How to Create a Ribbon Using Blend Effect in Illustrator

About two weeks ago, I’ve made a set of floral Photoshop brushes that has some kind of bend or twirl ribbon effect in it. I got respons on flickr asking me of how I made the effect.



Somehow it is so easy and quick to produce. Lets get start now :D


Step 1 – Draw a curve with arc tool

Find the arc tool in the tool box, and start to draw a curve on a new canvas like this:




And draw another curve next to the first curve that you made.



Connect each edge point so it becomes a closed curves paths like this:



Remember: do not group those two paths because if you group it, you won’t find a nice blend effect as this tutorial will show you in the finish result.



Step 2 – How to blend

OK, now go to the menu Object > Blend > Blend Option and set it like what you see here:



You can fill the Specified Steps with 10 or more. Just to let you know that the more you add the number of density of the specified step then you would create more dense curve lines.
Don’t forget to set the orientation of the blend as align to path.



Back again to the menu, go to Object > Blend > Make (Alt + Ctrl + B), then soon you will see this on your canvas:





Step 3 – Creating a nice ribbon using warp tool.

Find a Warp Tool on the tool box. Warp tool is actually my favorite tool to create curves for my photoshop brushes collections ;)



Start to pull each edge of curve with this warp tool like you see below by dragging and release it until you feel the shape is perfect. You can do it repeatedly until you get a nice curve:



As you can see, we still manage the both edge. Now we try to tweak the center curve lines. Still using the warp tool, do it exactly as I told you in the previous step but now be focused on the center curves only.



You will love this step, because every time you drag using the warp tool, you will get a random bends effect. Experiment a bit on another spot of curve lines. You don’t have to worry if somehow you see like broken curves after sometimes, just repeatedly shape the curve lines, you will get a nice ribbon effect again if you try a little bit harder. And here is my final result:

posted by Graphic Identity