Vectordiary

Illustrator Tutorial: Realistic Curtain

By Tony Soh Posted on January 30th, 2008

This lesson assumes that you already have a basic understanding on how the gradient mesh works. Therefore, we will move on to create a realistic curtain using the gradient mesh.

1. Creating the skeleton

First, we create Rectangle and fill it with red. Select the Mesh Tool and start clicking along the edge of the rectangle. Creating 3 segments close together will give good results as we can simply change the middle segment to black for shadows.

2. Filling the shadows

With the Direct Selection Tool, we select both the top and bottom points in the segments we want it to make it shadow. After that, fill the points with black. Do this to all the segments we want it to be in shadow.

3. Shaping the curtain

Now we can start shaping the curtain to give it some curves. Select the Direct Selection Tool and select the point we want to modify and move the anchor points to change it to curve lines. Other things you can do with the points is move them closer or further to other points by clicking the Right/Left Arrow Keys. A realistic fold normally starts narrow at the top and end wide at the bottom. Hence, we can use the arrow keys to shift the points closer or further away form each other.

4. Final touhup

To create more folds to the curtain, we can add new points with the Gradient Mesh Tool and fill it will a slightly dark tint. Do this until you are satisfied with your curtain. Below is the final skeleton of my curtain. Hope you guys have a great time creating your own curtain!

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About The Author: admin

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 learning illustrator in 30 days 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!

Read all articles writen by this author

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• Day 18: Photorealism with Gradient Mesh
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+Add Comment37 Comments

1. 
   Ram February 1st, 2008

   Excelent

2. 
   Ram February 1st, 2008

   good

3. 
   chanduramse February 1st, 2008

   It is helpful

4. 
   Nayak February 13th, 2008

   Its help me to fulfill my creative idea.
   Thank you

5. 
   Jayesh February 28th, 2008

   Excellent !

6. 
   RAVENDRA March 4th, 2008

   well tutorial was this it helped me alot in using of gradient mesh

7. 
   Sachu March 15th, 2008

   Excellent, So helpful….

8. 
   sagar April 10th, 2008

   Best, I can’t believe this
   this is a best tutorial
   thanks

9. 
   Rinoju May 7th, 2008

   Thx for sharing

10. 
    Jaimi May 12th, 2008

    Made the curtains this morning and used it for my mother’s Mother’s Day DVD! Big Thx

11. 
    iStockdiary May 13th, 2008

    Great Jaimi! Can u send me what you have done? I would like to have a look.

12. 
    marizmendi May 15th, 2008

    Excellent, Exactly what I’ve been looking for

13. 
    Fasih Ullah June 1st, 2008

    i was completely shocked when i saw this tutorials. It’s awesome and really cool stuff….

14. 
    iStockdiary June 1st, 2008

    Thanks. You can share it with your friends, stumble it or digg my site. That will be my greatest appreciation~

15. 
    Dar June 10th, 2008

    Great tutorial. Thanks for sharing.

16. 
    prince June 21st, 2008

    its very nice

17. 
    jenny July 2nd, 2008

    thanks a lot! This is a very good tutorial!!

18. 
    Bindu July 29th, 2008

    Good Easy Method

19. 
    Joss August 2nd, 2008

    LUV IT!!!

20. 
    BogDinamita August 29th, 2008

    surprisingly easy method.

21. 
    Zabimaru September 4th, 2008

    This is an excellent tutorial. It was so surprisingly easy.

    I also used the warp tool along the lower edge of my curtain to give it a flowing look there instead of a straight edge.

22. 
    dinesh October 6th, 2008

    amazing:) thanks for sharing

23. 
    fran December 9th, 2008

    this is great! tanks for posting it

24. 
    Jess December 19th, 2008

    Thanks for sharing ^_^

25. 
    strony internetowe pozna? January 12th, 2009

    It is realy great designs on this site…… this is very helpfull site for web designers…iam a web designer so i am very happy now !

26. 
    sakhir February 2nd, 2009

    very use full thanks alot…………….

27. 
    Rebornbear February 16th, 2009

    To complete zabimaru’s comment, I’d add that you can pull the clearer “folds” of the curtain out of the original rectangle and push the the darker “folds” inside to make quite a good 3D effect

28. 
    ortak miras March 7th, 2009

    very good thanks

29. 
    Treb March 18th, 2009

    Great Tut, ive only just started using illustrator about a week ago, and this tut has helped me a lot in doing part of a uni assignment, thanks!!!

30. 
    nasa March 20th, 2009

    Great tutorial! I decided to go with a variety of different shades instead of just black — switch the color to HSB and adjust the brightness. This allows sections to “pop out” more and others to be partially in shadow. The other change I made was to add in points where only the top or bottom was darkened, so that they would appear as a fold which started in view.

    Thanks!

31. 
    ekki March 20th, 2009

    amazing!!,I don’t think i can do it but you help me a lot.thanks.

32. 
    manas modi April 4th, 2009

    its such a simple but effective trick,that i absolutely loved it.

33. 
    madhan May 22nd, 2009

    its nice very easy to use thanks u

34. 
    Koby May 29th, 2009

    Please, can anybody send this made in illustrator, I am beginner and it is difficult to me. Send me the file (.ai) on tulipm4@yahoo.com if anybody has done it. Thanks.

35. 
    helio Batres July 17th, 2009

    fantabuloso, impresionante!!!

36. 
    mindstuck September 26th, 2009

    nice tuts!
    THX for sharing..

37. 
    Freehill Media January 18th, 2010

    Very nice but what about the bottom of the curtain ?