Tutorial for Translucent Shapes for Jellyfish in Illustrator

Learn to make translucent shapes for jellyfish in Illustrator so you can create underwater scenes containing this creature. Illustrator's layering tools makes translucency possible. Layers are virtual transparencies that you stack atop one another to form a unified image. Illustrator lets you make layers partially transparent, which makes them translucent. You can use what you apply in this project to illustrate other translucent images, such as certain types of glass or gelatinous substances.

Instructions

1. Click the tool palette icon shaped like an ellipse to enter ellipse drawing mode, then drag on the screen to create an ellipse whose width is about twice as great as its height. This forms the basic form of the jellyfish, which you'll now shape.

2. Click the white arrow icon from the tool palette to run the "Direct selection" tool, then double click the bottom of the jellyfish ellipse to enter the mode for editing shapes.

3. Drag upward slightly to change the ellipse into a more realistic jellyfish shape, then click the paint bucket icon from the tool palette. Click a light blue or light grey color from the color palette above the canvas, then click on the modified ellipse to fill it with color.

4. Click the paintbrush icon from the tool palette to enter painting mode, then drag a curve extending down from the bottom of the jellyfish ellipse. This graphic represents one of the jellyfish's tendrils.

5. Create several more tendrils for the jellyfish using the instructions just given, then click the "Window" menu's "Transparency" item. This opens up dialog box that enables you to control the translucency of shapes.

6. Click the tool palette's black arrow icon to enter selection mode, then click the jellyfish ellipse to select it. Drag the "Opacity" slider you revealed in the previous step until it displays approximately 60 percent. This action makes the jellyfish translucent.

7. Click the Windows "Start" button, then click "Documents" to open Windows Explorer. Navigate to a picture on your hard drive that shows an underwater scene. Drag the picture from Explorer to Illustrator's application window. This installs the underwater image onto your jellyfish illustration.

8. Drag the "Image" item in the "Layers" palette to the bottommost layer to place the underwater image in the background. This completes your translucent jellyfish. Notice you can see through the jellyfish to the underwater image.

References

• "Illustrator CS5 Bible"; Ted Alspach; 2010