Create a leprechaun hat using Adobe Illustrator

Learn to draw this St. Patrick's Day hat.

Happy St. Patricks Day! Rather than teaching you how to avoid DUIs and how to escape hangovers, Computer Parts Greenville presents this Adobe Illustrator How To guide that will teach you how to draw St. Patrick’s Day art for your layouts. Programs, brochures, advertisements, postcards and other items designed by illustrators can use these delightful images.

Get Illustrator CS 5.1

If you do not have Adobe Illustrator CS 5.1, now is a good time to buy it. Even though Adobe CS6 is just around the corner, you will have the safety of an upgrade when Adobe releases the new product.

 The leprechaun hat

Start with the leprechaun hat by drawing the top of the hat first. Create a new document for Illustrator and then pick up the Pen Tool from the toolbox and draw the shape as shown below. Draw the shape uneven as show to help provide perspective for the hat.

Drawing the main body of the hat for Illustrator users.

Next, draw a small ellipse for the top part of the hat. Draw a large ellipse for the brim. Use the Ellipse Tool from the Adobe Illustrator toolbox to do this.

Add ellipses to the top and bottom of the St. Patrick's Day hat.

Apply radial gradients

Create a radial gradient for the top part of the hat. Use the gradient tool to span 1F1F1F to 000000 in your gradient.

Adobe Illustrator How To: Apply radial gradient using the Gradient Tool

Next, create a second large ellipse to give the brim some thickness. Do this by copying the large ellipse first, pasting it in front and then nudging it downward. Apply a radial gradient that spans 292929 to 000000.

Copy the large ellipse and paste it to the front. Nudge it downward and then apply a linear gradient.

Use the Pathfinder Window

Next, copy the top ellipse and paste it twice in front (Ctrl + F). Nudge it upward. Use the Pathfinder Minus Front button to give the top of the hat an edge as shown here.

The top of the hat now has an edge.

Do the same thing with the large ellipse. Your hat should look like the image below.  Bring the top part of the hat to the front.

Adding a rim to the hat for Illustrator CS5.

Draw the Hat Band

Get the Pen Tool and add the hat band as shown. You can lock your existing image if necessary (Ctrl + 2).

Apply a linear gradient with the following stops:

• 0D350E
• 7DA62F
• 183D13
• 3F6223
• 001B00

Are we done with the St. Patrick's Day hat yet? No way!

Create the edge of the ribbon using Pathfinder Minus Front after duplicating the band twice and nudging one copy above the other.

Add dimension to the hat's ribbon.

The Buckle

What good is a stinkin’ leprechaun hat without a buckle? Grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Illustrator toolbox and get started. Next, click Object, Path, Offset Path from the main menu. Enter -20 points. use Miter joins and a Miter limit of 4. The buckle should look like the following:

Use Offset Path to create the inside of the buckle.

Click Effect, Stylize, Rounded Corners to add 10-point radius corners to the inside of the buckle.

Add rounded corners.

Now click Object and then Expand Appearance. Next, select both rectangles and then click the Minus Front icon in the Pathfinder window.

Click Minus Front in Pathfinder with both rectangles selected.

Now, copy the remaining shape and paste to the front. Nudge it down about 3 pixels and a little to the left. Change the color of the top shape to make it easy to see.

Now apply a gold gradient. Try using FFF685, C0943A, C8A047, FFF9AE, C8A047.

Add gradient to the buckle.

Now, copy the buckle and paste it to the front twice. Nudge it down and over to the right. Select both copies and then use the Minus Front option again. Change the color of the rear rectangle to 0D350E. Voila!

Now, add some highlights to the hat and brim. Use your Pen Tool to draw segments and then fill with a linear gradient. I used 292929 to 000000 for both panels as shown here.

Adobe Illustrator How To: Adding highlights to the hat and brim.

You’re done!

The St. Patty's Day hat is finished!

This Adobe Illustrator tutorial used the following tools to draw a  leprechaun hat for Illustrator CS5:

• Pen Tool
• Rectangle Tool
• Ellipse Tool
• Gradient Tool
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Pathfinder Window
• Effects – Stylize
• Object – Path

Next time, we’ll add some gold coins to our St. Patrick’s Day repertoire.