50 | April 2006

TUTORIAL |

PHOTOSHOP • ILLUSTRATOR

PATTERN-BASED IMAGES
It’s easy to speed up your workflow using simple images and motifs created in Illustrator. McFaul uses Photoshop
to create swatches and patterns to fill a desired space and demonstrates what can be done with a little imagination

This thing we call process is a

DOWNLOAD difficult entity to describe. It’s integral
to the way you work and something that
must be honed to perfection over the years,
each time incorporating something a little
different to enhance your workflow. Here I
will introduce you to a little something I do
TIME NEEDED as a matter of course – something I do
1 hour several times a day that has become second
nature, and which you may find useful in
INFO
your process if you’re not already doing it.
McFaul’s
Through its creative software, Adobe
seaside
studio has provides a great range of shapes to work

1
brought with. Circles, squares and so on – they’re Start by roughing up a range of drawings of flowers that are based around geometric
dazzling all there, albeit pretty basic. But did you shapes. These don’t have to be overly detailed – bold, linear shapes will work well.
visual fervour to clients know you can create other shapes from Alternatively, use the sketches (Mcdoodle.tif) I have provided on this issue’s CD.
including Virgin Atlantic, these shapes? And that these shapes can
Nike, Casio, Vodafone,
multiply like rabbits given half a chance
Orange, IBM and Kinder.
The work, both self- (and a quick read through this tutorial)?
initiated and client based, With a little refrain and some considerable
is gaining an ever- imagination, these shapes can be
increasing global transformed into amazing patterns.
audience, with admirers Sketchbooks are a great resource for
and collectors all over the artists; they harbour some of our deepest
world. Find out more at
www.mcfaul.net.
ideas but we don’t necessarily always
transfer these ideas into software. The
books nestle snugly with our laptops and
sweeties and come out on trains. They are
regular kit, just like our computers. So
here’s a technique I use on a regular basis
which utilises all these tools – something
I’m sure you’ll all think about shoehorning

2
into your own workflow. A simple doodle Once you are happy with the range of flower shapes you have created, scan them into
on your sketchbook will become a vector Photoshop and save the resulting image as scan.tif.
file on your computer, which will then
become a swatch that fills a space and
eventually become a pattern to embellish a
fiendishly cool image. It’s as simple as that.
3 Open a new CMYK
document in Illustrator
and place (File>Place) your
scan.tif image into it. Make
this layer a template layer
(found in the Layer Palette
options). Now double-click
on the layer and name it
Tutorial and illustration by McFaul Flowers, create a new layer
www.mcfaul.net above your Flowers layer
and name it Trace.

August 2006 | 51
 | TUTORIAL

PHOTOSHOP • ILLUSTRATOR
TOP TIPS
When creating your
vectorised flower
patterns (or any other
geometric pattern) it is a
good idea to use the Shift
and Alt keys when
scaling objects. These
keep things centred and
in proportion. Use the
Pen tool when creating
free-flowing flowers or
patterns – holding the
space bar once your item
is clicked will allow you
4 Select which of your
flower drawings from
the selection you would like 10 Now’s the time to add further details to your
flower if you wish. Here, I copied the flower
to position your points to
get things spot on.
to trace, and drag a
horizontal and vertical ruler
to the centre of that shape.
7 Once you have created your first petal shape,
duplicate it using Copy and Paste, or by holding
the Alt key, clicking on your shape, dragging it to
shape and pasted it in front (Option+F), rotated it,
then scaled it down to double the number of petals.

either side and releasing. Once you have a second

petal, hold Shift while rotating the object 45 degrees
and position it against your flower’s centre. Repeat
until you have created half of the petals.

5 You can now use the Shape tools to create the basis of
your flower shape using the rulers you created as a
8 Now select all the objects by Click-dragging
centre point. It is a good idea to set your keyboard
increment to a very low setting (Illustrator>Preferences>
General). Something like 0.01 will allow you to nudge your
around them. Press Option+C to copy the
objects, then press Option+F to Paste in Front. Now
go to Object>Transform>Reflect, make sure the
11 Once you are happy with your flower, turn off
the Flowers template layer. With your rulers
on, draw a square from the centre point of the flower.
shape objects really accurately. Vertical option is highlighted and click OK. Reposition Position your cursor over the centre point, hold down
the flower centres so that they are all aligned. Shift+Alt and click-drag outwards from the centre
point to create a centred square shape. Make sure
your square has no fill and no stroke.

6 Start by creating the centre of the flower using the 9 Select all the objects
and open your
Circle tool, then start to draw petals. It is quite easy to
create petal-like shapes by first drawing a rectangle and
then using the Pen tool, and + and - keys to add and
Pathfinder palette (Window>Pathfinder). Once
the palette is open, click the Add To Shape Area
button and then click Expand. This will merge all
12 Send the square object to the back Object>
Arrange>SendToBack. Now select all of the
objects by hitting Option+A and go to Edit>Define
remove points. You can then use the Convert Anchor of your shapes together into one shape. You Pattern. Name your pattern Flower Pattern 1 and
Points tool to add curves to the petal. should now have created your basic flower shape. then click OK.

52 | August 2006
 TUTORIAL |

MULTIPLE FLOWERS
It is well worth creating
two or three flower
shapes and combining
them in Photoshop to see
how they could work
together. There is no
reason why your swatch
should only contain one
flower shape – you could
put together as many
elements as you wish.

19 Now go to Edit>Transform>
Perspective. Experiment with the
Just make sure that
when you come to define

13 Open your Swatches palette

(Window>Swatches) and you will
16 This pattern can now be used in
Photoshop to add texture to your final
artwork. Select your tiled rectangle, press
perspective a little until the pattern starts to
get closer together at one end and further
away at the other.
them as a swatch you
have drawn the square
so that it contains all of
notice that your flower pattern appears as Option+C and switch back to Photoshop. your elements.
a swatch. You can now draw any shape and
use the swatch as a fill or a stroke. Here
you’ll need to use the swatch to fill a large
area so that it can be pasted into Photoshop
and used as a texture. EXPERIMENT
WITH FILTERS
Once you have created
your swatch and pasted
your pattern into
Photoshop, try
experimenting with the

17 Open a new
document,
20 Duplicate the pattern,
flip it horizontally and
merge the two layers
various filters found in
the Filters>Distort
menu and the options
or an image that you together. Duplicate your new found in Edit>
are already working layer and rotate it 45 degrees. Transform. Rotate and
on. Now press Option+V to paste your tiled Continue this process until your pattern reflect your distorted
texture into it, then select Pixels from the covers 360 degrees. Once you have finished, pattern in many different
Option dialog box and click OK. Hit Return to merge all of the pattern layers. combinations.
place the object. Experiment with the
Layer Blending Modes

14 Draw a large rectangle and click on

the Fill box in the main Tools palette.
Now, back in the Swatches palette, click on
21 As a finishing touch, add another
flower shape on top of the pattern
and use it to cut away the centre of the
once you are happy with
your pattern. Duplicate
your pattern’s layer and
your flower swatch. The fill area will now be pattern. Select the flower, click on the try adjusting the
tiled with your flower icon. pattern layer, select New Layer via Cut or Brightness/Contrast to
Paste and alter the transparency. You are see what happens.
now ready to add your pattern graphic to
your main illustration.

18 Next, select Filter>Distort>Twirl

and have a play around with the
settings as shown in the screengrab above.

15 You can now start to experiment a

little, repeating steps 4-14 using a
different flower shape. You’ll end up with a
For this tutorial I used a setting of 61 degrees.

range of different tiling textures that you can

use in your illustration.

August 2006 | 53