Vectordiary

Illustrator tutorial: The Perfect Diamond

By Tony Soh Posted on March 28th, 2008

Drawing a diamond is pretty simple in illustrator. First, let’s do some research on the anatomy of a diamond. We don’t want to do some fancy cut and get rejected by our clients. Here’s a proportional diamond line art taken from the website. We will use this as a guide to help us create a perfect diamond.

1. Create a template guide

First, place the line work by going File>Place and select the graphic. Go to Layers Palette and click the arrow to show the menu and select Template. This will lock and make the graphic transparent for easy tracing.

2. Placing a guide in the center

Turn on your Rulers by pressing Ctrl/Command+R. Drag a guide and place it in the center.

Next turn on the Snap to Grid by pressing Shift+Ctrl+”/Shift+Command+” or go Window>Snap to Grid. You will see the grid appear at the background.

3. Tracing the artwork

Create a new layer in your Layer Palette (new layer icon at the bottom of the palette). Using the Pen Tool, start to trace each facet. The points will snap to the grid. Make sure to close each shape and make the points meet in the same spot. Do this until we complete the right half of the diamond. We can turn off Snap to Grid and manually adjust the points to fix the curves which doesn’t snap to the grid very well.

4. Reflecting the diamond

Select the whole half of the diamond. Select Reflect Tool and Alt/Option+click on the center guide line. This will pop up a menu. Select Vertical for Axis and click Copy.

Let’s start combining the center facet. Select both the facets at the bottom and hold Alt/Option+Click and click Add to shape area from Pathfinder (Window>Pathfinder). Repeat this step for the top facets too.

Support Vectordiary by sharing it:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Pages: 1 2

Tags: diamond, draw, graphic, illustration, Illustrator, tutorial

About The Author: Tony Soh

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

• Illustrator Tutorial: Perfect Silhouette with Live Trace
• Illustrator Tutorial: Disco Ball
• Illustrator Tutorial: Bling Bling Text Effect
• Illustrator Tutorial: 3D Gear
• Illustrator Tutorial: Surprise Gift

If you have enjoyed reading this post, you may subscribe to our RSS for weekly updates!
Subscribe via RSS »
Subscribe via Email »

+Add Comment21 Comments

1. 
   marcos(dominican republic) March 30th, 2008

   Great thanx 4 sharing…:).great tutorial

2. 
   Bekindi April 5th, 2008

   I just wanted to say thankyou very much for this tutorial You did a brilliant job of explaining, and the visuals were extremely helpful.

3. 
   iStockdiary April 12th, 2008

   Thanks Bekindi, I will keep up with my new tutorials. I’m now writing on a tutorial to create a cool disco ball. Be sure to catch it. =)

4. 
   Furtoosh April 16th, 2008

   Great tutorials.

5. 
   dhanushka April 21st, 2008

   it was a good tutorial.

6. 
   Zapps April 22nd, 2008

   Great stuff. Keep it up

7. 
   Neisha Diaz April 25th, 2008

   This was really helpful. Thank you for the quick lesson.
   It was cool too.

8. 
   bernz April 25th, 2008

   very nice.. i just hope that theres a lot more tutorial will share to your site.. tnx..

9. 
   Saranga Asith May 2nd, 2008

   actually this tutorial is give a variance design to the person.great tute

10. 
    summilux May 4th, 2008

    Hello. I tried your disco ball tutorial. it was very cool.
    now before i get onto the perfect diamond tutorial, please tell me how you can make shinny stars!!! and how did you make the disco shine like glory!!
    thank you!

11. 
    iStockdiary May 5th, 2008

    Hi Sumilux,

    What I did was I brought it to Photoshop to boost up the contrast and brightness.

12. 
    yousaf November 4th, 2008

    simple but valuable for everyone

13. 
    Cole Key November 13th, 2008

    3taw18luvboknkgx

14. 
    Lia December 6th, 2008

    Does this “perfect diamond” have a copyright? It truly is the perfect diamond illustration and I would like to use it! May I?

15. 
    Vectordiary December 6th, 2008

    Hi Lia, this illustration is for educational purposes. You may not use it in your projects. You may want to create your own Diamond.

16. 
    sarah123 January 14th, 2009

    hey great work

17. 
    ziggo February 4th, 2009

    No download???????

18. 
    Timmy March 1st, 2009

    Yo quiero download dude, what the hell?

19. 
    Tripti March 5th, 2009

    superb……..gooooooood…….i like this tutorial very much

20. 
    Vladlena March 13th, 2009

    thanks allot for the diamond tutorial, it was much faster your way, but I had a little trouble with the starburst, once I gave up it worked out.

    =) keep posting your tutorials, their easy to follow and very helpful. once again thank you very much!

21. 
    sivas March 18th, 2009

    very good, thanks