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Illustrator tutorial: The Perfect Diamond

illustrator diamond tutorial

Drawing a vector diamond is pretty simple in Adobe 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 in this Illustrator tutorial.

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.

diamond step 1

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.

diamond step2

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.

diamond step3

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.

diamond step4

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.

diamond step5

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.

diamond step6

diamond step7

5. Fill the diamond

Select one of the facet and fill it with Linear Gradient. Create a 3rd point in the gradient by clicking in between the 2 points once and make it black. Also turn off the stroke for the facet.

diamond step8

Select the rest of the facets and using the Eye Dropper Tool, click once on the facet we just filled with linear gradient. This will fill the rest with gradient.

diamond step9

Looks pretty ugly now, so let’s fix that. Select the Gradient Tool and click and drag in different directions for each facet. Do this until you get something below.

diamond step10

I find the black white gradient looks a bit too harsh. Let’s fix that by selecting all the facets and open both your Gradient and Color Palette. Click once at the middle black point in the Gradient Palette. The Color Palette will show the black color. Change it to a darker blue. This will make the diamond appear cooler. Better now, right?

diamond step11

6. Drawing the girdle

You realise I haven’t draw the girdle( new word I learnt from my research). Select the Rectangle Tool and draw a rectangle that meets all the four points of the girdle’s edges. With the Pen Tool, go near the selected rectangle and click once at the middle of the top line. This will add a new point. Click the Keyword Arrow Key and shift the point upwards. Do this for the bottom too. Once done, Right+Click and select Arrange>Send to Back. This will cover the missing girdle.

diamond step12

7. Finishing Touch

How can a diamond do without it’s shining glow and sparkling starburst? So let’s begin to draw a circle and fill it with Radial Gradient from white to black and send it to the back of the diamond.

diamond step13

Select the Star Tool and drag a star on the canvas. Without releasing the mouse, press Arrow Up key to add additional points. Hold Ctrl/Command and drag to increase the radius. Try to get a starburst as shown below.

illustrator star tool

diamond step14

Here’s the final illustration and hope you enjoy cutting your own diamond. If you like my diamond, pls remember to “grade” my 10-carat diamond.

diamond illustration

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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 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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+Add Comment40 Comments

  1. Gravtar for marcos(dominican republic)
    marcos(dominican republic) March 30th

    Great thanx 4 sharing…:).great tutorial

  2. Gravtar for Bekindi
    Bekindi April 5th

    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. Gravtar for iStockdiary
    iStockdiary April 12th

    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. Gravtar for Furtoosh
    Furtoosh April 16th

    Great tutorials.

  5. Gravtar for dhanushka
    dhanushka April 21st

    it was a good tutorial.

  6. Gravtar for Zapps
    Zapps April 22nd

    Great stuff. Keep it up

  7. Gravtar for Neisha Diaz
    Neisha Diaz April 25th

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

  8. Gravtar for bernz
    bernz April 25th

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

  9. Gravtar for Saranga Asith
    Saranga Asith May 2nd

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

  10. Gravtar for summilux
    summilux May 4th

    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. Gravtar for iStockdiary
    iStockdiary May 5th

    Hi Sumilux,

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

  12. Gravtar for yousaf
    yousaf November 4th

    simple but valuable for everyone

  13. Gravtar for Cole Key
    Cole Key November 13th

    3taw18luvboknkgx

  14. Gravtar for Lia
    Lia December 6th

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

  15. Gravtar for Vectordiary
    Vectordiary December 6th

    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. Gravtar for sarah123
    sarah123 January 14th

    hey great work

  17. Gravtar for ziggo
    ziggo February 4th

    No download???????

  18. Gravtar for Timmy
    Timmy March 1st

    Yo quiero download dude, what the hell?

  19. Gravtar for Tripti
    Tripti March 5th

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

  20. Gravtar for Vladlena
    Vladlena March 13th

    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. Gravtar for sivas
    sivas March 18th

    very good, thanks

  22. Gravtar for shibu john
    shibu john July 21st

    finding difficulty to creat it…

  23. Gravtar for lingeswaran
    lingeswaran August 2nd

    very good diamonds purchase guide

  24. Gravtar for Sign Dude
    Sign Dude August 3rd

    Beautifully done. Thanks for sharing.

  25. Gravtar for rasheed
    rasheed September 8th

    I have 2 kiloes of diamond i want sell it .

  26. Gravtar for JAI
    JAI October 10th

    thanks a lot for this tutorial, its very useful for so many new students .

  27. Gravtar for Ted
    Ted October 28th

    Beautifully done! Thanks for the elegant and useful tutorial!

  28. Gravtar for Panda love
    Panda love February 16th

    AweSo0o00o0o0o00o0o0ome >> cool

  29. Gravtar for GAURIE
    GAURIE March 13th

    Wooo…. It’s nice.it was a great fun.

  30. Gravtar for dffoto
    dffoto April 14th

    Very good! Great tutorials.))

  31. Gravtar for priya
    priya August 26th

    thanks now i can do myself

  32. Gravtar for bree-baby
    bree-baby October 7th

    haha i like thisss

  33. Gravtar for MichaelV
    MichaelV November 29th

    Now this tutorial (and the end result) is impressive…did you work this out on your own or did you have some sort of templates to work with? Grade is excellent!!

  34. Gravtar for Navtej
    Navtej December 21st

    Thanks for your information.

    Kindly tell me as i buy H-1 quality Diamond with 0.45 weight.

    What is it & about the value Please.

    Thanks
    Navtej

  35. Gravtar for youthenjoy
    youthenjoy June 3rd

    This is a very beautiful diamond, diamonds is a status symbol, I like it. Design is also quite good, so I learned a lot of knowledge, thank you

  36. Gravtar for amali
    amali July 17th

    i

  37. Gravtar for Pest Control Leeds
    Pest Control Leeds August 27th

    Great tutorial. I had trouble tracing whilst snapping to grid though, never seems to snap to the right place!

    Also found using the shape builder tool in CS5 makes it easier to merge shapes than the pathfinder tool.

  38. Gravtar for India Web Designing Company
    India Web Designing Company November 3rd

    Diamond wow lovely work thanks for the tuto

  39. Gravtar for CiNiTriQs
    CiNiTriQs November 18th

    Thanks a bunch… also for the “girdle”… word to be used in a different way, lol.

  40. Gravtar for pest control
    pest control December 25th

    your a diamond cheers :)

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