May 19
How to draw a pawn shape in Illustrator
2009 at 09.52 am posted by Veerle Pieters
A reader wanted to know how I created this pawn looking shape for the Devia logo. He especially wanted to know how you connect the two circles. What better way is there than to show this in a video…
Drawing a pawn all wrapped in a movie
As usual, there are probably different ways in doing this, but I'm happy to show you mine. Hope you enjoy the movie and learned a thing or two.
- Download the video tutorial on Vimeo (1130 x 860 pixels, link bottom right)
- Download the video from MobileMe (1130 x 860 pixels)
Be inspired, but don't steal or copy
The way the shapes are organized in the example of the Devia logo icon may not be copied or used. The Devia logo and its icon is copyright protected and may not be copied or used in any way. Being inspired by this technique is fine, but do not steal or copy. Inspiration should lead to new ideas, new creations.
Want to learn more?
A good and not expensive source to learn more about Illustrator, Photoshop, or web design is by joining the Tuts+ sites. You get access to the source files for just $9 a month. So your ONE membership gives you access to members-only content for ALL the Plus sites. I've written a tutorial for the Vector Tuts section.
30served
1
Thanks Veerle. Many good points there.
Next time you draw a shape like this, you should consider using a script called Metaballs by SATO Hiroyuki. It would save you a lot of time. You can also find other useful scripts there. Vectips points at this script too and few other at.
But for the novice I recommend to take this exercise. You can learn a lot from it in basic Illustrator workflow.
2
It’s fantastic to see you in action and listen to you explaining…
Thank you for gave us this opportunity, I know that record a tutorial is hard and not so easy!
3
Nice one Veerle
Although you could have done this a lot faster by using Pathfinder filters ;)
4
Great tutorial, Veerle! Thank you for taking time to put this together. And oh, now I finally hear your voice!
5
Sigurdur Armannsson said:
Interesting indeed. Things like this I draw within a minute, so I usually don’t bother much about doing it even faster. Of course for more complex shapes with circles, or for people who really love just pushing an OK button it’s definitely worth looking into. Thanks for sharing ;)
Steven Garcia said:
Actually, would you mind sharing the steps you take and which Pathfinder options you would use with us? Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this when I was preparing this tutorial, but I really didn’t see a better or easier solution by using the Pathfinder options. I would be very grateful if you would share some tips with us. Pathfinder is such a powerful feature.
6
Dank je wel Veerle. These are exactly the common actions that I find way too little information about.
7
Nice tutorial Veerle, thanks! I actually came across the Devia website a few days ago and had no idea you had created the logo (and website?). It looks very vibrant.
8
Great tutorial as usual Veerle! Realy nice shape.
9
Veerle,
You have to do this more ..
Really intresting, while viewing this tut. I remember more then a normal tut.
Thx Veerle,
10
Great as always. I don’t really know if you’ve made a videotutorial before, I haven’t heard one myself at least, but you have a really pleasant voice to listen to ;-). Maybe because it’s a Belgian voice :P
11
Thumbs up!!
12
Great tutorial. Thank you.
13
Hi Veerle,
Excellent to see this screencast on your site!
I personally love screencast tutorials, as it makes things so clear. Hope to see more of them here, so I can learn a lot of you.
Thnx!
14
Here’s a quick demo (an animated gif. Yay! :) of how this could be done with pathfinder.
15
Hi Veerle,
I must say, watching the tutorial in a video makes some items so much clearer. Especially useful for the beginners!
Hope you will create some more videos in the future. Well done!!
Grtz
16
This was a GREAT video tutorial, especially for people like me. I learned some techniques and shortcuts that are going to be very useful. So while some are saying that there are “easier” ways, I think this technique teaches you things you can apply to other pieces and other parts of your illustrator work, which takes it from being just a basic tutorial, to a GREAT learning experience. Thanks for sharing!
17
Thank you all for the great comments so far. It definitely motivates me to do more videos :)
Oo said:
Awesome! Thank you! :) These were the same steps I had in mind if I would go this route, until at the point where you magically turn the straight anchor points into perfectly smoothly curved ones, plus also perfectly symmetric as well. It’s a bit of a mystery for me how you did that in 1 single step. I assume you didn’t just use the Pen tool for this right? Envelope > Make with Warp maybe? Then again, things aren’t very precise or exact the way you want if you try these.
18
Very interesting to see how a single shape like a circle evolves to a logo. I am just researching how to create a logo and this helped me to realise my idea.
Thanks !
19
Great use of cmd+j. Thank You. However, I’m in love with your voice! I’m waiting for many other video-tuts like this
20
Thanks for this great tutorial, I really like following the tutorial with the video.
21
It’s been a while since the last video tutorial, but I forgot how much I enjoy seeing you in action. I <3 your video tutorials.
22
Just a bit of magic! Well no, not really… :)
I did do this with the Pen tool. Just dragged a few guides to align the handles to. I didn’t have time to record every step, so it might look like magic but you can actually see the guides in the first frame with the smooth points.
I think you could achieve the same or at least similar effect with warp as well but you’d probably have to give it a few other transformations as well to get it tweaked to perfection. So Pen tool is the weapon of choice for me!
23
Great Tutorial Veerle, its always good to see how other people do things.
Personally I also would have done it like Oo but that’s probably due to the fact that I learned to do this kind of thing with fireworks before learning to do it in illustrator, Being I mostly design for the web. In Fireworks you can just throw some shapes down and punch them real quickly! It’s always good to learn as many different ways of doing the same thing as possible!
24
Thank you Veerle, great tutorial, especially for a beginner like me. It’s great to hear your voice too. I have been following your blog for awhile now. Looking forward to more vids. Beky Australia
25
Wow. That is pretty cool. So glad you have started video tutorials Veerle!
It’s always been easier for me to learn visually and now you started posting videos. It’s great! Thanks so much.
26
I have been trying to achieve the same effect, but I m running against a wall when I try to join the segments. When I select both points and try to join, I just get an error sound (no message) and nothing happens.
27
MV said:
I can’t recall I ever encountered the same thing as you are describing. I only get the error message when the anchor points aren’t properly selected e.g. when you select more than 2 points or one of the 2 segments is part of a compound shape. Maybe you should trash the preferences and relaunch the application and start again. I’m sorry if this sounds drastic, but I really can’t think of anything else.
28
Thank you Veerle,
you have inspired me.
Stephan
29
Thanks Veerle. Thanks for this great tutorial
30
Here’s another alternate way to create a similar shape using Pathfinder…
Starting off from the point where you have your two circles and the ellipse
Use the pen tool to draw a “box” (it might not necessarily be a perfect rectangle, which is why I used the pen tool versus the rectangle tool) using the two intersection points that the ellipse makes with the circle as the first side.
Once your box is drawn, do a simultaneous selection of both circles, and the box. And use the “unite” pathfinder option.
You should end up with the result below
Now select both the resultant shape and your remaining ellipse (which should now be below the resultant shape), and use the “minus back” pathfinder option to subtract the elliptical shape from the resultant shape.
Your resultant shape will be half of the pawn.
Now, just use the reflect tool, and the “unite” pathfinder option (same technique as in the video, at this point)
And now you’ve got your pawn shape.
It’s always great seeing the different approaches that can be taken to achieve similar results. It often makes me think, “Hmm, I never thought to try it that way!”