A quick search online for "realistic clouds in Illustrator" threw up plenty of results, but none that would give the effect I was looking for. Most seemed to rely on using gradient meshes or symbols, custom brushes and the like. After a little experimentation I found a solution that worked well, and I've since used for a couple of other projects, so I thought I'd document it in case anyone else might find it useful.
There's a video version of this (no sound I'm afraid) over on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjRRcIT1Rz0&t=14s.
This is my first stab at a tutorial, so hopefully it all makes sense outside my head. If people do find it at all useful then maybe I'll post some other tips and tricks.
- In Illustrator create a new document (File > New), draw a rectangle to cover the background and then draw an oval as the base for your cloud.
- Apply the Feather effect (Effect > Stylise > Feather).
- Apply the Scribble effect (Effect > Stylise > Scribble). Some of the preset settings can be a good starting point to get the cloud shape you're looking for.
- Apply the Gaussian Blur effect (Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur).
- At this point it's probably not looking too good, now that all the effects are applied we can tweak them to get a better-looking effect. To edit an effect that's already applied select the shape on the artboard and double click the effect you'd like to edit in the Appearance Palette.
- One cloud on its own looks a bit lonely so you're probably going to want to duplicate it and resize/reposition. Alternatively, once you have a basic cloud with all the effects in place you can drag it to the Graphic Styles palette to create a style that can be applied to any other shape/object in one click.
What did you think?
If you enjoyed seeing a bit of a peek at my process – or even if you didn't – it'd be great if you'd let me know. If you could take a couple of minutes to let me know your thoughts it'd really be appreciated.
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Thanks for stopping by:)
