Creating Ornate Mandalas - Adobe Illustrator Tutorial
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
- In this Adobe Illustrator tutorial I will show you how to create an ornate radial pattern. You can use the techniques I cover to make your own mandalas that make great building blocks for other creative projects. To make these complex designs I use my favourite key commands, the offset path feature, the reflect and rotate functions, and many other techniques.
If there is anything in this tutorial that you feel I missed or didn't cover clearly enough let me know in the comments below and I'll try to help you out. If you found this tutorial useful I'd also appreciate it if you let me know in the comments!
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My Behance page: www.behance.net/DaveWatkins
I am a Graphic Designer/Illustrator/Photographer/Creator with over 14 years of professional experience. Subscribe to my channel so I can share some of my creative knowledge with you.
Very helpful! You are really an amazing instructor! Thank you for sharing the tips and techniques you use to make the process easier and faster. I look forward to using them all on a regular basis.
Really appreciate the kind words Cindi. Glad to hear that you’ll be able to integrate some of these tips into your workflow!
Loving your keyboard shortcuts and your "same colour" shortcut - you rock Illustrator!
Appreciate that! The select "same" feature is one of my favourite tricks for managing complicated documents.
Thank you for sharing I appreciate all of these tricks! Can't wait to do my own creations with all of these. Very simple and easy to follow!
Thank you for the kind words! Hope you have fun putting these tricks to use in your own work.
I really appreciate all the tips and tricks you shared - especially the keyboard shortcuts (with handy animations). Coming from a software development background, this methodology resonates with me as it's very systematic and streamlined.
Back in the day, one of my professors used to push key commands as being integral in a good work flow. That advice always stuck with me. Now here I am, sharing key commands with people over the internet. #fullcircle Thanks for checking out this video.
Really helpful video, thanks so much! Also appreciate the visual commands as well as verbal, it helped me follow along.
Key commands are such an important part of my workflow. I wanted to make sure my tutorials are easy to follow along with. Glad to hear that you found it helpful!
Thank you so much. Loved the detailed explanation with shortcuts..
simply amazing - I always learn so much from your tips and tricks now if I could only remember them lol thank you Dave
You are so welcome - That's always one of my big challenges when learning a new technique. Have to repeat it many times for it to become second nature otherwise it's pretty easy to forget.
Amazing video! I love all your keyboard shortcut tricks and found the select same color trick especially valuable!
Thanks so much!! The select same feature is one of my faves when working on complex documents.
Thanks for an awesome tutorial! Watching your process, especially the time-saving tips and keystrokes, was so helpful.
You're very welcome! Keyboard commands are my bread and butter. So glad to hear that you enjoyed the video.
Your tutorials are the best 💫 thank you for sharing your tips and tricks
Thanks for the wonderful comment Andrea. Glad you like the tutorials I've made so far.
You are good! Actually one of the best out there! Thank you for the awesome content
Wow! Thank you so much for the kind words. Really means a lot to me.
Absolutely beautiiful. I had no idea I could do this and I can't wait to see what I create!!!!! I color mandalas and I am so excited!
Good luck! Hope you have lots of fun exploring with these techniques.
czcams.com/video/PK3ka7ya6Rs/video.html
Thank you for a direct and informative tutorial! Your instructional style is easy to follow and you provide great tips and insights. Thank you!!
You're very welcome! Glad to hear you enjoyed my teaching style. Means a lot to get feedback like that.
@@davewatkinscreative I try really hard to give positive feedback where I can! There is so much that people gripe and complain about these days! And there is so much awesome stuff to be glad/grateful about! Also - I really dig your playing cards and animations! Thanks for helping me level up my illustration/design game. :)
Thanks for all the tips and tricks. Super helpful!
Happy to help! Thanks for the lovely comment.
learned alot of commands from this tutorial. thanks!
Thanks so much! This comment made my day. Key commands are such an important part of my workflow I'm happy to be able to share them with you.
very well explained every trick and short cut.. really appreciate and thank you!!! Good luck!
You're very welcome! Appreciate your kind words.
thanks, this tutorial was just what i was looking for, perfect
Awesome! Glad to hear this was helpful.
This is great - I was using the rotate and transform where you use the clipping mask - but I cannot figure out how to export the layers - only the one slice exports. This was really helpful... at least until I figure out how to export things! (ha ha) Thank you.
thank you so much its really easy and interesting stuff, loved it, thank u once again
So nice of you. Glad you liked it!
Very useful and beautiful. Thanks a lot!
You are very welcome. Thank you for the wonderful comment.
Wow, amazing tutorial, very helpful, thank you so much
You're very welcome! Glad you found it helpful.
This was one of the best videos I’ve seen.
Really appreciate that Samuel! Glad you enjoyed the tutorial.
Very Intelligent and Patient Narration of this tutorial that I watched. I have just started in Illustrator and found your techniques easy to follow. I did construct this Ornate Mandala Design but have a long way to go on my own. However all the best to you??
Appreciate that. Really glad that you found the tutorial easy to follow along with.
Thank you! Very easy to follow and very well explained. Can‘t wait to see more 👍
Glad it was helpful! Are there any specific topics you'd like to see?
Oh, YES! If you could do a tutorial where you take a Google map (of your home town for example) and turn it into something beautiful it would be fab. A beautiful but maybe a too sophisticated example are the maps from Vianina. All the best and greetings from Munich 🍻
Hi Alexandra - Thanks so much for the suggestion. I'll take a look and see what I can come up with on the topic. Might take a bit of time so stay tuned!
Hi Alexandra - The video I promised you is live! Hope that you find this new tutorial useful. Let me know the verdict!
czcams.com/video/zFS8T3iohxw/video.html
Great explanation and clear teaching - thank you!!
You're very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.
czcams.com/video/PK3ka7ya6Rs/video.html
Just downloaded free trial for Illustrator and yours was one of the first videos I have watched, I was able to follow along and learn so many useful tips and tricks. Your video made me a little less concerned about committing to the program, can’t wait to follow along with your other videos. Thank you, great content! P.S where do I figure out how to outline path and condense to a compound path you mentioned?
Hi Cheryl - Thats exciting! Im glad I was able to help you make the jump into Illustrator. If you have a path selected that has a stroke applied you outline it by going to (Object>Path>OutlineStroke). If you have a group of objects selected and you want to condense them into one compound path you can use the pathfinder for that. The pathfinder options can be found at (window>pathfinder) and the option you'll want to use is called "Unite"
czcams.com/video/PK3ka7ya6Rs/video.html
This is the best video ever,!!!!!! I am a total newby!!
Really appreciate that! Hopefully my videos will help a bit on your learning journey.
You did a great job there, by using rotate tool.
Thank you very much! The Rotate and Reflect tools are two of my favourites!
Thankz bro great work 👍
Appreciate that!
It was so useful, thanks a lot pal
Awesome! Glad you found this video helpful.
Great vid! Thx!
Glad you liked it!
I Learned alot from this tut
That's great! Glad to hear you enjoyed this vid.
Did you ever make the video on how to animate our designs in After Effects? I couldn't find it but am REALLY interested. Thanks so much! Love your videos!
Not yet! But it's at the top of my list. I'm going to try and get to it now that my studio has been revamped.
Great !! Congrulations
Thank you! Cheers!
Thanks for the tutorial! Do you have a video, using After Effects to animate the design you just created? Look forward to more.
Not yet! That is my most requested video topic. I started one a while back but I wasn’t happy with the way it was coming together. Thanks for bringing it back to the top of my mind… I’ll have to jump back into it.
Great tutorial!
Appreciate that!!
Awesome video thanks 🙏😀💜
Thanks Rob! Glad you enjoyed it.
Mandala animals or something similar it’s so amazing, need tutorial))
Thanks so much for the suggestion! I'll see what I can put together for you.
I failed, i created the exact same design as you did... but i learned a lot:) Thanks, great video
It's all good! Learning the core technique was the important part.
Thank you very much)
You are very welcome! Thanks for checking out my channel.
Don't forget teach pattern design on stained glass as well.
Thank you very much!!!
You’re very welcome! :)
I would love to see a tutorial on what your process is for animating your patterns...just saying... really nice work! I have my students using cheater methods but this is so much cleaner and it is much easier to do something with the design.
Thanks for the comment Richard. Really appreciate it! I have experimented with lots of different techniques for creating these ornate radial patterns but I always find that this method provides the most control and as you mentioned the cleanest end result. I'll see what I can put together on the animation side of things for you.
Another for a look at the animation methods 🤘🏼
@@davewatkinscreative Did the animation tutorial ever happen?
It’s taken way too long…. But I finally posted the animation side to this tutorial. Thanks again for the suggestion and apologies for taking sooooo long!
The wait is finally over! Animation tut is finally up!
yooo man this is so cool
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!!
Thank you for the tutorial! I have a question about scaling down. How do you scale down exactly on the intersecting center? When I scale down, it moves my circle.
Hey there - When scaling down an object in Illustrator if you hold down the option key the transformation begins on the objects centre point. You can also hold down shift at the same time to constrain the transformation. Hope that helps!
Not sure if you know this, you can drop two guides, select both and align center h and v. Saves a couple steps with the box and stuff.
You're totally right that option works if your guides are unlocked. That's one of the interesting things about Illustrator. There can be a few techniques to accomplish the same task.
great stuff mate. but at 12:30 it's alot easier to select both shapes and use shape builder tool and remove whatever you don't want
Hey Thanks! You're right totally possible to achieve the same result with the shape builder. I can't explain the reason why but I find myself using pathfinder more often than the shape builder. Force of habit I guess?
Subscribed!
Thanks so much!!
Thank you
You're very welcome!
I'm commenting because I really liked the video and at the same time, I would ask if you're willing to make a video about how you fit those block into shapes, like the animal's heads or even something else :) The interesting part would be to see how you decide the design. Do you build inside the shape or do you build the shape around something you started? I slowed the video when you showed the design and it seems more like you build the shape and the ornate it but it would be nice to see your process and how you think it. Nice video, very well explained. For selecting the same color elements, you could use the magic wand if you set it to select the same color (one click instead of two :p)
Hey thanks for the comment! When I'm building the animals and other elements I'll use both approaches. Sometimes I'll fit a prebuilt mandala into a space and trim it. Other times I'll build the design in place as I go. A few people have asked for a video about the mandala/animals so it's totally on my list of projects to do! You're right that the magic wand is an interesting tool. Especially when you introduce the tolerance settings and are able to select colours that are closely related. But for some reason I have always preferred to use the select menu.
@@davewatkinscreative No problem for the magic wand ^^ Sometimes I think it's weird that really good artists are using some ways to do something when there is an easier way but everyone has preferences ;) Thank you for the futur video about animals mandala :) I hope you'll have the time to do that ! Your work on the cards is amazing too, I really like the queen that we see at the beginning of the video in your back!
Really appreciate that! The queen card is one of my personal favourite pieces. If I ever end up with enough spare time I plan to make a full deck of cards in that style.
This is a great video, thank you! I'm on a PC and was able to follow everything (figuring out keyboard strokes for the PC) except the part at about 9min in where you make the three lines and circles. Do you know the PC keystrokes to copy and constrain to 45deg? Thanks!
Hey thanks for the comment. I believe the PC keyboard command you need is “alt-drag” to create the copy of the selected object + the shift key to constrain the transformation. Hope that helps!
@@davewatkinscreative yes, that works! For the constraint one, alt+click, then shift to constrain. Thank you!
That's great! Glad that worked out for you.
👏👏👏
Great video. It it took me three hours to figure out the rotate copy on windows. Please reference windows users next time .
Sorry about that Jana glad you were able to figure it out.- It's been so long since I've used a windows system I didn't think about that when making my tutorials.
Nice
Cheers!
do you have a video showing how to animate them in after effect?
A few people have requested the same thing. I will certainly be adding one to the channel. Stay tuned!
Thank U!!! Great video like always 🤩😌😊
Dave sir pattern brushes for MANDALA how to make? like STEADLER MANDALA MAKER. Thanks video is very helpful.
I'll take a look and see what I can do!
Thanks a lot. Big Up. I have one question, sometimes was hard to find the exact center point. Mostly find the guide line only.
Is there any trick for it?
There are several things I do to ensure accuracy in Illustrator. It can be frustrating when points don't fall where you want them to! When working on a radial design like this I will place a large circle in a separate locked layer so that I can snap objects and rotations to its centre point using the smart guides (command U to toggle these guides on and off). I have also adjusted the snapping tolerance of the smart guides in the preferences to 10pt. This means your smart guides will snap to the centre or other guides/objects from a greater distance. I also verify that I'm placing objects in the correct location a lot by zooming right in to ensure correct alignment (holding the option key and using a scroll wheel will zoom in or out). Also be sure that "Snap to Pixel" and "Snap to Grid" are turned off in the view menu as those can sometime interfere with the snap to guide/point that you wanted to happen. Hope these tricks will help you out.
@@davewatkinscreative Thanks. I step by step did it. But somehow it shows me mostly the horizontal and vertical snap lines. Not the locked circle's center.
Maybe the ctrl+5 was the missing step.
which software can be used to render 3d mandala drawings ? I want to try different colors for each layer
I’ve played around with Cinema 4D in the past. Also heard a lot of good things about Blender.
HELLO GOOD DAY. IM NEWBIE AND BEGINNER HERE IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP. I LIKE YOUR TUTORIAL. I LEARN MORE LESSONS FROM YOU. I SUBSCRIBE YOUR CHANNEL. THANKS, GOD BLESS YOUR TUTORIAL
Hey Mike thanks for subscribing!
grazie! )))
Cheers!!
Dave I'm hovering over my center point but the red "intersect" wording isn't coming up. I have smart guides checked and my snap to grid is on. Thoughts?
Hey Mandy - The snap to grid option will override the smart guide snapping that I was using in this tutorial. If you turn off snap to grid and still aren't seeing those labels you can go to Preferences>SmartGuides and make sure that you turn on "Anchor/Path Labels"
How do you apply it to animals? ؟؟
This is on my list of tutorials to make. Hoping to get to it soon.
Hi Dave, I'm new to illustrator and wanted to follow along. However I am stuck at around 7:10 trying to rotate the pen drawn line 22,5 degrees. Firstly I can't access the rotate dialogue box by using 'R'. I have to go object, transform, rotate. Secondly when I rotate 22.5 the line remains in place on top of the original. When I click on the centre point it selects a different shape. Not sure if this makes sense, but hopefully it does. This happens in whichever order I do this in. Hope you can help?
Hey Colin. The key command 'R' is only used to access the rotate tool (which can also be found in the tool bar). To achieve the same result I demonstrated what you'll have to do is to have an object or group of objects selected then press R to use the rotate tool then you need to hold down the option key and click on the location where you want to set your centre point. This will pull up the rotate dialog box and will allow you to create copies around a centre point that was not the default centre of the object. Let me know if that solves your problem.
@@davewatkinscreative Thank Dave, that worked. The piece that didn't quite work for me was pressing the R at the right time ie prior to setting the degrees. This did not automatically bring up the rotate dialogue box so I had to open it after pressing R. I didn't do that yesterday. Many thanks, Colin
Hey Colin! Glad that solved the issue that you were having. Hope the rest of the tutorial works out for you.
@@davewatkinscreative Thanks! I was having the same problem
@@davewatkinscreative Thank you so much I was having same problem as well
Very cool mandala. But where I can download or buy you playing card suits like in you video. Please help me.
Glad you enjoyed the video. I actually do have those poker suits up for licensing on Adobe Stock. stock.adobe.com/ca/images/four-ornate-poker-suits/194540017
@@davewatkinscreative Or maybe I can download your vector images on other platform, maybe shatterstoke
Looks like you found me on Shutterstock! Same username as Adobe Stock
@@davewatkinscreative If I buy and download your cool playing card suits, so can use it in my commercial projects, like playing cards?
Having a hard time. what is the option key? the pen tool isnt moving
The option key is on a Mac keyboard. If you’re using PC you’ll want to use the Alt key instead. Let me know if that helps.
@@davewatkinscreative googled it. I am on your geometric video, I want to learn how to do mandalas. I have windows. cannot duplicate the shape ugg sorry I am new to this
Hey! Just responded to your other comment with a run down of how I use the rotate tool and transform again key command to create my radial designs. Let me know if that process ends up working for you.
When you said later you can select everything and combine it into one path. Where is that video. Thanks for this video it was great.
So there's a few things to consider when condensing your artwork down into compound paths. The first is that you'll need to outline strokes as they can cause issues when merged together. The second is how you'll select the desired elements. I usually work in sections where I can use the key command to select all (CMD + A) and then merge that together. If you're looking to merge overlapping elements of the same colour you can pick up one path with the desired colour and then through the menus us Select > Same > Fill Colour from there I use the Unite feature in the Pathfinder. I have a pathfinder basics video that covers the unite function in the first 2 minutes
czcams.com/video/AGOukmoaQOw/video.html
Hope that helps!
Dig it
Appreciate that! :)
@@davewatkinscreative thank you for all your hard work! sharing your work flow as an artist is much appreciated and uncommon. You inspire me. Rock on brother, great channel.
Wow! I really appreciate that! Really means a lot to me. Great to hear that I'm on the right track with the channel.