How-To’s Day: Illustrator: Apply Multiple Strokes To One Path In Illustrator CS (Part 2)

In part 1 of Apply Multiple Strokes To One Path In Illustrator CS we created the seal portion of our illustration. More importantly, Part 1 established the fundamentals of this tutorial. If you haven’t yet read Apply Multiple Strokes To One Path In Illustrator CS (Part 1), please do before continuing with Part 2 below.

Again making use of the awesome power of the Appearance palette in Illustrator CS, we’re going to create the neon checkmark at the heart of our seal.

Neon effects are notoriously difficult to create in vector drawing programs like Illustrator. Typically they require stacks of duplicate objects, each successive one with a slightly thicker stroke to achieve the smooth blend between the center color and the outter colors. With the ability to not only apply multiple strokes, but to create effects and offsets of each stroke independently, its easy to do it all within a single, live-editable object.

1. Select the Type Tool and click in the document to initiate a text point. The checkmark I used came from the Wingdings font. After creating my text insertion point I double-clicked the checkmark glyph in the Glyphs palette, and it was inserted into my document. Of course, you are free to use any letter, symbol, or glyph, or even custom draw your own path. For simplicities sake, I converted the checkmark glyph from text to outlines, though it isn’t mandatory; this effect works on live text as well.

Since I’m building this particular drawing for online use, I’m working in pixel measurements. My checkmark measures approximately 100 px wide by 115 px deep (height).

2. Once you have the checkmark, choose your top color—white or something very close to it. Set this as the 1 pt stroke. Set the fill to none.

3. Add four more strokes to the checkbox, each growing thicker and deeper of hue except the last, whose color will be close to half way between strokes two and three.

Does your Appearance palette look like mine?

Its beginning to look like neon, but it isn’t polished yet. Other neon techniques, including the graphic style that is already installed in Illustrator, rely solely on the stroke-stacking method—ten or so strokes stacked beneath one another, each a single point thicker and slightly deeper in color than the one above. While the stroke-stacking method does create a common neon effect, it lacks the realism of neon tubing seen in the real world. It also requires the illustrator to change the colors of ten different strokes to effect an overall color change.

With this method, we’re going to reach a greater degree of realism with only five strokes.

4. In the Appearance palette click on the first stroke, the 1 pt white stroke. From the Effect menu choose Blur > Gaussian Blur. If your checkmark is about the size of mine (100px x 115 px), set the Gaussian Blur to 0.5 pixels and hit OK.

You should now see a Gaussian Blur entry grouped beneath your Stroke in the Appearance palette.

5. With the first stroke still selected in the Appearance palette, go back to the Effect menu and select Distort & Transform > Transform. The Transform Effect dialog is how we’ll offset our strokes from one another so they don’t stack perfectly aligned.

6. In the Move section, set the Horizontal and Vertical offsets to something like 0.44 px and hit OK. Now a Transform entry appears beneath the Gaussian Blur in the Appearance palette.

7. Repeat steps 4 - 6 for each of the rest of the strokes on your path, using the following settings:

1.5 pt stroke: Gaussian Blur 0.5; Transform Effect move H: 0.44px, V: 0.44px

5 pt stroke: Gaussian Blur 0.5; Transform Effect move H: -0.44px, V: 0.88px

8.5 pt stroke: No Gaussian Blur; Transform Effect move H: 0.88px, V: 1.32px

12 pt stroke: Gaussian Blur 1.0; Transform Effect move H: 0.44px, V: 0.44px

Does your Appearance palette look just like mine? Depending upon the size of your checkmark, the colors chosen, and the glyph itself, you may need to tweak the above settings for maximum effect.

8. The neon effect is building, but neon tubing is just a type of lightbulb. It needs to give off light. Select the 12pt stroke in the Appearance palette and goto Effect > Stylize > Outer Glow. Se the mode to Normal (or Screen, if it fits your drawing better), with 100% opacity and a blur around 12 or 13 px. Hit OK.

9. In the Appearance palette should now be an Outer Glow entry grouped with the 12pt stroke. If it appears below the Stroke group, you applied it to the path rather than just the stroke. In that case, click and drag the Outer Glow entry on the Appearance palette and drop it between Gaussian Blur and Transform.

Even if you applied the Outer Glow to the stroke correctly, we want it to be above Transform in the list. This will make the glow occur before the stroke is offset, thus the glow will be centered with the entire path even though the 12pt stroke itself is being pushed right and up .44 px.

10. With the stroke still selected, goto the Transparency palette and set the blending mode to Screen with 100% opacity.

11. Almost done! At the very top of the Appearance palette click on Compound Path and add a new Outer Glow (step 9) set to Screen, bright yellow, 30% opacity, and 15px blur. Hit OK and behold your neon checkmark!

If your neon design doesn’t look exactly like mine, play around with the colors, blurs, and offsets (transforms). Once you have a style you like, save it to the Graphic Styles palette.

A note about the Gaussian Blur effects: You will probably see pixelation after applying a Gaussian Blur. This is expected. Gaussian Blur is a pixelating effect, but it is still resolution independent. Resize your checkmark and watch the Gaussian Blur reapply at the new size. Print it to a couple of devices to watch it print out in high quality.

The effects on the Effect menu are all dynamic and resolution independent, unlike the ones on the confusingly similar Filter menu. It is safe to use Gaussian Blur and the other items on the Effect menu for high resolution output; they won’t flatten and fix their resolution until sent to an output device that communicates a fixed resolution (e.g. a printer).

I had intended to demonstrate how to create the embossed text on a path in the seal in this part of the tutorial, but it ran so long we’re going to need a Part 3. So, if you can figure out how I created the embossed text, leave your guess in a comment to this post. I’ll give you a hint: I never even touched Illustrator’s 3D tools.

If not, I’ll see you on the next How-To’s Day—next week, 7 December—with the final installment of Apply Multiple Strokes To One Path In Illustrator CS.

• Part 1:  Multiple Strokes
• Part 2:  Multiple Strokes Bring More Control Than Just Multiple Strokes
• Part 3:  Multiple Fills and Special Effects (aka The Cast Shadow Tutorial)

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TAGS:  design howto quark indesign adobe graphics  

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