and
then go back to a regular editing mode
and we've created the pattern that's
really it we can zoom in here and check
it out you can see all the details that
are up you can see that we didn't quite
line that up correctly there we could go
back in and tweak and adjust that a
little bit but you can see we have this
really cool pattern with just a little
bit of tweaking here we can really
perfect it and clean things up but
really in a relatively short period of
time we create a pretty intricate
looking very detailed pattern and it
even has like that grain texture for
just a little bit of added realism
that's really gonna help set the design
just just push it boom right up over the
top just like that
so for creating this intricate faux 3d
hexagon polygon you name it a GaN style
pattern in Adobe Illustrator that's it
get it got it good nathaniel Dodds
InTouch vidcom I'll catch you in the
next one and before you go make sure you
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time guys