How to Make Fancy Swirls in Illustrator
Creating your own fancy swirls in Adobe Illustrator is a technique every graphic designer should know. This can be useful when designing banners and customized logos. Essentially, the technique consists of creating a "swoosh"-shaped brush, then using the Ellipse Tool to create a swirl and overlaying the ellipse with the swoosh. You can then transform the swirl as needed and overlay additional swirls to make them as fancy or simple as required for your project.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
Creating a Swirl Brush
-
1
Open a new document in Adobe Illustrator. Select the "Ellipse Tool" from the Toolbox and draw a circle about 20 pixels in diameter by dragging the tool in the middle of the page while holding down the "Shift" key.
-
2
Double-click the "Foreground Color" icon in the Toolbox. Select a color for your swirls in the Color Picker. The circle changes to that color.
-
-
3
Select the "Direct Selection Tool" from the Toolbox. Hold down the "Shift" key and click the anchor point on the right side of the circle. A vertical line appears on the anchor point. Drag the anchor point to the right by about 100 pixels to stretch the circle.
-
4
Select the "Convert Anchor Point Tool" from the Toolbox. Click on the same right anchor point to transform the rounded curve to a sharp point.
-
5
Select the "Selection Tool" from the Toolbox. Click on the swoosh shape you have just made. Click the "New Brush" icon at the bottom of the Brushes Panel. A dialog box opens. Select "New Art Brush" and click "OK." The Art Brush Options dialog box opens.
-
6
Type "Swirls" in the "Name" field. Select the "Direction Arrow" that points to the right, a width of "100%" and click "OK." The new brush appears in the Brushes Panel. Press "Delete" to clear the canvas.
Painting Swirls
-
7
Select the "Spiral Tool" from the Toolbox by clicking on the bottom right corner of the "Line Segment Tool" and selecting it from the drop-down menu. The Spiral dialog box opens.
-
8
Click the canvas without moving the mouse to open the Spiral options. Select a "Radius" of "50" and a decay of "75." Select "5" from the "Segments" menu. Click "OK." The spiral appears on the canvas.
-
9
Click the new "Swirls" brush in the Brushes Panel. The spiral becomes a swirl.
-
10
Click the Stroke Panel and select a "Weight" of "0.5 pt" to reduce the thickness of the swirl.
-
11
Select the "Selection Tool." Press the "Ctrl" and "C" keys on the keyboard to copy the swirl, then the "Ctrl" and the "V" keys to paste a copy on the canvas.
-
12
Zoom into the document by "200" percent using the Zoom menu at the bottom of the window. Move the cursor over a corner of the second swirl until a double-headed curved arrow appears. Drag the swirl to rotate it about 90 degrees counterclockwise.
-
13
Click the corner of the second swirl and drag it to reduce its size to about one-half. Drag the swirl so that it overlaps the first swirl near the widest point, about 20 pixels in from the left. You now have a swirl with a tail.
-
14
Repeat the above steps to add more contours to your swirl. Stretch, rotate and transform the swirls at will to create your own shapes.
-
1
