Creating Swirls in Adobe Illustrator

Creating Swirls in Adobe Illustrator – Part One, re-visited

July 31, 2008 | by darijan | Most popular, Tutorials

Hello, hello!

Creating Swirls in Adobe Illustrator - Part One, re-visited OK, guys, I know that the first tutorial on creating swirls in AI was not the best tutorial on the topic and it just screamed for improvement.

So, we did some.

We did a video, accompanied with some fine ambient music

(thanks Rach!)

Please note, before starting the video and really learn how make a swirl in Adobe Illustrator you will need to:

Open Adobe Illustrator
Make sure that your mouse is always close to the “Pause” button.
Click “Pause” after each action taken on the video.
Do the same on your computer

Video is accompanied with titles explaining what has been done each step of the way.

This is the first part. In next part we will add a branch to the swirl. And we’ll see where to go from there.

I hope you’ll like it!

P.S.

If you need some cool vector swirls with commercial license and just don’t have enough time to do ‘em by yourself, check for some cheap swirls vector sets in graphics-illustrations.com shop. You just might be surprised how good they look ->

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9 Comments

Julie Hollie
October 29, 2009 at 4:23 pm

Thank you so much, I too could not figure out your first tutorial and when I saw this I was thrilled to see how easy it was. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Hugs,

Jules
Matt
August 14, 2008 at 8:23 am

why so complicated? you can make the same faster and more precise by using the brushes.
- just draw a spiral with the spiral tool
- open the standard arrows-brushes in the brushes options menu
- chose the triangular arrow for the spiral (the shape of the triangle will bend along the spiral)
- adjust line thickness
- done!
bsilvia
August 13, 2008 at 11:12 pm

Thank you all :)
@tiffany – well, it should be (only the shortcuts are for PC only)
tiffany
August 13, 2008 at 11:03 pm

I was wondering if this was MAC compatible?
scratch
August 8, 2008 at 12:47 pm

hey what up yall im new here and i am loving it already, the tutorial is the bomb, just what i needed to get hookd up with keep it real
Ada
August 3, 2008 at 9:54 pm

Another incentive for me to get Adobe, your creations are wonderful.
By the by, I passed along the Creativity Award, for a very deserving lady.
Atelier de Soyun
August 3, 2008 at 1:48 am

What a great tutorial. Thanks for sharing.
Soyun.
Atelier de Soyun
August 3, 2008 at 1:47 am

What a great tutorial. Thanks for sharing~
Soyun.
Janey
August 1, 2008 at 12:06 am

Sweet! I’ve been trying to figure out your tutorial all day and couldn’t believe it when you posted this excellent video, which had me making swirls in 30 seconds! Thank you and I look forward to part two!