cocktail-tutorial

Illustrator Tutorial: How to Make an Icy Cocktail

final effect

Do you desire to drink an icy refreshing cocktail on a sunny day? I know I am, so in this Illustrator tutorial, I will explain how I draw a refreshing cocktail drink in Adobe illustrator. Hope you will find this useful and inspiring to make other kinds of drinks or cocktails.

Drawing the Glass Shape

Open a new document, any size, RGB mode. Take the Pen tool and draw the shape that you see in the image below or just draw half of it and then reflect it to be symmetrical, like I did. Fill it with the linear gradient shown. Colors are: (230,230,230) or 10% black; white (255,255,255) and (204,204,204) 20% black.

cocktail drink

Now copy and paste in front this shape. Take the Direct Selection tool and select the upper point of the shape and drag it a bit down like in the image. Make the same with the lower point of the shape. Then fill it with the linear gradient shown using the colors: (191,191,191) or 25% black; white (255,255,255) and (230,230,230) 10% black.

cocktail drink

Next, copy and paste in front of the shape again and make it a little smaller. Fill it with the linear gradient using the colors: (77,77,77) 70% black; white and (51,51,51) 80% black, then set it to Color Burn. We will use this shape again later to make the liquid inside the glass. You should get something like in the image below:

cocktail drink

Drawing the Glass Legs

Now let’s make the ‘leg’ of the glass. Draw the shape from the image below or just half of it and reflect it, then fill it with the gradient shown: (204,204,204) 20% black; (230,230,230) 10% black; white; (242,242,242) 5% black and (153,159,164).

cocktail drink

Drawing the Glass Foot

For the ‘foot’ of the glass take the Ellipse tool and draw the shape that you see in the image and fill it with the linear gradient. Colors I’ve used are: (230,230,230) 10% black; white and (178,178,178) 30% black. To create more depth, copy and paste the shape that we just made, fill it with a darker gray and place it like in the image below. Now, the glass should look like this:

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Coloring the Drink

It’s time to color the drink. Copy the shape that I said we will use it for this part and fill it the gradient using the colors: (63,98,46); (85,124,62); (168,194,88); (248,211,103) and (251,232,191) or any other colors that you prefer. The original shape, set to Color Burn that we made, has to be on top of this one not the other way.

cocktail drink

Next, draw a simple shape like the one below and fill it with a linear gradient using the orange from above and a darker one. This way we will get the surface of the liquid inside and a more realistic look for the cocktail.

cocktail drink

Drawing the Ice Cubes

Now, we will make the ice cubes. Take the Pencil tool and draw some shapes like the ones below. Fill them with a radial gradient from white to black, set the mode to Screen and lower the opacity for each one of them. You can adjust this later also till you like what you see.

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Now place them all on top of the glass shape and you should have now something like this:

cocktail drink

Adding in Details for Ice Cubes

We will continue to add some details to the ice cubes. Take the Pencil tool, draw some random shapes and fill them using different shades of orange. If necessary, lower the opacity for each one of them.

cocktail drink

Creating Reflections

We will add some reflections in this step. With the Pen tool draw the shapes from the image below, fill them with a linear gradient using white and a similar green color to the one used for the liquid, then set the mode to multiply and lower the opacity.

cocktail drink

scrcocktail drinkeenshot

Water Fizzles

To make the cocktail look more realistic, I decided to draw some water fizzles on the glass. With the Pen tool draw a shape like the one below or any other shape that will fit on top of the glass later. Copy and paste the shape and fill it with the linear gradient shown using black, white and gray. Place the second shape on top of the first one and go to Transparency panel and select Make opacity mask.

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Now go to Effects/Pixelate/Mezzotint and select Fine Dots. Place the shape on top of the glass, set the mode to Screen and reduce the opacity till you get the icy effect that you like.

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Water Droplets Dripping Effect

Take the Pen tool and draw a shape like the next one to make the water drop flow. Fill it with a linear gradient using the same colors like the drink inside the glass. Next, go to Effects/Pixelate/Crystallize and set the Cell size to 4, this will make the flow look more natural.

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Now, place the shape on top of the water fizzles shape made earlier. Set the mode to multiply and lower the opacity.

cocktail drink

Water Droplets

For the water droplets, take the Ellipse tool, draw 3 shapes, color them with (63,98,46) dark green; (179,202,109) light green and white, then place them on top of each other like in the image below. Go to Effects/Stylize/Drop Shadow and set the values like you see in the image and then group them all.

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Placing the Water Droplets

Place the water drop like in the image and reduce the opacity to 25%. Copy one more water droplet and made it smaller to get a more realistic look.

cocktail drink

We are done with this part and the cocktail should now look like the image below.

cocktail drink

Drawing the Straw

It’s time to draw the cocktail accessories. With the Pen tool draw a shape like a straw. Fill it with white and a 0.5px light gray stroke.

cocktail drink

With the Rectangle tool draw a small rectangle, fill it with green or other color that you prefer and drag it to the Brushes panel. Then I made the orange rectangle, we will need this one later for the second straw.

screenshot

Next, draw a path with the Pen tool following the straw shape and stroke it using the green brush that we just made. Place it on top of the other one and make an Opacity mask. Copy the straw shape, select the path with the green stroke, double click the black square that you see in the image and paste the straw shape that we copied, then exit the mask mode. You should get something like in the image below.

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Now make another Opacity mask so the bottom of the straw looks more transparent when we will place it in the glass. You can adjust the mask later if needed.

cocktail drink

Make the second straw like we did the green one. Then place them on top of the glass and adjust the Opacity mask for both of them to look realistic. I got something like this:

cocktail drink

cocktail drink

Drawing the Umbrella Stem

We will make the little umbrella for our cocktail. Use the brush from the Library that you see in the image, Expand appearance and fill it with a light brown. Copy and paste this shape, then delete the points except the 3 ones from the tip to make the little shape from the image. Copy and make 8 shapes that we will use later.

cocktail drink

Drawing the Umbrella

Using the Pen tool draw a shape like the one below and fill it with a linear gradient using 2 green colors or other colors that you prefer. Draw some lines starting from the top and color them using a light and a dark green like in the image below.

cocktail drink

Next, place the 8 shapes that we made earlier and draw with the Pen tool the little shape on top. The flower I used is from the Symbols Library and I set it to multiply. The umbrella is ready and should look like this:

cocktail drink

Cocktail Stirrer

Next using the Ellipse tool and the Rounded Rectangle tool draw the cocktail stirrer. Fill them with a linear gradient. The colors that I have used are (244,237,203) and (244,187,58).

cocktail drink

Final Cocktail

The final cocktail image is done. The final image of the cocktail looks like this:

cocktail drink

Hope you have enjoyed this cocktail tutorial and find it useful and refreshing.

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57 thoughts on “Illustrator Tutorial: How to Make an Icy Cocktail”

  1. Whoa… Cool! I like how the final product looks. I’ve been trying to design a logo somewhat like this (in essence, of course especially the shape and glossy effect) for myself and it was a disaster! I didn’t manage to get it looking right. It was a little bit… off somehow. Kinda distorted. Finally, I decided to use the professional services of an online logo design site instead (http://www.logodesignplanet.com) and got the logo I wanted at an affordable price and fast too, within 24 hours. I did provide this link for reference and inspiration to my designer as I liked how yours look. I’m not going to design a logo without any professional help anytime soon though it’s fun. And liberating. Haha. Cool tutorial, by the way.

  2. Hi!

    Doing this tutorial I couldn’t find how to apply another Opacity Mask to the straws… I mean this “Now make another Opacity mask so the bottom of the straw looks more transparent when we will place it in the glass. You can adjust the mask later if needed.”

    Could you please write more details how to do this? As I can see there is only one mask I can add to one path.

  3. After you make the first mask you can group the straw shape and the path stroked with the pattern brush, so the second mask is not applied to the same path, is applied to the group. To do that Copy and Paste in front the straw shape, fill it with a white to black gradient, select both the group and this last pasted shape on top and from the Transparency Panel, open the drop down menu and select Make opacity mask. Now the upper part of the straw should be fully visible (white) and the bottom less visible (black) creating the effect that the straw is inside the glass. Hope this helps.

  4. I have gotten all the way to making the straws for the tutorial, but I still cant figure out what I am doing wrong with my opacity mask. I am new to using the mask in illustrator, but it is not turning out right. 🙁

  5. You can write what exactly doesn’t work and I will try to explain. Also have you read my explanations for Nastia from above?

  6. thanks for the follow up explanation about the straw opacity.
    i finally made it.

    what i did is Group the stripe straw that i made earlier.
    then collapse the group, re-copy the ‘white straw’ arrange it in front/above. now you will turn the white straw into gradient(gray,white). Select the Group straw and the Gradient straw then select Opacity Mask

    cool…

  7. Diana, great tutorial and very effective end result. Coming up with the steps to re-create this sort of thing is still beyond me. I can copy the steps from a tutorial, like this one, but working it out myself is still something I cannot do. Oh, well, one day maybe…

  8. I followed the directions step by step and the top of the glass, where it should be colorful liquid, is still grey. Is there something that I missed?

  9. For the liquid shape you should use the shape from the step 3 and that shape is set to Color Burn. After you duplicate it and color it maybe your liquid shape remained to Color Burn but it should be set back to Normal. I think this could be the problem.
    Also make sure the shapes are in the following order: the two gray ones from the step 1 and 2 both set to Normal, the colored shape as the liquid (Normal) and then the one from the step 3 set to Color Burn on top of them.

  10. Great looking drink and great tutorial! I just had a question – Since mezzotint is a photoshop effect, will stretching the vector for very large prints cause any problems?

  11. I would love to help you but I am not very good with prints so I can’t give you an answer that I’m sure of. One thing I can say for sure: select Expand Appearance before you scale the cocktail.

  12. Hi Diana
    Great tutorial, i am practicing it step by step but i stuck at
    Water Fizzles step coz if i do Make opacity mask still its not giving me the result you got. should i have to select both the shapes or should i have to select the upper shape which is totally black please guide me…..

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  14. Howdy would you mind stating which blog platform
    you’re working with? I’m planning to start my
    own blog soon but I’m having a tough time making a decision between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your layout seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something completely unique.
    P.S Apologies for being off-topic but I had to ask!

  15. Mi-ar place să văd acest tutorial şi
    în limba română.
    Mă chinui cu termenul şi tehnica “Paste in front”

  16. @ Alexxx Adica faci o copie exact deasupra (in fata) a formei, obiectului, etc.
    Din pacate tutorialele in romana sunt putine dar oricum, meniurile si efectele in Illustrator sunt in engleza in general. Sunt convinsa ca te vei obisnui 🙂

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