Explore the techniques to create a reflective lake using effects like blur and tools like the curvature tool in graphic design. The article delves into the detailed process of creating a natural curve for the lake, applying a Gaussian blur, and creating a compound path for a realistic appearance.
Key Insights
- The process begins with the selection of glow and city elements on the graphic, followed by the application of a Gaussian blur to create the base for the lake.
- The lake is drawn using the curvature tool, which allows for the addition of anchor points to create a natural curve. The lake also receives a Gaussian blur effect for a surreal finish.
- The creation of a compound path aids the realistic appearance of the lake. Additionally, the color of the path is changed to match the background for a cohesive design. A masking technique is also employed to hide imperfections.
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In this video, we'll be adding our reflective lake. Let's begin first by selecting our glow as well as our city, and let's apply a blur to both of these.
We'll go to Effect > Blur, and from here, we'll select Gaussian Blur. Selecting Preview, we can modify our blur, and in this case, I'm going to leave mine at about four pixels and click OK. Feel free to choose whatever blur you'd prefer. Next, we'll be drawing our lake.
To do this, we'll utilize a new tool—our Curvature Tool. The Curvature Tool works similarly to the Pen Tool. With the Curvature Tool, we can simply click to add anchor points, and as we click, we’ll create a natural curve for our shape. If we need to move anchor points after we've completed our path, we can simply click and drag them. Once we've completed our lake, let's add a blur to this as well.
To do this, we'll go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur again. For our lake, set the blur to about five pixels and click OK. We can see that our lake is now blurred. Now, we want to create a Compound Path.
To do this, we’ll utilize the Rectangle Tool and simply draw a rectangle around our lake. From here, we'll press V on the keyboard to select the rectangle, and holding Shift, we'll also select our lake path. We'll then right-click and select Make Compound Path. Finally, we're going to change the color of this path by pressing I on the keyboard and selecting our background color.
From here, if we hit CTRL+Shift+A, we can see a preview of what our lake will look like. If we want to modify the area of the city that appears through the lake, we can select our city. I'll simply nudge it upward using the arrow keys. I like this portion of the city showing through the lake.
With this new change, we'll want to cut off some of the top. We'll select our Compound Path, and hitting A on the keyboard, I'm simply going to select these two anchor points, hold Shift, and move them up.
I'll then hit CTRL+Shift+A to deselect, and as we can see here, we have our lake. However, we also have areas showing from behind. Therefore, we now need to create a mask. To do this, we'll utilize the Rectangle Tool again and simply draw a rectangle around the area of our lake.
In this case, I’ll move the rectangle slightly outward. With this rectangle drawn, we'll now draw a selection box over all of our items within the Reflection layer, then right-click and select Make Clipping Mask. From here, we can see our lake.
In addition, we don’t have anything visible outside of the Clipping Mask we’ve created.
So let’s now save our work by hitting CTRL+S on the keyboard. In the next video, we’ll begin working on our stars.
See you there!