Not as easy as it looks: A beveled star

October 24th, 2007 | by Cheryl |

star.jpg 

My friend and kickass illustrator Dave Turton and I were talking about how anybody can draw certain shapes in Illustrator. We were looking at a beveled star, but then realized it’s not as easy as it looks. So he challenged me to do it in 7 steps or less. This gave me an idea for a new feature, which I’m calling “Illustrator Chef.” I’ll attempt the illustration in as few steps as possible. Too bad we didn’t wager any real money, Dave!

Step 1: Draw a vertical path. 

Step 2: With the path selected, go to Effect>Transform. Enter a roation angle of 36° and 4 copies. Click OK.

transformeffectspine.jpg 

Step 3: Go to Object>Expand Appearance, which will result in 5 paths, grouped.

Step 4: Draw a star (hold down Shift and Option to constrain it to a right-side-up, 5-pointed star). 

Step 5: Center-align the star and the line group horizontally. You may have to move the star up or down so that each line bisects the star’s points. 

Step 6: Select the star and the lines and go to Pathfinder>Divide.

dividestar.jpg 

Step 7: Take the Live Paint bucket and color every other shape for the beveled look.

makelivepaint.jpg 

Yum! You’re done!

  1. 46 Responses to “Not as easy as it looks: A beveled star”

  2. By Suzanne on Oct 27, 2007 | Reply

    So simple, something I never seem to think about. I am so new to CS3 that I have never used live paint before. How do you un-live-paint it?

  3. By Cheryl on Oct 27, 2007 | Reply

    How do you un-live-paint it?
    Go to Object>Live Paint>Release. Or if you like the colors you’ve painted and want to keep them, choose “Expand.”

    The thing I don’t like about “Release” is that it seems to reduce the object back to basic appearance. That is, if you start with a yellow star, mess around with Live Paint, then Release, the colors revert to a stroke of black and a fill of none (in my experience).

  4. By Suzanne on Oct 27, 2007 | Reply

    That’s what it looks like in the Layers palette, too. I’ll try expanding, thanks! :)

  5. By Trudy on Nov 1, 2007 | Reply

    What a timesaver! I have created these stars by other methods, but this is absolutely the winner way!

  6. By Dawn on Nov 14, 2007 | Reply

    Nice! As someone fairly new to illustrator and mostly self-taught I love learning from efficient workflow — especially when I might have come up with the 27 step method!

    Thanks :-)

  7. By Tim on Feb 22, 2008 | Reply

    That’s a pretty smart way to do it, but I figured out a way to do it in 4.

    1. Draw a star (hold down Shift and Option to constrain it to a right-side-up, 5-pointed star).

    2. Making sure “snap to point” is checked, draw 5 lines from outside corner to inside corner, basically cutting the star in half on 5 different axises.

    3. Select all and go to Pathfinder>Divide

    4. Choose the paintbucket tool and fill in the star with alternating colors.

  8. By Nick Maranzano on Feb 29, 2008 | Reply

    This was ok. There are tons of different ways to accomplish things in illustrator, and this is just once of the techniques. Its decent. I do mine different, but its basically the same amount of steps. to each their own

  9. By pati @-;-- on Apr 11, 2008 | Reply

    God bless you! :D

  10. By Derive Host on Apr 30, 2008 | Reply

    Great Tutorial.

    Best Regards
    Team
    http://www.derivehost.com

  11. By rishi kant on May 29, 2008 | Reply

    i want to more knowadge of graphic design

  12. By Miriam C on Jul 16, 2008 | Reply

    Loved the tutorial, was sitting at work trying to figure out how to make those stars for ages before I came across this site =) Thanks!

  13. By ggb on Sep 10, 2008 | Reply

    dfgg

  14. By Malik on Oct 17, 2008 | Reply

    thanks for easy step by step tutorial.

  15. By pannalal seth on Nov 13, 2008 | Reply

    fsfds

  16. By Edward on Nov 14, 2008 | Reply

    Nice tutorial, beause I learned something new (The Effekt Transform) .
    I tried the star my way, and that is simpler and easyer I think.Start with the star, and draw the lines with the pen tool. Group it all and give the star coulor.

    But I’m always glad with clear tutorials like yours.
    e

  17. By uday on Nov 26, 2008 | Reply

    i sawed your art its simply super …..

  18. By Anna on Dec 7, 2008 | Reply

    I really like this tutorial. Simple and best of all it is very useful for beginners like us. :) Most importantly it works! :)

  19. By Deepankar Bhattacharya on Dec 8, 2008 | Reply

    pls show me some more websites of adobe illutrator on which i can draw anything with the help of pen tool.

  20. By Mark on Dec 28, 2008 | Reply

    I was wondering what was up with step 6: divide… but I decided to actually do it before commenting how useless it was… :)

    Dividing before applying livepaint is an excellent idea! I usually just go straight to livepaint and then have a lot of stray lines to clean up.

    Awesome.

  21. By Sadia on Feb 21, 2009 | Reply

    Here is what i made in Corel Draw X3 & Thanks for the Tutorial:

    http://www.eitbuzz.com/sadia/Corel%20Work/Star.jpg

    Here is the Corel Source File:
    http://www.eitbuzz.com/sadia/Corel%20Work/Star.cdr

  22. By Becky on Feb 28, 2009 | Reply

    Great tip, but I have a question. When I divided, I ended up with lots of segments to delete, leaving white spaces inbetween the star shapes. What am I doing wrong?

  23. By Victoria on Mar 22, 2009 | Reply

    thanks for the little test. I found that I still have a lot of work to do!

  24. By Digital Illusionist on Mar 30, 2009 | Reply

    Thanks alot that was my first lesson in AI. I’m inspired.

  25. By vinnie p. on Apr 24, 2009 | Reply

    i love it. its amazing. i love it

  26. By @texasbrat on May 3, 2009 | Reply

    Awesome, just what I was looking for. Fast, easy & fun. Best of all tutorial wasn’t bogged down with excessive steps so its will be easy to retain for next time! Thanks!

  27. By LM on May 29, 2009 | Reply

    http://i40.tinypic.com/xpsxsg.jpg

  28. By julie on Aug 3, 2009 | Reply

    i love this king of stars but i need the name ..

  29. By Pulsatus on Aug 4, 2009 | Reply

    way to simplify the process. very well written. Kudos.

  30. By kranthi on Aug 14, 2009 | Reply

    i think its nice…

  31. By madz on Sep 15, 2009 | Reply

    awesome dude

  32. By Erick on Sep 19, 2009 | Reply

    thank you dude !

  33. By Roussou on Oct 14, 2009 | Reply

    Step 5 isn’t good. How do you find the points nearest to the center?
    I choose a different way, to be sure the five points ar identical.
    Edward

  34. By ericka on Feb 3, 2010 | Reply

    it says hold down shift and option on step 4, what is option?

  35. By Cheryl on Feb 3, 2010 | Reply

    Ericka — Option (Mac) is the same as Alt (Windows).

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