Points & Paths

Illustrator Student Spotlight: Vol. 1

2010-05-04T05:09:14Z

In addition to running this site, I also teach several Illustrator courses at Sessions College for Professional Design. During the course of a month, I see a lot of work from students just starting out with Illustrator as well as those who have a bit of experience under their belts. I wanted to showcase some of the outstanding work from these students.

The work appearing in this article is copyright of the respective owner/artist. They retain all rights over their work. Each have granted Points and Paths permission to display their work. You may not modify, reproduce, distribute, publish, license, transfer or sell any information from the materials or content without their express permission.

Sarah Yoder: Illustrator Basics
Course: Illustrator Basics

Derek Ng
Web: www.wiseguycomics.com/
Course: Illustrator Basics

Kari Anne Reynolds
Email: karianne1022 AT yahoo DOT com
Course: Illustrator Basics

Renee Gerstein
Web: www.coroflot.com/rgerstein
Course: Illustrator Basics

Terrance Nygard
Course: Illustrator By Example

Jill Sheehan
Web: www.jillthepill.net
Course: Illustrator Basics

Illustrator Questions Answered: How do I edit an effect on an object?

2010-03-26T12:00:00Z

Illustrator Questions Answered on Pointsandpaths.com is a regular feature that provides answers to common Illustrator questions I’ve seen asked by my students, by people online, by colleagues and by voices unseen which, basically, means me talking to myself.

Here’s the issue: You’ve been working on a project that calls for a few effects such as drop-shadows and glows. Some time later you’ve decided that instead of gray shadows on the objects, you want to use blue (it could happen!). You would be mistaken to think that you just need to select the object and go back to the drop-shadow effect in the Effects menu as here’s what you would see in attempting to do so.

Clearly, not the way to go. The solution, though, is stated in the messaging.

What to do? Click the Cancel button and open the Appearance panel and select the drop-shadow effect. Personally, though, I’d rather see an Edit Effect option displayed here that takes me right to the selected effect in the Appearance panel. Alas, let’s click Cancel and open the panel.

Here’s where the action takes place. As you can see, I’ve highlighted the effect.

To make changes to the drop-shadow effect, simply double-click the listing in this panel. The options for the effect will appear.

Once you’ve made changes, click OK and you’re on your way.

If you want to temporarily hide an effect on an object, click the Eye icon to the left of the effect name.

Got a question that needs answering? Or have a question you’ve seen asked over and over? Let me know and I’ll find a solution… if there is one!

Illustrator Freebie: Organic Tech Seamless Pattern

2010-03-25T21:42:07Z

I created the organic tech shape in a tutorial from my old site a while back and have turned it into a seamless pattern. There are 3 pattern tiles and 4 variations of each. The first tile uses only the organic tech shape while the second mixes that with some circles. The third tile uses a combination of circles and organic tech shapes joined together.

Variations include a Regular style, a Modern style, a Bubble style and a Shine style.

Look for a tutorial on how to create the organic tech shape soon.

Download the pattern swatches

Illustrator Questions Answered: How do I apply a stroke color to a mesh object? [3]

2010-03-19T15:53:20Z

Illustrator Questions Answered on Pointsandpaths.com will be a regular feature that provides answers to common Illustrator questions I’ve seen asked by my students, by people online, by colleagues and by voices unseen which, basically, means me talking to myself.

So here’s the issue. In Illustrator, once you apply just one mesh point to a shape, it automagically becomes a mesh object. It’s doing what one would expect. Now, hours later after working on, say, a mesh apple, you’re sitting there thinking, “I’d sure like to apply a green stroke to this apple to give it a little more style.” But as you assign a color to the stroke, you see nothing changes. Not even increasing the stroke weight makes a difference. What the french, toast?

Things are clearly more restrictive with mesh objects. While you do get freedom in how you color the inside of the object, there’s little you can do with the stroke. But there is hope.

To the rescue comes the Offset Path command (Object > Path > Offset Path). Select your mesh shape and select this command. For the offset value, use 0 and click OK.

An impercertibly thin stroke will appear with your object but not as a part of it. In other words, the stroke is a separate object from the mesh object.

Also, take note that the stroke color is grayscale so you can change it to all sorts of different shades of gray but nothing else. But, again, there is hope. With the stroke selected, open the Color panel’s option menu and select “RGB” from the options that appear.

And, like that, a world of color opens up to you. Don’t forget that you can adjust the thickness of the stroke from the Stroke panel.

Got a question that needs answering? Or have a question you’ve seen asked over and over? Let me know and I’ll find a solution… if there is one!

Create a metallic star in Illustrator

2010-03-18T09:50:00Z

This tutorial will show a technique to create a segmented star that, when gradient fills are applied, takes on a basic metallic appearance. A future tutorial will take these same techniques and elaborate on them to create a more realistic looking star… if you think that’s possible.

1. Create the star
Create a new document that uses points or pixels as the unit of measurement. Select the Star tool and click in the document to display this tool’s options. Enter the values into the fields shown below and click OK.

2. Offset the star
Select the star and apply the Offset command (Object > Path > Offset Path) using the values shown. This will create a slightly smaller version of the star as seen below.

The smaller star should be selected so cut it from the layer using Edit > Cut. Lock the current layer and create a new one above it. Paste the smaller star into this using the Edit > Paste in Front command. Name the current layer “Segmented” and the layer below it “Offset”. Apply a color to the smaller star that contrasts with the larger star; this will simply make things easier to see as you continue.

3. Dividing lines
For this step, you’ll use the Line Segment tool to create a number of paths that span various parts of the star. You’ll definitely benefit from the guidance of Smart Guides (View > Smart Guides) so enable those now. Also, turn off the layer visibility for the Offset layer by clicking the eye icon next to the layer name.

Using the Line Segment tool, create the first line as shown below. With the aid of Smart Guides, you’ll be able to easily locate the starting and ending anchor points as an “anchor” label will appear as you hover over them.

Create 4 additional lines to achieve the results shown in the image. I’ve given each line their own color to aid you. Each line starts and ends at an anchor point.

Once you’ve created all of your lines, select the star along with the 5 lines and apply the Divide command from the Pathfinder panel. This will divide the star into 10 shapes based on where you positioned the lines.

Before moving on to the next step, apply the Ungroup command (Object > Ungroup) to the star and then click in an empty area of your document to deselect the shapes.

4. Adding dimension
For dimension, you need to determine how light hits the star. For this tutorial, I’m going to consider that light is hitting from the upper-left of the star. As such, I’ve selected five segments of the star – using the Selection tool – where light will be most intense and simply applied a lighter shade of gray. Instant dimension.

This is fine looking star as it stands but it can enhanced with gradient fills.

5. Applying gradients
I’m going to create two gradients for the star. One will feature lighter shades of gold while the other will use darker shades.

Select all of the light gray segments of the star and apply a gradient fill to them by clicking the gradient swatch at the base of the toolbar. At this stage, it doesn’t matter what the gradient looks like. That’s what we’ll be editing shortly.

Open the Gradient panel and set the gradient type to Linear. If you have more than 2 color boxes below the gradient bar, click and drag the extras off of the panel. Your Gradient panel should resemble the image below although your colors may be different.

Double-click the color box on the left of the gradient bar to edit the color. If you only see a white to black gradient bar in the pop-up that appears, click the pop-up’s option icon and select RGB from the menu that appears.

Once you see the 3 RGB color bars, enter the values shown.

Double-click the other color box and, if necessary, convert it to RGB and then enter the values shown.

The selected shapes on your star should update to the new gradient. We’ll finesse the gradients shortly but let’s get the right gradient colors applied to the darker segment shapes. Select those shapes with the Selection tool and apply a gradient fill to them. Below are the values used for the darker gold gradient.

At this point, I’ve got a pretty decent looking metallic-esque star but I can make adjustments to the gradients on the individual segments to affect more realism.

6. Adjusting gradients
If you select a segment and then switch to the Gradient tool, you’ll see an indicator showing the direction of the gradient. The image below show a left to right direction.

With the Gradient tool, I can click and drag in the direction I want the gradient to flow in the shape. The hollow circle in the image below shows where I started and the square with the cursor over it shows where I ended clicking and dragging.

In addition to using the Gradient tool, you can also affect the gradient in a shape by making adjustments within the Gradient panel. Here, I repositioned one of the color boxes and also moved the midpoint marker (the icon between the two color boxes).

Here’s what the star looks like after tweaking the star and turning on the visibility of the Offset layer (with modified fill color on this shape).

But I’m not quite yet done…

7. Optional enhancements
As I started writing this tutorial, this step wasn’t even in my mind. It was after experimenting a bit through the tutorial that I felt it a nice addition to the star. Select the 5 lighter colored segments of the star and then apply the Offset command (Object > Path > Offset Path) using the values shown to produce the smaller shapes within.

These new shapes should automatically have the gradient fill from the larger shapes applied to them. Make direction and flow adjustments with the Gradient tool or use the Reverse Gradient command on the Gradient to make an even quicker adjustment.

Go even further and repeat the above process for the darker segments of the star.

Trendy AquaBallz in Illustrator

2010-03-16T07:30:00Z

This is an update to a tutorial I had on my earlier website. It’s been completely rewritten for Illustrator CS4 and, I believe, simplified. So perhaps you’re hooked on the “Aqua” look and are just aching to use it in your work. Look no further Trend Boy and/or Girl!

1. Create a circle with a radial gradient
In a new document, use the Ellipse tool to create a perfectly round circle. Using pixels as my unit of measurement, I created a 200 pixel x 200 pixel circle.

Apply the default black/white gradient fill to the circle. You can find this default fill at the bottom of the toolbar if you’ve not made any color adjustments to gradients recently or you can find it in the Swatches panel.

In the Gradient panel, set the gradient type to Radial. Also, set the stroke color on the shape to none.

Optional: Make sure the Fill box is overlapping the Stroke box at the base of the toolbar. In the Gradient panel, set the white color’s opacity value to 0%. To confirm transparency, you can turn on the Transparency Grid (View > Show Transparency Grid).

Before moving on to Step 2, name this layer “Circle” and lock the layer.

2. Create the highlight
Make a new layer, named “Highlight”, above the Circle layer. Use the Ellipse tool to draw another circle that’s a bit smaller than the original (as seen below) and fill it with white. Disable the stroke if there is one.

Select the bottom “handle” of the bounding box around the smaller circle and drag it up to vertically compress the circle. Your result should be similar to what’s seen below.

Click in an empty area of your document to deselect the shape. Switch to the Direct Selection tool and, with the help of Smart Guides (View > Smart Guides), hover over the top anchor point on the smaller circle. A small “anchor” label should appear. I’ve enhanced the appearance of the label for this image.

Click and drag this anchor point upward so it matches the inside contour of the larger circle as seen in the image below.

Use the Direct Selection tool on the bottom anchor point and drag down to get the result seen below.

To this shape, apply a two-color linear gradient fill. Set both colors on gradient to white. The opacity of one color should be 0% while the other is set to 40%. The transparent part of the gradient should appear at the top of the shape while the more opaque white is at the bottom.

And that’s all there is to it! To change the colors on your circle, just drag a swatch color from the Swatches panel onto the black color in the gradient on the Circle layer; just make sure that the circle is selected.

Bear in mind that you can alter the position of the gradient using the Gradient tool. You can also affect how the gradient spreads its color within the circle by making adjustments to the positions of the color boxes in the Gradient panel. The midpoint marker – the diamond above the gradient bar that appears between two colors – can also be adjusted.

Create a realistic LCD readout display in Illustrator [6]

2010-03-15T07:00:00Z

I initially meant to keep this tutorial short but I soon found myself on a quest for realism so not only will you learn how to create the realistic LCD lettering display but you’ll also see how to create the interface that accompanies it. Let’s get started.

1. Find the right typeface
To give your display a modern look, you’ll want to choose a typeface from your collection or from the web, that has a high-tech look. I chose the Digital-7 typeface available at dafont.com for the purposes of this tutorial. Practically any typeface from the LCD category at the site can work for this tutorial though. Be sure to install the typeface before moving on to the next steps.

Since installing typefaces is a pretty broad topic, I’m not going to touch on it here. Rather, consult your operating system’s Help system for more info.

2. Create the background display
Create a new document and customize the dimensions to the size of the display you ultimately want to use. For my example, I used the dimension of 650 pixels for width and 250 pixels for height.

Next, disable the stroke color and set the fill color (by double-clicking the fill box in the toolbar) to the following values shown in the RGB fields or enter HEX color value 606649.

Select the Rectangle tool and create a rectangle that matches the dimensions of your document. For precision, click in an empty area of your document with the tool and enter width and height values and click OK; position the rectangle as desired.

If you’ve ever closely observed an LCD display of this type, you may have noticed it has a somewhat grainy texture. To simulate this, select the rectangle and choose the Grain effect (Effect > Texture > Grain) from the menu bar. Use the values shown and click OK.

Name this layer “Background” and lock it.

3. Highlight the display
Create a new layer named “Highlight” above the Background layer. Use the Rectangle tool to create another rectangle with the same dimensions as the one you just created. Position the new rectangle directly over the original; use Smart Guides (View > Smart Guides) to help with alignment.

Apply a gradient fill to the rectangle; I’m using the default black and white gradient.

In the Gradient panel, set the gradient type to Radial and set both colors (by double-clicking them) to white. Lower the opacity of the right color box to 0. Here’s where I’m at so far.

The gradient as it is currently looks needs adjustment so that the highlight looks more natural. Use the Gradient tool to adjust the direction and spread of the gradient. In the image below, I’ve zoomed out so you can see the starting point (in the center of the circle) of the gradient as well as the ending point (toward the lower right of the rectangle).

If the highlight is a little intense, as mine was, lower the opacity of the white color box in the gradient. I dropped the value from 100% to 75%.

Lock this layer before moving on to Step 4.

4. Create the base text
Create a new layer and name it “Shadow”. This layer will hold the text that appears behind non-active LCD elements. I’m creating a clock display, so I’ll set down 4 of the 8 digits with a colon separator between. I’m using the number 8 as it features all of the vertical and horizontal pieces that make up all of the other numbers and letters. This text is set at 150 points (using the Digital-7 typeface) and uses the color values shown below.

In addition to these characters, I’ve added in other elements for additional detailing.

Once you’ve got everything positioned and laid out where you want, select everything and make a copy (Edit > Copy) of it. Open the Transparency panel and set the blending mode to Multiply and drop the Opacity value to 15%.

Lock this layer and move on to Step 5.

5. Setting up the display
Create a new layer above the Shadow layer and name it “Display”. Paste the text (and other elements you may have created) into this layer using Edit > Paste in Front. For my display, I’ve set the time to 2:34.25. Because I eliminated the first number of the larger 4 digits, I had to use the Selection tool to reposition them.

I now need to get rid of all but 1 day of the week and decide whether there’s an alarm set and whether it’s AM or PM. To do this, I’ll select everything and go to Type > Create Outlines. Once you apply this command, your text (at least on this layer) will no longer be editable. Apply the Ungroup command (Object > Ungroup) to make selecting individual letters easier. Next, use the Selection tool to get rid of unwanted letters/details.

This next bit is optional but I feel it adds a little more realism to the display. Select all of your remaining elements and apply an Outer Glow effect (Effect > Stylize > Outer Glow) using the values shown.

So, hey, you can stop right here and be on your merry way with a cool looking display or you can move on and see how to make the glossy interface that encases this LCD beast.

6. Making the frame
Still with me? Awesome. Lock the Display layer and create a new layer, named “Frame” above it. In this layer, use the Rectangle tool to draw out yet another rectangle that matches the dimensions of the others you’ve drawn. Fill this rectangle with black.

With the rectangle still selected, apply the Offset Path command (Object > Path > Offset Path) and use the values shown to create a smaller copy of the rectangle.

Select this smaller rectangle along with the larger rectangle and click the Divide command on the Pathfinder panel.

Most Pathfinder command group results together so use the Ungroup command (Object > Ungroup) to, well, ungroup them. Click in an empty area of your document and then use the Selection tool to click the interior rectangle. Apply a white fill to this.

7. Getting glossy
Set the Stroke color in the toolbar to black and the Fill color to nothing. Select the Pen tool – yes, the scary Pen tool – and create a path similar to what you see below. It’s important that you start and end the path outside of the rectangles.

Now make sure you only have the path selected and then apply the Divide Objects Below command (Object > Path > Divide Objects Below). The path will disappear but you’ll see it’s divided the two rectangles. Click in an empty area of your document and use the Selection tool to delete the bottom portion of the white rectangle.

This will be familiar. Apply a gradient fill to the remaining white shape; the type of gradient is Linear. Both colors in gradient are set to white with the opacity of one color set to 0%. The gradient’s direction should be vertical with the white showing at the bottom of this shape and the transparent portion at the top. Adjust with the Gradient tool if necessary.

The gloss is a little intense so, with the shape/gradient still selected, lower the opacity of the other color box to 25%.

With the “glass” part done, let’s turn our attention to the frame. Use the Selection tool to select the top part of the black frame (highlighted in yellow below). Make a copy of this and paste it directly over the original using Edit > Paste in Front. Apply a gradient fill to this. If you’re lucky, the gradient should be oriented correctly on this piece. If not, make adjustments with the Gradient tool and/or Gradient panel.

8. Adding depth
One final step is to add some depth inside of the frame. Lock the Frame layer and create a new layer below it named “Depth”. Here’s what your Layers panel should look like at this point.

On this layer, create two thin rectangles filled with a dark color; I simply used black. One of the rectangle’s is vertical and spans the interior height of the display. The other is horizontal and spans the length of the display. Use Smart Guides (View > Smart Guides) to position the rectangles as shown below.

Apply a Gaussian Blur effect to the two rectangles using the values shown.

The effect may cause some gaps on the left of the vertical rectangle and on top of the horizontal rectangle. To hide this, use the arrow keys on your keyboard to reposition. If necessary, adjust the length of the rectangles as well to hide any other anomalies. And there you have it!

If you have trouble saving the Digital-7 font in your file, due to licensing restrictions, convert all the characters in your file that uses this font to outlines using Type > Create Outlines.

Create a Lucky Clover in Illustrator

2010-03-07T23:02:31Z

To help celebrate St. Patrick’s day and the luck of the Irish is an Illustrator tutorial on how to create a clover, four-leafed or otherwise. The basics of this project involve the use of 3 circles and some Pathfinder magic to create the clovers.

1. Draw the first circle
Create a new document using pixels or points as the unit of measurement. Set the fill box in the toolbar to None and leave the stroke black.

Next, select the Ellipse tool and click in an empty area of your document where you want to create the first circle. Enter the values shown below and click OK.

2. Create the remaining circles
Using the same technique from Step 1, create two more circles. One using the values on the left and the other using the values on the right.

The reason for the varying sizes of circles is to ward off symmetry and perfection. I like to have a little human touch in my work so changing things up with sizes and shapes helps. Here’s what you should have so far.

3. Positioning
To make life easier for this step, enable Smart Guides (View > Smart Guides). Next, use the Selection tool and hover the right side of one of the smallest circle until you see the “anchor” label appear.

Now your cursor is over an anchor point so click on it and drag it into the larger circle and line up the selected anchor point with the right anchor point on the larger circle. See the image below for guidance.

For the other circle, click on the left side anchor point and line it up with the larger circle’s left anchor point. The end result is shown below.

4. Make it pointy
Click and hold your cursor over the Pen tool in the toolbar until the flyout menu appear and select the Convert Anchor Point tool.

Click on the bottom anchor point of the large circle to change it from a smooth point to a corner point.

To make this point pointier, use the Direct Selection tool to select just this bottom point and then click and drag down while holding down the Shift key to keep things aligned.

5. Dividing then merge
Select all of the shapes and click the Divide command on the Pathfinder panel.

Ungroup the results (Object > Ungroup) and click an empty area of your document to deselect the shapes. Use the Selection tool to select the top shape amongst the now divided shapes and hit the Delete key on your keyboard. You should have something similar to what’s shown here.

Now select what remains and click the Unite command on the Pathfinder panel to merge all of the individual shapes into one. At this point, if it were Valentine’s Day, you could stop and you’ve got yourself a heart to work into a design. Alas, this isn’t the end result we’re looking for.

6. Color and arrange
Select the heart/clover shape and swap the stroke and fill boxes in the toolbar by holding down the Shift key and then hitting the X key. Choose a shade of green for the clover. I used the pre-made Foliage color palette (Window > Swatch Libraries > Nature > Foliage) to select from. After coloring, make 2 copies of the clover. If you want a 4-leaf closer, just make an extra copy.

Use the bounding box on a selected shape to rotate it so you end up with something similar to what’s shown here.

7. Add a stem
A clover’s not a clover until it has a stem. Set the fill box in the toolbar to none and use the color from your clovers as your stroke color. On the Stroke panel, set the weight value to 10.

Use the Pen tool to draw a simple curved path that starts in the center of the clovers and ends a little ways down from them. Here’s what I’ve got.

Raise a pint of good cheer as you’ve just made a lucky clover. But, why stop there? With the various tools and features in Illustrator, you can customize your clover beyond the basics as seen in the feature image for this tutorial.

Use different size circles in Steps 1 and 2 to vary the look of your clovers.
For more randomness, resize the clovers in one grouping and also vary the colors of the leaves on each clover as well.

Reports: Illustrator CS5 Available April 21 or 22

2010-03-06T21:55:41Z

According to various sources, none of them Adobe, Adobe Illustrator CS5 will ship in late April as part of the Adobe Creative Suite. According to a report on the CS5 web site, an advert for a digital printing conference in April reads “Adobe will unveil a brand new application as part of its signature suite of services. Be among the first to see why this is sure to surprise even the most ‘in the know’ Adobe fans”.

Traditionally, Adobe follows an 18-month release cycle for its products which puts April in their sites for a major release. This cycle has remained pretty consistent since I began using Illustrator about 10 years ago. So CS5 in April and CS6 in October 2011

As for new features, details remain very slim. There will be the usual interface tweaks to make all of the applications look and feel the same for consistency and familiarity. At a software demo last October, Adobe demonstrated better integration between Dreamweaver and Illustrator through a process called FXG which stands for Flash XML Graphics. Apparently, vector objects remain as vector objects within Dreamweaver rather than becoming rasterized. This could certainly make editing the original graphics a lot easier. More info on the demo can be found at the CS5 site.

Beyond those details, I can only speculate about new features. There were mutterings in the past about bringing the graphing and charting tools into the 21st century but, clearly, that’s not something that would get designers – or shareholders – excited. I’d certainly like to see a performance update to the 3D effects as they’re achingly slow to use. Also maybe a thoughtful way to combine all of the various color features? I’m looking at you Live Color, Color panel, Color Guide, and Swatches panel!

Well, that’s all of the gossip and rumor mongering I’m qualified to offer at this point. Perhaps someone out there can provide more insight in the comments or let everyone know what killer feature they’d like to see in CS5.

Easy Cartoon Clouds [1]

2010-03-03T15:42:19Z

This tutorial shows you a technique to create custom cartoon-like clouds that feature soft shadows. This is a complete update to another tutorial on cartoon clouds that I had written for my previous site. This version is simpler and has a better end result so let’s get started.

1. Create a background
Since the clouds I’m creating are mostly white, I need to create a background that will contrast with them. To do this, I’ll choose a sky blue color from the Swatches panel and then create a rectangle that matches the dimensions of my document.

Since I won’t be interacting with this layer any further, I’ll lock it in the Layers panel.

2. Make the basics
In this step, I’ve created a new layer and on it I’ll create just two shapes with the Ellipse tool. The first shape is a perfectly round circle while the other is a little flatter. These two shapes will serve as the building blocks later for the clouds. Note that I’ve disabled the stroke on the shapes so that I’m only using a white fill.

To stay organized, I’ve labelled this new layer “Clouds” and the original layer “Sky”

3. Create shading shapes
To create the illusion of shading on the circles, follow along. Select both shapes and make a copy of them. Next, use the Edit > Paste in Front command to paste a copy directly over the originals. If you use the regular Paste command, your shapes will be out of alignment.

Keep the copies selected and move them up from the originals by tapping the Up arrow on your keyboard a few times. I hit this key about 10 times to get the result below.

At this point, click an empty area of your document to deselect the copies. Use the Selection tool to select the original perfect circle and its copy. Click once on the Minus Front command in the Pathfinder panel. Repeat this process for the flatter circles so that you end up with the result below.

Select both of these shading shapes and apply a blue fill to them. You can use the same blue as your background if you prefer. To soften the shapes, apply a Gaussian Blur effect (Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to them using the values shown.

4. The circles return
If you didn’t do any other fancy keyboard shortcut copying, cutting or pasting, you should still have a copy of the circles from Step 2 in the system’s memory. Use the Edit > Paste in Back command to make them appear.

Group the shading shape together with the circle below it (Object > Group) for each pair of circles. This makes moving a circle – along with its shading – much easier.

5. Bring in the clouds!
At this point, the hard part is over and the clouds will finally take shape. Use these two shapes as starter shapes to create your clouds. Make copies of the shapes, distort them a little with the bounding box handles if you prefer and stack them over one another. If the shading looks a little funny on some cloud parts, reposition using the Arrange commands (via the Object menu or by right-clicking a shape) or the Edit and Paste in Front/Back commands.

Here’s what I ended up with after a bit of copying and distorting. Notice that I’ve not only resized some of the original shapes but also rotated them around to get shading on different sides.