Create a Glowing Abstract Light Vector Graphic

Aug 20th in Illustration by Rype

In the following tutorial, I'll show you how to create a glowing light abstract vector graphic. The great thing about this tutorial is it doesn't use any raster effects. The final illustration is all vector! In this tutorial, you'll utilize blends, different blend modes, and gradient meshes. Moreover, these techniques are real easy to apply to other illustrations.

Author: Rype

Ryan Putnam (Rype) is a professional vector illustrator and master of Adobe Illustrator. He runs the blog Vectips.

Final Image Preview

First, let's take a look at the final illustration below. Also, if your interested in making this style of design in Photoshop then check out Fabio's Create a Wavy Blackberry Style Wallpaper Design from PSDTUTS.

Step 1

Create a new document that is 8 inches wide by 11 inches tall. Use the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a rectangle the size of your document. Fill the rectangle with a rich black (I used these CMYK values: C=100, M=100, Y=100, and K=100).

Step 2

With the Mesh Tool (U), click on the rectangle about an inch from the top in the center of the rectangle.

Step 3

After you add a mesh point with the Mesh Tool (U), change the color of the mesh point in the Color Panel to a dark blue (C=100, M=40, Y=0, and K=60). If you have accidently clicked away from the mesh point, use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to select the mesh point.

Step 4

With the Mesh Tool (U), create another mesh point in the center of the rectangle. Try to keep it in line vertically with the first mesh point.

Step 5

Change the color of the second mesh point to a dark red from the Color Panel (C=0, M=100, Y=100, and K=50).

Step 6

Add another mesh point about an inch from the bottom and change the color to a dark orange (C=0, M=80, Y=100, and K=30).

Step 7

In the next couple of steps we're going to create a brush for the glowing lines in the illustration. With the Rectangle Tool (M), create a rectangle that is 4 inches wide by .125 inches tall. Fill it with a 5% black.

Step 8

Copy (Command + C) the new rectangle and Paste it in Front (Command + F). Change the height of the copied rectangle to .03 inches and fill it with white.

Step 9

Select the first long rectangle and change the transparency to 0%. If it is getting hard to see the rectangle, you can place them over your Gradient Mesh so you can see what you are doing.

Step 10

Select both rectangles and create a Blend by going to Object > Blend > Make. Now the line should look like it is glowing.

Step 11

Select your blend and drag it into the Brush Panel. Then choose New Art Brush from the options. Keep all the default Art Brush Options the same. We're done with the blend and you can set it aside or delete it.

Step 12

With the new brush we can start creating the vertical lines. I have a Wacom tablet so it's really easy to use the Brush Tool (B) to create smooth flowing paths. If you don't have a Wacom or don't feel comfortable using the Brush Tool (B), you can always use the Pen Tool (P) and apply the brush to the path. Decide which tool you want to use and create your first flowing line down the middle of your gradient mesh.

Step 13

Select the new line a choose Overlay for the blend mode in the Transparency Panel.

Step 14

Draw three to five more lines overlapping each other and set to Overlay.

Step 15

Next, draw three to five more lines, set to Overlay, and change the Stroke Weight to .5 pt.

Step 16

Again draw five to ten more lines, set to Overlay, change the Stroke Weight to .25 pt, and set the Opacity to 20% from the Transparency Panel.

Step 17

Draw three to five more lines, set to Overlay, change the Stroke Weight to 3 pt, and set the Opacity to 35%.

Step 18

The lines are done and now it is time to add a little more glow to the illustration. First create an ellipse with the Ellipse Tool (L) that is .5 inches by .5 inches. Change the color to a 8% yellow.

Step 19

Copy (Command + C) the ellipse, Paste it in Front (Command +F), scale it down to .25 inches by .25 inches, and change the fill to white.

Step 20

Next change the Opacity of the first ellipse to 0% from the Transparency Panel and blend the two ellipses like the brush we created.

Step 21

Place the blended ellipse over the line where a couple of them converge and set the blend mode to Overlay.

Step 22

Copy (Command + C) and Paste (Command + V) the blended ellipse around other line converging areas in the illustration. All done!

Final Image

Below is the final image again. These techniques can easily be applied to many other illustrations, it just takes some experimenting!

Keep reading with more great tutorials and articles!

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User Comments

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Greg August 20th

Pretty cool effect, I like it!

- Greg
dehlz August 20th

This is awesome, something that I’ve done in PS but never tried in Illustrator.
Shane August 20th

that’s really nice indeed. When I first saw the smaller image at the top of the post, it reminded me of veins/arteries…

Thanks for posting.
pica August 20th

that’s cool
the brush tool in illustrator is pretty powerful i guess
Didik August 20th

Simple and beautiful. Even though there are many ways to create it, your explanations is easy to catch up.
Tim August 20th

Awesome dude!
Greg August 20th

Doh.
Where was this a few months ago!?
kaet August 20th

This is a nice effect. I don’t know about setting up a black bg w/ 100 C, M, Y, & K, though; if this was printed, it seems that it would super-saturate the paper and likely lead to smearing. I’d maybe go up to 40-50% on the three colours, so that the mesh blend still goes nicely. Downside is that it doesn’t look as nice on the screen, blah blah blah, but it will print properly. If the aim is to be a web graphic, I’d go full black in RGB, and convert the other colours as follows:

Blue = 0, 61, 104
Red = 139, 3, 4
Orange = 179, 66, 21

5% K = 241, 241, 241
8% Y = 255, 253, 237.

Nice technique otherwise.
Dan August 20th

Nice use of the brush tool
Sean Canady August 20th

Wouldn’t have even considered attempting this in Illustrator. Great tutorial for those of us whom are timid in Illustrator for such effects.
Kyle August 20th

Well I don’t know if this is just because I’m clueless, but whenever I use a color for the mesh tool it effects the whole document not just the small area as the tutorial shows. Am I just stupid or am I totally missing something? Thanks.
Devlin August 20th

I really like the glowing blends. Very cool tutorial, in fact it’s electric.
Moksha August 20th

thanks nice and cool
Vince August 20th

Nice effect. almost looks photoshopped
Nate August 20th

Looks awesome man. Thanks
bradlee.bee August 20th

luv’d it …. great job. well written tut
Daniel Geraldi August 20th

nice effect!
Serpentarius August 20th

wow.. the great thing is, it’s all in vector!! Nice job
kobi August 20th

so nice
Yusuf August 21st

Wow is all i can say, simple yet catchy, cheers mate.
Jonathan August 21st

Kyle, you need to use the white arrow (direct selection tool) and select just the point in the gradient mesh that you would like to change the color of.
Grafiko August 21st

Great technique using the blends to create the glows. I will definitely will use this in future projects.
Braden Keith August 21st

that looks wicked
Kyle August 21st

I am using the direct selection tool to select the point, but instead of coloring the small area as shown in the tutorial, it is coloring almost the whole document. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong, but thank you for the help Jonathan.
Rico August 22nd

@Kyle

Try to convert your document in rgb. Mesh tool effect doesn’t give the same result in the two color mode, at least on screen.

Nice effect, I personnaly use the pencil tool with a pretty high tolerance to make easily the curvy lines.

thanks
Paulo Henrique August 22nd

very nice man.

God bless you

http://www.digitalldesignart.com
Dave August 22nd

You just saved me loads of time with tip on Step 8 “Paste it in Front (Command + F)”.

I can’t believe I have lived without it in illustrator till now. I use Flash a lot and I always use the “Paste In Place” command but I didn’t know you could do that in Illustrator with “Paste In Front”. I guess that Adobe haven’t standardised the menus between the old Macromedia products and their own software yet and I didn’t know they did the same thing.
Nemesis Design August 23rd

Very nice, i tryed it!
Lawrence August 24th

speechless…
Simply stunning….
Carl August 26th

I really appreciate your tutorials. They are well written and visually very professional looking.

I believe you typed an extra zero K=300 in step 6:
[Quote] Add another mesh point about an inch from the bottom and change the color to a dark orange (C=0, M=80, Y=100, and K=300).[Quote]

Keep those tutorials coming, and take care

CL
Sean Hodge August 26th

@Carl - Thx, typo fixed.
Vector Graphics August 26th

You are the man Rype! . Awesome tutorial! Can I have the source file ?
Ross August 28th

Eh, is this not just an Illustrator copy of the tutorial I wrote here: http://psdlearning.com/2008/06/luminescent-lines/ - more than a slight resemblance anyway and its just the same techniques only adapted to Illustrator. It may just be a coincidence but I’d still like to have thought that one of the VectorTuts guys might have picked up on this. I’m not claiming this style to be mine but the tutorial does it all in the same way eg. defining custom brushes, adding the light beads etc.
Aiyana August 29th

Thanks so much, you make it so easy to follow the steps & what a great result!
Melody August 29th

Great tutorial. My only issue is that when I blend it doesn’t “glow” like yours does. It just makes a 50% transparent circle (half the size of the bigger circle) around the smaller circle - ditto for the lines. It’s blending with only a couple of blend steps, but I can’t figure out how to change this so I get the glow affect!
Lynsey Sinclair September 2nd

Brilliant! Love the effect and was easy to follow and get the hand of - Thank you very muchly!!!
Lynsey Sinclair September 2nd

Brilliant! Love the effect and was easy to follow and get the hang of - Thank you very muchly!!!
Salmen September 2nd

very nice tutorial
kaet September 4th

Melody:

Under Object>Blend, there is Blend Mode Options, or something like that; I don’t have access to illustrator right now to check. Select it, and a window will pop up. From the drop down menu, there’s Smooth blend, Specified Steps, or Specified Distance. Smooth blend is the one you want. The second will put a set number of transition shapes between top & bottom shape, while the third will insert a transition shape every x pixels, inches, points, etc. between the blended shapes.

Hope that helps

And I agree Ross, the two tutorials do bear more than a passing resemblance.
Bob d September 10th

Sweeeeet. Playing with this is fun.
Anon September 13th

Just read this and I downloaded a background earlier today that is almost IDENTICAL. I could not help but to notice the similarities.

here is the link…

http://www.bartelme.at/journal/archive/flow_wallpaper/
haan September 18th

That was amazing effect! wow…!

Never thought that kind of effect can be done in Illustrator.

Thank you!
vijay October 6th

I LIKE THIS TUTORIAL.KEEP IT UP.
Mike October 28th

Nice tutorial, thanks!
Danh ba web 2.0 November 3rd

Thanks for tutorial . Nice blog for me
Laurena November 4th

Wow!! It’s getting better and better. Keep it up man.,
Sara November 8th

Cool Tutorial, but whenever I select my blend to put on the brushes palette my brush options disappear and I get blend options. With my blend selected how do I pull up the brushes palette?