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In this tutorial we will learn how to make some stylized 3D text that I am calling Rocky text because when it is grey it reminds me of cracked rock and I don't know what else to call it...

Anyway, in this tutorial we will learn a few different things. The first is how to distress your own type, turn it into a 3-dimensional shape and apply some hand drawn styling to it. I hope you enjoy!


Step 1: Go ahead and set up your art board to whatever dimensions you want. Select your Type tool (T) and type out your message. The font I used for this example is called sansblack.


Step 2: After you have typed out the text you want to use, go ahead and line it up so that you more or less are creating a square. You can line up the text however you want, but for the sake of this tutorial, we are going to go with a blocky design. Go ahead and bring out the guides if you need to so that you can see that they are lined up well enough.


Step 3:Once you are satisfied with your text placement. Select all of the text (ctrl + A) and go to Type > Create Outlines.

Step 4: Now we are going to distress the type a little bit using grungy elements that we will create ourselves. You could just download some free grunge elements from somewhere and skip the following steps, but what's the fun in that?


Step 5: Go ahead and draw some random shapes, I chose to go with just a couple of circles and ovals.


Step 5A - side note: If you are going to overlap a couple of shapes, make sure that you go ahead and make them one shape by adding them together. Select both of the shapes you would like to combine and in your Pathfinder palette (Window > Pathfinder or Shift + Ctrl + F9) click on the "Add to Shape" button. After than click "Expand" right there in the Pathfinder. Repeat for any objects you have overlapping.


Step 6: For each of the shapes we will experiment with different types of distortion. Select one of your shapes and go to: Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. The amounts you choose will be up to your shape and preference, so click on the preview and play around with the settings until you are satisfied. Once you are happy click on OK.


Step 7: With your newly distorted shape selected, go to Object > Expand Appearance. This will expand your shape to prepare it for later steps.


Step 8: Go ahead and select another one of your shapes (choose a simple one) and go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Pucker & Bloat. Go ahead and give it just a little bit of a bloat. Test it out for yourself, but I put mine at 34% bloat. After you are happy with it, go ahead and expand that shape (Object > Expand Appearance).


Step 9: With the same shape you just did the Bloat to, go back to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Your settings will depend on your shape and how much you want to roughen it up. Go ahead and play with both of the sliders until you are happy. Make sure to expand the appearance once you are done.


Step 10: Repeat the bloat or roughen steps on all of your shapes until they are all nice and warped.



Step 11: Now we are going to use these shapes to distort our text. The first thing I did to help is to change the color of the text to a light grey, but you can use whatever color you want. Then you will want to move -A COPY- of one of your shapes onto the text. To move a copy of the object, select the object and hold down your Alt key while you drag it. When you hold down the key, you should have a double arrow that indicates you are moving a copy of the object and not the original. You could just as easily copy and paste the object, but moving a copy is much faster.


Step 12: Using our shapes we are going to cut away the text. To do this, you will want to select both the text and the distorted object (making sure the distorted object is above the text). Either use your selection tool (V) or click one object, then shift + click the other. While both the text and object are still selected, open you pathfinder (window > pathfinder or Shift + Ctrl + F9) and hit "Subtract from Shape Area". After that, make sure you hit the Expand button.


Step 13: Now it looks like we have a little bite taken out of our letter. Go ahead and repeat this step as many times as you want making sure you roughen up the text as needed. Note: When you expand after using the pathfinder, you may find that your letters move forward in the hierarchy of your artboard. To move them back to the back, simply hit Shift + Ctrl + [



Step 14: Once you are satisfied with the number of chunks taken out of your text, we can move on to giving it some depth.


Step 15: The first thing you will want to do is select all of the text and group it together (ctrl + G or Object > Group). With the text all grouped and selected, go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. You'll want to play around with the settings until you have it the way you want, but above is what I used for this tutorial.

Step 16: If you are satisfied with the way the 3D looks, go ahead and expand the appearance by going to Object > Expand Appearance. With the text still selected, go ahead and ungroup it all by going to Object > Ungroup or Ctrl + Shift + G. Make sure you keep hitting ungroup until there is nothing grouped (it may take 4 or 5 times of hitting the ungroup).


Step 17: Now you will want to select all of the front facing letterforms. Do this by selecting the first one and then shift + click all the rest of them until they are all selected. Once you have them all selected, group them together (ctrl + G) to make it easier to work with.


Step 18: Now we will switch the selection from the front letters to the rest of the text created by the 3D effect. To do this, make sure that you don't have anything else on the artboard, and with your front letters selected, go to Select > Inverse. This should select everything else on the artboard except for your front letters. Go ahead and group those together as well to make it easier to work with.


Step 19: Now we are going to choose our colors. Select the front facing letters and choose both a fill and stroke color. For my fill I chose a light grey #C9C9C9 and the stroke a darker grey #7C7C7C. I also chose to change the brush to a rough style brush. For ease of use, the one I used comes with Illustrator, which you should be able to find by opening your Brushes window (Window > Brushes). Click on the little arrow in the upper right to bring up the options and go to Open Brush Library and select "Artistic_ChalkCharcoalPencil". The brush I am using here is the thin one tagged "Charcoal - Pencil". Also, depending on how large your artboard is, you may want to lower the stroke size down so it isn't super pronounced.



Step 20: Now you will select the rest of the text (the bits in the back that make up the 3D effect) and change their colors to the opposite of what you have your main text as. To do this, either use the eyedropper tool to select it from the front text and the switch the fill/stroke or manually type it in (I used #7C7C7C for the fill and #C9C9C9 for the stroke). Select the same stroke brush as you did in the previous step.


Optional Step 21: We'll give a texture to the front letters. Select your top text (actual letters) and make a copy (ctrl + c) and paste it in front (ctrl + F). Go to Effect > Pixelate > Mezzotint. On the drop down box, select "short strokes".

Optional Step 22: Switch the mode to Multiply and set the opacity down to something real low, like 10.

And there you have it, you are done. Hope you enjoyed.




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Today Transfuchsian brings you another tutorial that shows how Illustrator can perform design tasks generally reserved for Photoshop or other raster programs. Like my previous lighting effect tutorial, Photoshop is going to be easier to use for this effect, but it doesn't mean you can't get the same results in a pure vector format. So, today I bring you a lighted text effect tutorial in a new segment I like to call "Anything Photoshop can do, I can do...also".

In this one I will first show you how to create some 3D text, which we will then apply some art brushes to so that we get a neat, futuristic spacey effect. Before you begin, you may want to stop by my previous post and download a set of glowing brushes.


Step 1: Create a new document and draw a plain black square.


Step 2: Select your object and make a gradient mesh out of it (Object > Create Gradient Mesh). Put in 1 for rows and columns with 'Flat' as the appearance. We'll save adding in the mesh points until later when we have our test in place.


Step 3: Draw a plain black shape over top of this one and set the mode to Color Burn at 40%.

Step 4: Go ahead and lock this layer and create a new one on top of it by clicking the new layer icon.


Step 5: Now we are going to make our text. On the new layer you just created, select the text tool (T) and click anywhere on your artboard to begin typing. Type in whatever you want. Note that for each line it will be easier to create a separate text object. Once you have your text, line it up however you want. I chose to make mine an overall box shape.


Step 6: Convert your text to out lines by going to Type > Create Outlines (or Shift + Ctrl + O).


Step 7: Group all of the text together by selecting it all, then go to Object > Group (or Ctrl + G).

Step 8: Now we are going to make it 3D. With the text group selected go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. You can orient your text whichever way you want. These are the settings that I used. Play around with the settings yourself until you have reached your desired effect. Make sure that you click on the Cap ON button and no shading.


Step 9: Go ahead and expand the appearance by going to Object > Expand Appearance.


Step 10: Flip your fill and stroke so that there is no fill and a white stroke. After that, you will want to ungroup the whole thing to make it easier to work with.



Step 11: We are now going to clear out the sections of the lines that we don't need so that it is easier to read. This is all up to your own preference. We'll go ahead and start cutting out the lines that we don't need. To do this, grab your scissor tool (C) and start cutting away. The best way to look at it is that you are cutting out the extensions of the bottom and right most lines so that you can't see them through the top and left letters.


Here is an example of how to look at it. I've made each letter a different color, so that you can see easier. The yellow and blue H is closer to us and if the "outer walls" of the letter were solid, you wouldn't see any of the green or red H inside of them. You also wouldn't see any of the red inside the blue or green inside the yellow. So, what you'll want to do is cut the lines where you can see through it.


Step 12: Continue to cut up the lines until you have cleared all of the back lines out. As you can see above, it is still a little messy, but that doesn't matter once we apply the fancy strokes.


Step 13: Now we are going to set up our background. Remember your background with the gradient mesh? Unlock that layer and lock the text layer. Go ahead and move the top plain black square to the side so that we can alter the gradient mesh. Choose the gradient mesh tool (U) and begin making your mesh points. This process will be up to your preference, but I suggest making the most points in and around the text. The colors in your mesh and where they are placed are going to determine the colors of the strokes in the upcoming steps.


Step 14: The mesh doesn't need to be fancy, so we'll just drag the points and stagger them a bit inside and around the text. Once you have them placed, go ahead and start adding some color to them. You can use whatever colors you like, I used the same colors on the mesh as I did in my previous lighting effect tutorial. Once you are done, go ahead and place the black square back on top of the mesh and lock the layer again.


Step 15: Unlock the text layer and locate the cap (front) of the letter. The easiest way is to select all of it and flip the fill/stroke so that everything is filled white. Select only the solid fronts of the letters and group them together to make it easier to work with.


Step 16: Select everything again and switch it back to a white stroke with no fill. Keep the front letters at 100% opacity and white with a 1pt stroke. Select the rest of the lines and lower the opacity to about 50% and set the stroke to 0.25.


Tip: If you have all the other layers locked. You can have your front letter groups selected, then go to Select > Inverse and it will deselect your front letters and select everything else for you.

Step 17: Select all of the text again and group it all together (ctrl + G). Make a copy (Ctrl + C) and paste it in front (Ctrl + F). Open up your Transfuchsian light brush set and select one of the rectangle brushes in whichever color you want (I chose the light blue rectangle1). Then set the blending mode to lighten and the opacity at around 40%.


Step 18: Make another copy and paste in front. This time change the brush to a circular brush (I used round5). Set the stroke to 2 and blending mode to screen at 25%.


Step 19: Make yet another copy and paste in front. This brush will be an oval brush (I used the red oval3) set the mode to lighten at 75%.



Step 20: Alright, one more copy to paste in front. This will be another round brush of your choice (I did round1). Change the stroke to 5. Mode to lighten at 20%.


Step 21 (optional): Go back to your original gradient mesh. Select a few areas that you would like highlighted and change the color of those points to pure white. This will give you an added shining effect. I also went back and darkened up the mesh points a little so that it wasn't so bright.



Well there you have it. You can stop along any point of adding more strokes or you could add even more, it is all up to your own preference. There are many different results that you can achieve with this technique and I suggest playing around with the different brushes and the gradient mesh. I hope everybody enjoyed this tutorial.

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Here is a new set of brushes from Transfuchsian. This set is to simulate a glowing or blurry effect when used with various transparencies so you can make some groovy spacey designs. I plan on creating a tutorial that uses these brushes, so I figured I may as well go ahead and post them now. Stay tuned to the next post for a colorful lighted text effect using these brushes.

Download the file by clicking Here
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There are a number of amazing tutorials out there that teach you how to create some really awesome futuristic light wispy effects. I’ve always found this type of design very interesting, but everything you see is almost completely created in Photoshop. I recently had a project where I wanted this effect, but had to use only vector graphics. The following is the technique I used to get that nifty effect using Illustrator.


Step 1: I began by setting up an artboard (8 inches wide by 4 inches tall). Choose the rectangle tool and fill the artboard with a plain black background.


Step 2: Select your object and make a gradient mesh out of it (Object > Create Gradient Mesh). Put in 1 for rows and columns with 'Flat' as the appearance. We'll add our own mesh lines in the next step.

Step 3: Select the mesh tool (U). Start adding in a couple of mesh points. We'll want more color differences on the left and right sides, so place a couple extras there.



Step 4: Start putting in some random colors at each of the mesh points. I've listed out the colors I used, but you can use whichever colors you want. You'll see in later steps what effect this has.



Step 5: Draw another black rectangle and place it over top of your gradient mesh. Set the transparency mode to "Color Burn" and lower the Opacity to about 75%.

Step 6: Add in your text. We'll need this so that we can tell where to draw in our elements.



Step 7: Create a new layer to hold our blend shapes. It will be helpful to lock the background gradient mesh and black square to make it easier to select the blends we are about to make.

Step 8: To make the blended shapes start out by drawing a wide flowing shape that moves into the text. Then, draw another flowing shape inside of this one. This stage of the process is all about experimenting until you get the desired effect. You can either use the pen or pencil tool, but you'll want to make sure that you have a closed path for both of them before you make the blend. Also, when you are drawing the smaller shape, make note that this shape will be the most visible.



Step 9: To make the blend, select the larger outer object and set the opacity to 0. Select the inner shape and change it to the same color as the outer shape and lower the opacity to the desired setting (somewhere between 40 and 60 is generally where I put it). Set the blend options (Object > Blend > Blend Options) set it to specified steps and put in a higher number (I chose 25). Then go to Object > Blend > Make (Alt + Ctrl + B).



Step 10: Repeat this process until you have the desired number of curves on the left side of the text. Choose the colors you like and experiment with lowering the opacities until you get what you want. Below are the colors I used:



Step 11: The bits on the right side are the same process with the blends, but you are going to change the shapes to give it more of an "exploding" look. Create the blends the same way we did in Step 9 and continue adding more until the desired affect is achieved.



Step 12: After adding in as many shapes and you like, you should have something similar to the image below. When you are making the blends, make sure to vary the colors as this is what gives us the depth. You can also notice how the gradient mesh we created in the beginning comes into play. Changing the colors or moving them around on the gradient mesh at this point should alter how the top blends appear.



Step 13: Now that we have the base of our design, it is time to do something with the text. First thing you will want to do is convert your text to outlines. Select your text, go to Type > Create Outlines. With your text still selected go to Object > Ungroup. Then, pull up your pathfinder palette (Window > Pathfinder) click "Add to shape area" and then Expand. This will make your text act as one complete object, which we will need later on.




Step 14: Change the text color to match with one of the colors you used for the previous blends (I chose C:6, M:100, Y:42, K:1). Set the blend mode to Color Dodge and the Opacity down to 55%. You can see our great bottom gradient mesh at work here, which will give us some more interesting outcomes as we alter the text.



Step 15: Copy and paste a new copy of the text behind the first copy (Ctrl + C to copy Ctrl + B to paste in back). Change the color to pure white. Then go to Object > Transform > Scale. Click on "Non-Uniform" leave the Horizontal at 100% and change Vertical to 150%. Finally, change the blending mode to overlay and the opacity to 65%.



Step 16: Select the original text and make another copy of it. This copy needs to be place behind both of the two previous copies. So, after you make the copy, paste in back again (Ctrl + B). You will need to move it one more position back, so either hit (Ctrl + [ ) or go to Object > Arrange > Move Backward. I set the color for this one a light yellow (C:3, M:1 Y:22, K:0) set the blend mode to "Color Dodge" and the Opacity to 25.



Step 17: Really, we could probably just leave the text like this, but let’s continue to give it more. Make a copy of the very top text again, but this time, paste it anywhere away from the main design where you can easily work with it. Change it to the same light yellow color you used in the previous step. Set the Blending Mode to "normal" and the Opacity to 65%.

Step 18: Make a copy of this text and paste behind. Move the text to where it sits above, and barely touches the top the light yellow text. Change it to a darker color (I chose C:6, M:100, Y:42, K:1) and set the opacity to normal 0%. Select both texts and make a blend.



Step 19: Place your new blend over top of the rest of the text. Where you place it will depend on your own preference. I chose to offset it a little to give a blurred look. Finally I made one more copy of the text and put it on top with the light yellow fill and a 70% normal opacity. In the next step we will add in some more details.



Step 20: First, we'll make a special brush for the glowing lines. To do this, select the ellipse tool and draw an oval. Select the "Convert Anchor Point Tool" (Shift + C) and click on the side anchor points so that your oval is pointed at either end.



Step 21: Make a copy and paste in front. Then, go to Object > Transform > Scale. Make sure to check "Uniform" and change the percentage to 25%. Click OK. Change the colors for both objects to white. Change the opacity of the larger shape to 0% and the smaller to about 50%. Make a blend with the two ovals (object > blend > make).

Step 22: Double click on your blend so that you can edit it. Select the smaller oval shape and copy it and paste in front. Then go to Object > Transform > Scale and lower the size to 80%. Change the opacity to about 80% (higher if you want the line to have a brighter highlight).

Step 23: To make the brush: drag the blend into the brushes palette and make a new art brush. You may have to scale it down depending on what size you made the shape. To do this - In the brushes palette select your brush, open up the menu and choose brush options. Under "Size" check the box next to Proportional so that it is on and either lower or raise your percentage. You can make several different brushes with different colors if you wish.

Step 24: Add in some more details using your new brush until you are happy with the results. Try playing around with different blend modes. I like to set a few of them to Overlay. Color Dodge also has a great effect.



Optional Step 25: If you want to add a little bit more sparkle, we can make a simple scatter brush. The same steps apply that we used when making the detail line brush. But, Instead of making an oval, make a circle. Follow the same steps 20 through 23. But, instead of making an art brush, we are going to make a scatter brush. Make all of the settings random except for rotation. Play with the sizes on the scatter. Again, play with your blending modes until you are happy.



So there you have it. An interesting, colorful lighting effect done completely in Illustrator (suck on that Photoshop). Though I must say, if you were looking to have this printed you’d probably need to rasterize the whole thing first. Also, all of the different blend modes and opacity changes will seriously bloat your file size. BUT, it is an interesting effect that you are able to achieve without ever leaving Illustrator. Enjoy!
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...but were afraid to ask.

This is the first of what I hope to be a long list of featurettes on various tools available in Illustrator. I know from experience that getting into Illustrator for the first time can be a little daunting, especially when you aren't familiar with the program. Working with vectors is a lot easier than you may think once you get to know the functions of the program.

I chose the blend tool first because it is one of the more overlooked functions available. You can do some great stuff with this tool. I was originally going to write up some features and tutorials myself, but found that many people have already done some great tutorials on the subject already. So, instead of re-inventing the wheel, I have compiled some of the best here for you to browse at your leisure. If you are new to the tool and haven't really used it yet, I suggest you start with the links listed under "basics".


Basics:

Illustrator's blend tool - a comprehensive guide - A guide for the basic uses and applications of the tool - vectortuts

Fun with Illustrator's blend tool - Some fun examples of different things you can create with the blend tool - bittbox

Adobe's Live docs about the tool

Tutorials for specific designs:

Create a high-tech background - How to create a high-tech stylish background with the blend tool - ndesign studios

Stylish vector flower tutorial - Creating a stylish flower using the blend tool - ndesign studios

How to create a vector watercolor brush - Creating a watercolor brush by using the blend tool - vectips

Create a watermark-like effect - Using the blend tool to create a watermark-like element like what you would find on a diploma - iris-design

Re-create the itunes icon - This one uses the blend tool to recreate the itune icon, but you can use the different parts of the tutorial to create glossy buttons and a vector CD. - ndesign studios

Creating halftone effects - Using a gradient and blend tool to create a vector halftone effect. - vectips

Create a star effect - Create some fancy star shapes using the blend tool - biorust

Make a glass bottle - Making a glass bottle using smooth color blends. - vectortutes

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