How to Create a Vector Baseball and Bat

Learning how to create a vector baseball and bat can be useful for many things. If you help a little league team or have a love for baseball, you can use your design for uniforms, T-shirts and signs. You can also use your design for a boy's room for artwork or for baseball-themed parties. You can also customize your design by adding text to the bat with a team or individual name.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A vector-based drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator

Drawing a Vector Baseball

1. 

   With your ellipse tool, draw out a white ball with a black stroke around it.

2. 

   Draw a curved line from top to bottom on one end of the baseball with your pen tool. Start with one point at the top then create a point at the bottom and drag it until you create a nice, clean curve.

3. 

   Make your stroke red and select your line. Copy and paste it, then select your copy and go to "Object," "Transform," "Reflect." The default settings should be correct and reflect your line horizontally. Now place it on the other end of the ball.

4. 

   Select both lines and go to your stroke palette. Click on the Dashed Line box, and play with the size of your dashes. The example image has a size 3 dashed line.

Drawing a Vector Baseball Bat

5. 

   With your pen tool, Start by drawing out the bat. If you don't get your lines exactly right the first time, you can always tweak your points with the direct select arrow (the white arrow in your tool box).

6. 

   Create a curved shape at the bottom of the bat where the end of the handle would be.

7. 

   If desired, add a wrap to the bat. This can be in any color you'd like.

8. 

   Bring the size of the baseball down to match the size of your bat if you'd like. If you keep the size of the ball that's bigger, it makes it look as if the ball has been hit and is moving toward the viewer.

9. 

   Another option you have is to make the bat an aluminum bat. You can do this by adding a gradient. The default black and white gradient causes this aluminum effect. To do this, select the bat shape, and click on the gradient.

Resources

• Official Adobe Illustrator Site