How to Make a Seamless Hatching Pattern in Illustrator
Create seamless hatch patterns in Illustrator for use in any number of projects. Once you define a pattern, you can apply it to another document with a brush or with the program's fill tools. Because the pattern is seamless, you can quickly fill a large document with it, even if it is small. You can create a hatch pattern with any shape that you can use within Illustrator, and you can even mix shapes.
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Instructions
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Start Illustrator by clicking "Start," "All Programs" and then "Adobe Illustrator CS5."
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Click "File" and "New." Click "OK" to accept the default document size.
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Click "View" and select both the "Smart Guides" and "Snap to Point" options.
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Press "Alt" and click the "Rectangle Tool" until the "PolygonTool" appears in its place.
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Press "Shift," then click and drag within the work space to create a hexagon. Release the mouse click when you have created a hexagon of the desired size.
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Create a copy of the hexagon by pressing "Alt" and "Shift" at the same time, pointing the mouse pointer to one of its horizontal lines and then clicking and dragging.
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Select the "Selection Tool," then click the new hexagon. Move the hexagon so that its left corner touches the original hexagon's right corner. When they touch, the word "intersect" appears on the screen.
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Release the mouse click to drop the hexagon into its new position.
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Select these two hexagons by selecting the "Group Selection" tool, pressing "Shift" and then clicking both.
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Copy them by pressing "Shift" and "Alt" at the same time, clicking one of the hexagon's bottom horizontal lines and dragging downward.
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Click the new hexagon's uppermost horizontal line and drag it toward the original set of the hexagon's bottom horizontal line until the word "intersect" appears. Release the mouse click to connect them.
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Repeat this process until you have created the pattern size that you need.
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Select the "Group Selection" tool, click above and to the left of your pattern and then drag the bounding box that appears across it.
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Click "Edit" and "Define Pattern."
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Enter a name for your hatch pattern and click "OK."
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Tips & Warnings
By pressing "Shift" while you create a new polygon, you prevent it from rotating while you size it. This saves you time when you need to create straight polygons.
When you draw the bounding box around the hexagons, you make the pattern seamless. To make it tiled, draw the bounding box so that it is completely contained within the pattern.
If you do not draw the bounding box around your pattern before you define it, the pattern will not save properly.
If you do not activate "Snap To Point" from the "View' menu before starting work, you will not see the helpful "intersect" notice when you align parts. Consequently, your finished pattern may be asymmetrical.
