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When it comes to impact and relative simplicity, it
is very hard to beat a skilfully composed sunburst.
Used most effectively by manga artists, they are
surprisingly eye-catching, and can make objects &
characters stand out perfectly.
Step 1: Create a new
document - it doesn't matter what size, because you
can resize vector graphics to any size you want
without losing quality. Then double click on the Polygon Tool icon and
enter the settings shown:
This should leave you with an equilateral triangle:
Step 2: Go to Object >
Transform > Scale and enter the following settings
(this should stretch your triangle vertically):
NB. At this point you should consider
selecting View > Snap to Point from the
main menu - This step is not mandatory, but it does
make things easier.
Step 3: Select the
Rotation Tool and click at the top point of the
triangle. Since you chose Snap to Point it will
line up perfectly. This is the anchor from which the
triangle will now rotate around when you use the
Rotation Tool. To finish this step,
give your triangle a color fill with no stroke.
Step 4: While holding
down SHIFT+ALT on the keyboard (SHIFT+OPT for the mac), click a little below the bottom of your
triangle and drag over to the area shown below. Holding
ALT down will make a copy of your triangle, and since
you are also holding SHIFT the triangle will rotate
in increments of 45 degrees (1/8 of a circle). You should
now have 2 triangles as shown:
Step 5: Use the CTRL+D
shortcut to duplicate your last action. Press CTRL+D 6 times
in total to make 6 more copies of the
triangle, each rotated 45 degrees, and complete the
sunburst look.
Now use the Selection Tool (black filled arrow) to drag
a selection rectangle around all of the triangles.
Go to Object > Group to put all of the triangles
together as one group. Use the Selection Tool
again to click your sunburst group, then grab one of
the corner handles that appears, hold SHIFT+ALT, and
drag it outward to expand the sunburst. In this
step, I also added a black background.
Step 6: With the
sunburst group selected, open up the Symbol window
(Window > Symbol) and click the New Symbol icon.
Step 7: Click the button in
the top right corner of the Symbol Window and go to
Save Symbol Library. Give your new library a name,
and now your symbol will be accessible in any future
document.
Variations: Repeat all of these
steps with alternate settings to make sunbursts with
different looks. This one uses a scale setting of
Horizontal: 100%, Vertical: 600% and a rotation
angle of 20 degrees. To get an angle of 20 degrees,
I brought up the Info Window (Window > Info) and
instead of holding SHIFT while rotating the 1st
triangle, I looked at the Info window and rotated it
approximately 20 degrees. Make sure you use a
multiple of 360 for the rotation angle (i.e. 20, 30,
45, etc.):
The final result:
- Tutorial written by Slick Illustrator
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