Any illustrator users about?

R088ieS86 · 17 Sep 2011 at 00:41

Hi guys,

Having never used Illustrator before I have no clue how to make the simplest of shapes. I do have a course booked for the whole CS5 shabang but was wondering if anyone could help this weekend.

I have got my logo on paper and am happy with it. Using Illustrator because I want to be able to resize a lot and heard its pretty good for vector drawings.

Any way, the out line I want to look like this (yes edited very badly in paint):

So far I have made it up using ellipse's and lines. But have no idea how to remove the unwanted lines. So far this is what I have:

Feel free to laugh but the erase tool works different to how I imagined.

Would be grateful for a few tips.

simisker · 17 Sep 2011 at 03:37

For some reason, your Photobucket-hosted image isn't loading for me, but I guess what you're after is a series of concentric circle sectors.

What you need to do is build up a series of compound paths using the pathfinder palette. See this video for an introduction:

http://layersmagazine.com/illustrator-pathfinder-palette.html

You won't get many folks laughing at you, by the way; Illustrator is a stunningly unintuitive POS.

Edit: Ah, I can see your original image now. Yeah, compound paths for that.

R088ieS86 · 17 Sep 2011 at 09:03

Cheers simisker I'll give it a whirl!

Satish · 17 Sep 2011 at 12:31

I thought i'd have a go at your logo to sharpen my illustrator skills. I Screen Recorded it so you could have a look how i went about creating it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2HDQcvQqPQ

2 ways to do this i think. 1st is quick and dirty. 2nd offers much more control

Hope it Helps!

R088ieS86 · 17 Sep 2011 at 13:22

Mate that was insane. I'll see if I can redo what you did! gulp! cheers!

Satish · 17 Sep 2011 at 14:48

Np

and Ofc I can send you the file if you want.

R088ieS86 · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:57

I may request that, but I want to at least try and do it as there is more to the whole thing.

simisker · 17 Sep 2011 at 18:14

Excellent help, Satish

R088ieS86 · 19 Sep 2011 at 10:26

Hi Satish, would you mind sending me the file? (cheeky to ask i know)
I tried but got very frustrated. I'm guessing you know quite a few keyboard shortcuts which i might of missed.

Satish · 19 Sep 2011 at 13:04

ah ye when i posted the vid i realised that it wasn't quite as clear as i hoped, i made it really fast so things weren't explained properly.

I assume if i send you a e-mail in trust then you can reply e-mail to e-mail and then i can send it.

New to forums so just making an assumption that's the way it's done.

Pho · 19 Sep 2011 at 14:37

Satish said:
I assume if i send you a e-mail in trust then you can reply e-mail to e-mail and then i can send it.

New to forums so just making an assumption that's the way it's done.

Yep

.

sHo0sH · 19 Sep 2011 at 17:38

My way was a little less complicated.

Created the circles, added some extra anchor points to them and trimmed, then joined up the verticals with the pen tool, voila!