From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

807 Drawing a 24-sided star in negative space

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

807 Drawing a 24-sided star in negative space

Welcome to Deke's Techniques. This one's in Illustrator, and it's for those of you who are absolute pattern junkies like me. I saw this in a hotel room in San Diego on vacation on the fabric of a chair. I told my wife Colleen I was intrigued. I wanted to create this. And she was like hard stop, no. From then on it's just a bunch to essentials classic which will bring back all the tools and it'll bring back the horizontal control panel up here at the top of the screen. Alright, we're going to be creating this pattern from scratch once again here inside Illustrator. So go up to the file menu and choose the new command. And if you're working in a recent version of the software, then go ahead and select art and illustration so that you're creating an RGB document, and then I'm going to dial in a width value of 1,008 points and a height of 672 points. And the reason is that just happens to work well for our movies. Notice that where the bleed values are concerned, my link icon is turned on, and so if I change any one of these values to 12 points they'll all update in kind. At which point I'll click the create button in order to create that new document. Now in order to follow along with me, you'll need to be looking at the swatches panel then up to the view menu, choose guides, and then choose unlock guides. But as you can see, my command reads lock guides which tells me they are already unlocked. I do however, as long as I'm here, need to turn on my smart guides, that's very important for the next step. Alright now we need to create a hexagon and you can do that by selecting the polygon tool And so, with your smart guides on once again, drag from the center of the document as indicated by the intersection of those two guidelines until you snap into the bottom right corner, it's going to work out beautifully. At which point, notice the width and height values. That width value is pretty easy to remember, 400 points. That height value you'll want to go ahead and write down, 346.41. And in fact, what I'm going to do is write it on screen here using the type tool, so I'll just go ahead and click with the tool and paste in some text I've created in advance and that way we will remember this information for later. Alright now just go ahead and escape out in order to switch back to my black arrow tool up here at the top of the toolbox. And then I'll click on that last hexagon I created and press the backspace key or the delete key to get rid of it because after all we only need one. Alright now we're going to create some custom guidelines using the line tool. So go ahead and grab that line segment tool which is here in the line tools fly out menu and go ahead and click at the intersection of those two center guides, and we're looking for a length of 350 points, it doesn't really matter that much, it's long enough to suit our purposes, and the first angle we're looking for is 30 degrees at which point, click okay. Alright now go ahead and do that again. Just click at the intersection of the two center guides, and this time dial in an angle of 70 degrees and click okay, and then click a third time at that same location and change the angle to 48 degrees. And you may wonder where in the world did these values come from? Well I just figured them out and they happened to work out great. Alright, so I'll go ahead and click okay. And finally, I want to click on this point on the far right side of the hexagon in order to bring up this dialog box again. And this time I'm going to change the value to 147 degrees and click okay. Alright now what we want to do is take all this stuff and convert it to custom guides, so press the V key to switch back to the black arrow tool and go ahead and marquis like so in order to make sure you grab all of that junk right there. You do not want to select the text. And then go up to the view menu, choose guides, and choose make guides and that'll go ahead and turn everything into a snapping guideline like so, and now of course we don't want to mess anything up. So let's go ahead and lock things down by returning to the view menu, choosing guides and then choosing lock guides. Alright I'm going to go ahead and zoom in a little bit. Alright now it's time to draw, and we're going to do so on an independent layer by dropping down to the bottom of the layers panel and alt or option clicking on this little page icon in order to force the display of the layer options dialog box. I'll go ahead and call this layer drawing and click okay. Alright now you want to grab your pen tool, which you can get by pressing the P key, and then make sure that your fill swatch over here on the far left side of the control panel is set to none. And then change the stroke to this dark shade of blue that begins R equals 46 and then you want to take the line weight here up to six points. Alright now it's just a matter of clicking on a few very specific points here on the grid. So we want to start at the intersection of the vertical guideline and the top of the pentagon, then click at this location here, then click along that 147 degree line, and then you want to click at this location, and then finally click here. That's it, that's all you need to do. Then move your pen away and press the escape key Then move your pen away and press the escape key in order to stop drawing that path outline. in order to stop drawing that path outline. Alright now go ahead and press the V key Alright now go ahead and press the V key to switch back to the black arrow tool, to switch back to the black arrow tool, and click on that path in order to select it. and click on that path in order to select it. And now what you need to do is drag the path And now what you need to do is drag the path by its top left point right here, and for this to work by its top left point right here, and for this to work by the way, you need to make sure your bounding box by the way, you need to make sure your bounding box is turned off, so if this command reads is turned off, so if this command reads hide bounding box go ahead and choose it. hide bounding box go ahead and choose it. If it reads show bounding box, leave it alone. If it reads show bounding box, leave it alone. Alright now go ahead and drag that top left point Alright now go ahead and drag that top left point until it snaps into alignment with the bottom right point until it snaps into alignment with the bottom right point like so, and you should see a white snapping cursor. like so, and you should see a white snapping cursor. Then, before you release, press and hold the alt key Then, before you release, press and hold the alt key or the option key on the Mac so that you get that or the option key on the Mac so that you get that double white cursor which shows you that double white cursor which shows you that you're going to make a copy of that path outline. you're going to make a copy of that path outline. Alright now I want you to switch to the rotate tool, Alright now I want you to switch to the rotate tool, which you can get by pressing the R key, which you can get by pressing the R key, and you want to alt or option click on that and you want to alt or option click on that top left point, the top left point of the new path outline top left point, the top left point of the new path outline and turn on the preview check box so you can confirm and turn on the preview check box so you can confirm you're getting the right results and change you're getting the right results and change the angle value to 120 degrees and the angle value to 120 degrees and you should see this result right here, you should see this result right here, after which point, click okay. after which point, click okay. Alright now you want to press the V key Alright now you want to press the V key to switch back to the black arrow tool, to switch back to the black arrow tool, drag your new path outline by this point right here. drag your new path outline by this point right here. Do you see it? You want to drag it by that point and then make sure Do you see it? You want to drag it by that point and then make sure it snaps into alignment with that final endpoint up there, it snaps into alignment with that final endpoint up there, and before you release, press and hold the alt key, and before you release, press and hold the alt key, or the option key on a Mac to make or the option key on a Mac to make yet another copy of that path. yet another copy of that path. Now I'll press the R key to switch back to my rotate tool Now I'll press the R key to switch back to my rotate tool and I'll alt or option click on this anchor point and I'll alt or option click on this anchor point right there, and your angle value should again read right there, and your angle value should again read 120 degrees, and assuming your preview check box is turned 120 degrees, and assuming your preview check box is turned on you should see that you've completed your shape. on you should see that you've completed your shape. After which point go ahead and click okay. After which point go ahead and click okay. Now, you want to switch back to the black arrow tool Now, you want to switch back to the black arrow tool by pressing the V key and go ahead and marquis by pressing the V key and go ahead and marquis all three of those shape, you only have to partially all three of those shape, you only have to partially marquis them, and then go up to the object menu, marquis them, and then go up to the object menu, choose path and choose join, or you can just choose path and choose join, or you can just press control J or command J on the Mac. press control J or command J on the Mac. And if you want to confirm that everything's And if you want to confirm that everything's fused together the way it should be, fused together the way it should be, then press the A key in order to switch then press the A key in order to switch to the white arrow tool and click on this anchor point to the white arrow tool and click on this anchor point right here and drag it and if it drags right here and drag it and if it drags as a single anchor point like so, as a single anchor point like so, you know everything's worked out fine. you know everything's worked out fine. Alright now I'll just go ahead and undo that change. Alright now I'll just go ahead and undo that change. I'll press the V key to switch back to my black arrow tool, I'll press the V key to switch back to my black arrow tool, I'll click on a path outline to select it, I'll click on a path outline to select it, I'll click on that fill swatch up there in the far left I'll click on that fill swatch up there in the far left side of the control panel and I'll change the color side of the control panel and I'll change the color to the light shade of orange that begins R equals 251. to the light shade of orange that begins R equals 251. Obviously you can go your own way if you'd like. Obviously you can go your own way if you'd like. That's just what I came up with. That's just what I came up with. Alright now with the entire shape selected Alright now with the entire shape selected I'm going to press the R key once again I'm going to press the R key once again to switch to the rotate tool and I am going to alt to switch to the rotate tool and I am going to alt or option click at the center or my artwork right here or option click at the center or my artwork right here in order to bring up the rotate dialog box in order to bring up the rotate dialog box and this time I'm going to change the angle value and this time I'm going to change the angle value to 60 degrees, because after all to 60 degrees, because after all we want to create six of these shapes. we want to create six of these shapes. And a circle, if you take a circle, which is 360 degrees, And a circle, if you take a circle, which is 360 degrees, and divide it by six, you end up with 60 degrees. and divide it by six, you end up with 60 degrees. Alright, I'll go ahead and click copy at this point Alright, I'll go ahead and click copy at this point in order to create a copy of the path outline like so. in order to create a copy of the path outline like so. And then I will duplicate that rotation And then I will duplicate that rotation by pressing control D, or command D on the Mac by pressing control D, or command D on the Mac until my paths come all the way around and meet each other. until my paths come all the way around and meet each other. Alright now just so we can see what we've done Alright now just so we can see what we've done I'll press control shift A, or command shift A on the Mac I'll press control shift A, or command shift A on the Mac in order to deselect my artwork and I'll turn off the guides later. And you can see that the result is a star, a 24 sided star right here represented in negative space that will repeat absolutely seamlessly when expressed as a hex pattern. Okay you might argue that we haven't really made anything yet. Not true, we made a 24 sided star in negative space which is after all, the promise made by the title of this movie. Next week we'll do the next logical step, and we'll turn this thing into a perfectly, seamlessly repeating hexagonal tile pattern. Deke's Techniques each and every week. Keep watching.

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