Acquire advanced skills in creating graphic elements like stars through this tutorial. The article provides an in-depth guide on creating stars over your skyline using ellipse tool and symbol sprayer tool in a digital software.
Key Insights
- The tutorial begins by locking previous layers and hiding guides in the software. A new layer titled 'stars' is then created.
- To create stars, the article provides a step-by-step process which involves creating a symbol of a star using the ellipse tool, adding it as a symbol using the symbols panel, and then using the symbol sprayer tool to spray the stars onto the layer.
- The tutorial also explains how to modify the size of the stars for diversity, shift their positions, and adjust their opacity for a more realistic look. It concludes with saving the work and preparing for the next step, creating a mask for the stars.
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In this video, we'll be creating stars above our skyline. Let's start by first locking the layers we've previously completed. In addition, let's hide our guides by right-clicking and selecting Hide Guides*.
Finally, we'll add a new layer, and we'll retitle this layer Stars and hit ENTER. We're now ready to create our stars above the skyline. In order to do this, we're going to be utilizing the Symbol Sprayer Tool by first creating a symbol of a star.
To do this, we'll use the Ellipse Tool*, and with the Ellipse Tool selected, we'll simply click and create an ellipse sized 3 × 3, then click OK*. From here, let's make sure we have a white fill with no stroke. We'll hit CTRL+Shift+A to deselect and view our star. I think this looks good in terms of size, so let's hit CTRL+A to select all—only selecting this first star. Next, we want to add this as a symbol.
To do this, we'll open the Symbols Panel from the Window dropdown and select Symbols*. From here, we can add a new symbol by going to the bottom-right corner and selecting New Symbol*. We'll retitle this symbol Star and hit ENTER.
Next, let's delete the star we've just made. We'll hit V on the keyboard and press the Delete key. From here, I'm going to move the Symbols Panel over to the right-hand side, and now let's utilize the Symbol Sprayer Tool*.
With the Symbol Sprayer Tool*, we'll select our Star*, and from here we can start spraying stars. Feel free to make multiple clicks, and let's work to create our stars along the edge outside the moon. We'll click and drag, and don't worry too much about going outside the artboard.
Feel free to add as many stars as you prefer. When you've added enough, let's go back to the Symbols Panel*, and we're going to utilize the Symbol Sizer Tool*. With this tool, we can click on the stars to change their size. In this case, I'm only going to adjust some of them slightly to add a bit more variety. When we've completed that, we can also utilize other tools, including the Symbol Shifter Tool or the Symbol Scruncher Tool*.
We can use the Symbol Scruncher Tool to find dark areas in the sky and add more stars by scrunching them toward that location. We can also use the Symbol Shifter Tool to click and move stars around as necessary. For example, the stars that overlap with the moon—I’ll simply click and move those upward. We'll also want to fill in stars toward the bottom area of the sky.
Once we've finished using our tools and creating our stars as we prefer, we're next going to copy this layer. Hitting V on the keyboard and with our symbols selected, we'll hit CTRL+C to copy and CTRL+Shift+V to paste. We now have two layers with the exact same stars. For this layer, let's right-click and select Transform > Reflect*.
We'll reflect vertically, and if we check Preview*, we can see a preview of the transformation. Now we’ve doubled our star pattern. Click OK*, and now with both layers selected, hit CTRL+A. Let’s stretch them slightly to ensure they span the entire skyline. Clicking outside, let’s
Select one of our star layers and change the Opacity from 100%. Double-click and type 25, then hit ENTER.
Now we have a little more variation in how faded our stars appear. You may notice a few stars are still in front of the moon. We'll go back to the Symbol Shifter Tool and shift those stars out of the way. I'll hit V on the keyboard, and now we've completed two sets of stars.
We can toggle both layers to see the result. Let's now hit CTRL+S on the keyboard to save our work, and in the next video, we'll create a mask for our stars.
See you there!