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. 57 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).

  36. By Regina on Feb 10, 2010 | Reply

    Thanks! Easiest star yet.

  37. By Preston Racette on Mar 24, 2010 | Reply

    Very nice tutorial! Keep it up!

  38. By emily goggles on Mar 31, 2010 | Reply

    it is so wicked I ant believe what I did omg

  39. By bemnet on May 4, 2010 | Reply

    what was that are you three years old or something if that is true i will make an exception

  40. By danie on May 24, 2010 | Reply

    horse saw ha saw ha

  41. By digital_boy on May 28, 2010 | Reply

    You probably don’t read this anymore, but if you do, I could really use a little help with one small variation. Relatively new to illustrator.

    I got the tut done, and only varied it by live painting the alternating sections with transparency. That worked fine. However, I need the path segments on the outside of the transparent sections to match the non-transparent color of the star.

    I tried the scissors tool, selection the points of the line segment in question, which DID seem to give me a selection of the segment, but can’t seem to change the color (or stroke width or anything?

    Any help?

    Thanks.
    db

  42. By digital_boy on May 28, 2010 | Reply

    Nevermind. I got it fixed. Feel like an idiot which is fairly normal so no harm done.

    Thanks for the tut!

  43. By Fotodog on Jun 9, 2010 | Reply

    And here I’ve been doing it wrong for so many years.

    Thanks for the simple, yet effective tutorial.

  44. By umair on Jun 19, 2010 | Reply

    helo sadia ap ka name bohat sweet hai kya ap bhi designer ho meri trha mai bhi ho mai sai bat krna chata ho agr ap bora na mane

  45. By Shawn on Jul 24, 2010 | Reply

    I have spent the last hour trying to get this to work in Illustrator CS5, with no luck.

    I cannot line up the points and path.
    I try to forge on with the best I can get, and get to the Pathfinder -> Divide step and once I click it, the path disappears, leaving only the star.

    It seems to me this should work in CS5…

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