I absolutely love Illustrator’s ability to create seamless and amazing patterns. They are easily one of Illustrator’s most devious features. I have had a couple instances when clients observed some of my work containing patterns and exclaimed, “That must have taken forever!” Since I know how simple and quick it actually was it is only right to do the humble thing and explain, “Yes, yes it did.” In this tutorial we are going to take one of Illustrator’s stock patterns (Dots) and create a realistic Speaker Grill/Guitar amp Illustration. Let’s create some vector nectar! Tutorial Details Program: Adobe Illustrator CS +. Some differences in applications mentioned. (Illustrator CS6 used specifically in tutorial) Difficulty: Intermediate. Topics Covered: Shape Tools, Custom Swatches, Pattern Fills, Gradients, Pattern Coloration, Vignettes, Gradients along strokes. Estimated Completion Time: 20-30 minutes. Final Image Below is a final image of what we can create using the techniques given in this tutorial. These graphical assets are especially great for background images and GUI implementation. Step 1 – New Document Let’s begin by creating a new Illustrator document. You can create any size document you fancy, but if you would like to follow along with my exact numeric variables given in this tutorial, then set your Artboard to be 1024 x 768 pixels. Since we are going to be implementing raster effects into our Illustration we want to be aware of our Raster Effect Settings. If your computer can quickly render high quality raster effects go ahead and set your raster effects now so we can see an accurate representation as we go. Otherwise, before you finish the project make sure to go to Effect> Document Raster Effect Settings and set your final resolution to best complement your final output. Remember, the higher…
