Aug 05
Illustrator ring shape via overlapping crescents effect
2009 at 10.04 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Today I have a very easy to follow step-by-step tutorial for people who just started out with Illustrator. This is another request from a reader who asked if I could explain how to draw this ring shape (see image on the left). Looking at this shape I can see it’s made of 2 overlapping crescents which are then rotated at 45 degrees. There is also this interesting overlapping effect which adds a bit of unrealistic depth effect which makes me think of the work of M.C. Escher. This time I thought it would be a good idea to work with screenshots again…
Draw a circle
Select the Ellipse tool and draw a circle holding down the Shift key.
Fill circle with linear gradient
Fill the circle with a linear, vertical gradient (90° corner), going from light green at the bottom (R197, G227, B38) to dark green at the top (R68, G134, B58), with the position of the gradient slider located around 70%.
Add a second circle
Select the Ellipse tool again and draw a smaller circle on top as shown in the image above.
Vertically center the 2 circles
Vertically center the 2 circles by selecting both circles using the Selection tool, hold down the Shift key to select the second circle. Go to the Align palette and choose the Vertical Align Center option.
Minus front
With the 2 circles still selected, go to the Pathfinder palette and choose Minus Front.
Change opacity to Multiply
You should now have a crescent shape as shown in the image above. Make sure it is selected. Go to the Opacity palette and choose Multiply from the dropdown menu.
Duplicate rotate the crescent
Enable Smart Guides: go to View > Smart Guides or hit Cmd/Ctrl + U. We need to find the center of the circle, so we will end up with a circle shape again when we duplicate the crescent. Draw a vertical guide and a horizontal guide as shown in the image above. Use the points of the crescent so the guide will snap to it. Now select the Rotate tool from the toolbox. Alt/Option click exactly on the intersection point for the 2 guides. In the Rotate dialogue box enter 180° and click Copy to duplicate the original crescent shape.
Ring shape
A ring shape with a nice overlapping effect (because we use Multiply) should be the result. We are almost there now...
Rotate the ring 45°
The only thing left to do now it rotate the ring 45°. Select select the Rotate tool from the toolbox again and Alt/Option click exactly on the intersection point for the 2 guides again. In the Rotate dialogue box enter 45° and click OK. That's it! :)
Source file
This AI source file is for educational purpose only and is compatible with versions CS2 or later.
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.
26served
1
Very nice! I really like your screenshot tutorials.
2
Thanks for sharing this technique. I also would like to say I absolutely love your easy to follow tutorials and your inspiring work. Thanks again.
3
Thanks for tutorial!
4
Nice, looks like the new logo for Woolworths in Australia.
5
Nice tutorial. I tried it immediatly when I saw the rss update and it is sooo good.
6
Thanks for sharing! It’s good that you have a step by step process.
7
Thanks again Veerle for the simple but oh so usefull techniques.
Love your work!
8
Thanks - it made it a lot easier with the screen shots. I’m going to give it a try now.
9
Thanks for the Tuts+ link, always nice to be give a pointer as to how to learn the smart way ie, fast.
10
Very nice tutorials. Thanks for your post.
11
As always very nice and simple tutorial. -Thanks!
12
I think you were right to make this tutorial using screenshots instead of a video, although I do love your recent video tutorials. Thanks for the great tut anyway, I love the effect.
13
I only work with corel draw but your tuts are so easy to understand that i can port it to corel and it also works like a charme ... i think you can write in future “Tutorial for Illustrator AND Corel”. Thank you so much.
14
Hey, Veerle! Thanks for the article. When did you add a dropshadow to the comment h3 element? I like it :)
15
reece said:
It has always been there since the launch of this blog (May 2006), but only Safari users could see it. Maybe you’re using Firefox? Firefox supports it since 3.5 and so it might seem like I just implemented it.
16
Yes, that’s it. I did just upgrade to Firefox 3.5. :)
17
Slick tutorial. Thanks.
18
This is a great tutorial. I like the way how you work with screenshots. You made it very simple for me.
I’ll let you see my result when i accomplish this technique.
19
Veerle, great tutorial as always. It is the very last step that really transforms the image to something that is aesthetically unusual and different that could be used in so many ways. When you rotate the ring, the image really comes to life and can be developed further!
20
Great tutorial as always, but I’m having trouble understanding how to line the guides up. In the end I just copied and rotated and lined up just by eye.
21
you are an inspiration to me. i love your color sense and simplicity (which is hard to do!). i’m just learning illustrator and will be back to read through all your tutorials. thank you from the bottom of my heart.
22
I still countn’t find the circle center after I enable the smart guide
23
Thank you all for commenting. Glad you like this tutorial.
Jack Franklin said:
and
eddie said:
I’ve updated the image right below the title ‘Duplicate rotate the crescent’ to help you dragging the guides in the right position. You need to use the points I marked with a circle as a guide: A and B for the vertical guide and C and B for the horizontal one. This way you get the center point of the circle. Hope this makes it very clear.
24
thank you for the reply and the new guide.It works.
25
So Cool. Just gave me a level 10 idea for a logo. Keep these super tutorials rolling out - they’re great at starting the idea gears turning in my head - thanks !!