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Day 17: Blending Shapes & Colors

Illustrator Blend Tool does the trick of creating smooth transition between objects. You can blend open paths to create line effects and blend shapes to create realistic shadings. There are many creative things you can do with the Blend Tool and you will definitely be using it a lot in your illustrations.

Blend Effects

Here are some quick interesting stuff you can do with blending.

Realistic Shadings

With smooth blends you can create realistic shading which cannot be done with gradient.



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Hi. I'm the founder of Vector Diary. Illustrator is my passion and I have written numerous tutorials on illustrator helping people learn illustrator. My most popular tutorial on learn illustrator has been a hit. It makes learning illustrator so easy and has benefited more than 20,000 people worldwide. Also, I've revealed some of my secret techniques in the premium tutorials. So don't forget to check it out!

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  1. Gravtar for ArtConch
    ArtConch August 7th

    Loved this lesson, so many neat things illustator can do, thanks again for showing me how to blend

  2. Gravtar for LadyUranus
    LadyUranus August 19th

    I think I’ve done something wrong with my settings– when I used “blend–>make” the object goes from dark to white instead of what you’re example shows. The star example gave me three deformed stars in between my start and end points.

  3. Gravtar for iStockdiary
    iStockdiary August 19th

    Hi LadyUranus, make sure the 2 objects are same shape. Then blend using Blend>Make. Alt/Option click on the blend to change settings to see how you can edit the blend options.

  4. Gravtar for Leroy Simpson
    Leroy Simpson August 29th

    Cool tutorial, i make jamaica flag blend into a spliff

  5. Gravtar for Derek Maloy
    Derek Maloy September 25th

    Keep the fill for both circles with the desired color. Change the stroke to None, box with red line through it, for both circles. Then try using the blend> make!

  6. Gravtar for elearning
    elearning January 6th

    Nice tutorial. Thank you so much.

  7. Gravtar for erick
    erick February 11th

    Thanks for this. Very much appreciated.

  8. Gravtar for kiticha phoonsonbat
    kiticha phoonsonbat March 20th

    Love and very funny this lesson.Thanks for good tips.You are cool.

  9. Gravtar for xavier izaguirre
    xavier izaguirre April 26th

    Derek is right. You have to remove strokes or its colours would eb the ones blending!!!!

    Awesome tutorial

  10. Gravtar for xavier izaguirre
    xavier izaguirre April 26th

    What I am not able to do though is to distribute objects keeping the size. The shapes in the middle are always smaller and bigger than the starting and end ones.

  11. Gravtar for Raymond Avilez
    Raymond Avilez May 11th

    Same here…how do you keep the size of the object consistent? Also having a little trouble with the line effects…how is it done?

  12. Gravtar for Dan Huffman
    Dan Huffman January 21st

    ok, so, under Method 2: Using the blend tool, I follow directions, blend options window pops-up, I click 3 and OK, and nothing happens. Is it supposed to have 5 stars like in illustration, or is it simply supposed to blend color of the first star? Mine doesn’t seem to do anything? I can’t seem to find where the spine is- mine only has one object. Thanks for the help.

  13. Gravtar for Crissy
    Crissy April 13th

    Real brain power on dsplaiy. Thanks for that answer!

  14. Gravtar for Nike TN Requin
    Nike TN Requin March 1st

    出,我按3和确定,并没有任何反应。它应该是有像插图5星,或者是简单的,它应ghjfjfj

  15. Gravtar for RSCdev
    RSCdev March 9th

    This tuto is one of the best (until now) :)

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