Learn how to spread Christmas cheer with this Adobe Illustrator How To tutorial.
Before you buy your computer parts for Christmas, learn how to draw a Christmas Santa hat for Illustrator. Our How to illustrator takes readers step-by-step through the process. This Adobe Illustrator how to tutorial presents illustrations and descriptions that – if followed – will result in the perfect Santa Claus hat in Adobe Illustrator CS5.
After drawing a Santa hat, use it as part of a larger design. Add it to photographs or use it for gift tags on the outside of your computer parts gifts. This latest Illustrator how to guide will help new and existing users develop skills for Illustrator CS5.
Getting started
Open Adobe Illustrator CS5 and create a new document. Other versions of Adobe Illustrator will work, but some of the features and controls may differ. If you do not have Adobe Illustrator, you can download a trial version of the program from the Adobe website.
Draw the outline for Illustrator Santa hats
The first step in this Adobe Illustrator how to guide calls for the illustrator to draw an outline of a Santa hat. Use the Pen tool for Illustrator to draw something like the image below. If you can’t do this, copy an image from the Internet and trace its outline using the Pen tool.
The Pen tool makes drawing cool shapes easy for Illustrator users.
Next, fill the paths with a linear gradient. For illustrator users, the gradient palette works well for this. Choose your own colors or use CMYK 0,99,99,0 for the first stop and CMYK 23,100,100,20 for the second stop.
Illustrator How To: Add linear gradients to the paths you drew in the first step.
Adding a shadow
Copy the top section of the Santa hat and then paste it in front. Add a shadow by drawing a shadow path as shown here by our How To illustrator.
Adobe Illustrator How To Guide: Adding a shadow path to the Santa hat for Illustrator.
Now, select the top section of the hat you just copied (leave the bottom copy alone) and select the shadow path. Open the Pathfinder palette and then press the Alt key while clicking the “Intersect shape areas” icon. This creates a compound shape and intersect shape area.
Our How To illustrator shows how to finish the shadow using the Pathfinder palette.
The next part of this Illustrator How To procedure calls for the designer to repeat the process for the bottom part of the hat.
Now, set the fill the shadow areas with a linear gradient and set their blending mode to Multiply.
For Illustrator users, adding blending to the hat is easy from the transparency window.
Adding the fluff
Every Santa hat needs a fluffy, furry section to be complete. Grab the Pen tool for Illustrator and draw a rectangular-like path. Fill it with gray.
After drawing a path for the furry part of the Christmas hat, fill it with grey.
When ready, go to Effect on the main menu and then choose Distort & Transform and then Roughen. Set size to 7 percent and set Detail to 90.
Distort the furry section to give it the fluffy look for Illustrator.
Alt+Drag the gray section to make a copy. Resize it and fill it with white as shown.
Our How To illustrator fluffs up the fur in the Christmas Santa hat with a layer in white.
This Illustrator How To guide now asks designers to bring the top of the hat and its shadow to the front.
Click Arrange from the Object menu and bring the top of the hat for the Christmas hat to the front.
Illustrator How To: Finish the Christmas hat by adding a fur ball
Grab the ellipse tool for Illustrator to draw the fur ball. Use the same approach that our How To illustrator used for the bottom of the Christmas Santa hat.
The Adobe Illustrator tutorial for Illustrator Christmas Santa hat is finished.
Now you can save your Illustrator CS5 Santa hat and use it for all your Christmas layouts. With this job out of the way, you can now don your real Santa hat and go shopping for computer parts.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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