Adobe Illustrator Tutorial: Creating a Disco Ball Page 2
Creating the Rays of Light
In this part of Adobe Illustrator tutorial we will create the nice rays of light in order to emphasize the sparkling effect. Grab the Ellipse Tool (
L) from the Tool Panel and create a circle. Make sure to create a circle larger then our disco ball.
Now, grab the Line Tool (
/) from the Tool Panel and create a vertical line, as it’s shown in the picture below. For straight dragging don’t forget to hold the Shift key on the keyboard. Align the circle and the line using the Horizontal Align Center under the Align Panel.
Select just the line and under Object select Transform > Rotate. Set the Rotation Angle to any value you want. The goal is to create uneven parts of the circle which we’ll turn into the rays of light.
For the purposes of this tutorial we will enter
53 for the Rotation Angle. Hit the Copy button. It will create another line rotated at
53 degrees. Hitting the shortcut Shift + D on the keyboard we will repeat the step and create another. Keep doing this until you have created multiple ‘rays’.
You should end up with something like this.
Select all the lines and the circle and under the Pathfinder Panel hit the Divide button. It will divide the circle.
At this point we will change the background to black, in order to be able to see what are we doing better. We will apply a radial gradient (white – white (Opacity
0%) ) to our divided circle. Grab the Gradient Tool (
G) from the Tool Panel and make sure to drag the gradient from the center of the circle. You should end up with something like this.
Shift + Ctrl / Cmd + G) the circle. Select one of the elements and then select the Gradient Tool (
G) from the Tool Panel. The gradient slider will appear. Just grab it and move it a bit in order to offset the gradient.
Repeat this step for a few other parts of the circle. Until you end up with something like this.
Select a few parts of the circle and Group them (
Ctrl / Cmd + G). Rotate the group little bit.
You can also use different gradients for the light. Now place our disco ball on the top of the ray of light we have just created.
Grab the Pen Tool (
P) from the Tool Panel and draw the shape as is pictured below.
Apply a linear gradient.
This will be the ray of light that’s coming from the sparkling part of our disco ball. Create a few more rays.
And we are done!
There are many different color combinations that can be used to create a shiny disco ball. Feel free to experiment with colors and always make sure to blend them nicely, you might be surprised with the results. Light reflection is quite important in illustrations like this. It emphasizes the depth and gives us the impression of the shine and glow.
If you happen to have any questions feel free to post it in the comment section. Thank you for reading!