How to Create Particles Glow in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

This time, we gonna learn How to Create Particles Glow with Symbolism Tool in Adobe Illustrator.

 How to Create Particles Glow in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

But before we go any further it's good if I give a simple explanation about the Symbolism Tool.

You can find the Symbolism Tool in the Toolbar, you can recognize it with the sprayer icon. The first tool in the Symbolism Group tool is the Sprayer Tool. With this tool, you can create a group of symbol instances that called Symbol Sets. You can play with one symbol, and then, using it again with another symbol.

As you work with Symbol Sets, keep in mind that the Symbolism Tools affect only to the symbol, or symbols that selected in the Symbols panel.

For example. Open the symbol Panel. But, if the panel symbol doesn't appear in your Collapsed Panel. Then go to the window menu and click symbols.

Click Symbol libraries menu. For example, I choose Nature Set. Then Fish 1.

Close symbol nature panel and back to symbols panel. Make sure that the Fish symbol is selected. Then you can play with the Sprayer Tool. Of course with a left click and drag. If I move drag faster, it will make the symbol having more spaces. But if you drag slowly, it will be more closer.

Besides that, you can freely experiment with double clicking the sprayer tool icon, to bring up the symbolism tool option panel. "Diameter" determines the brush size. "Intensity" sets the change rate. "Symbol Set Density" sets the amount of symbols placed, within a given area based on a formula. The higher the number, the denser the symbols will be.

There are several other Symbolism Tools. Their function is as a modifier for the symbol set, that has been made. If you create a mixed symbol instance set, you can change the orientation by using Symbol Spinner tool. To change the size use Symbol Sizer Tool and so on.

For Now that's all i can explain, if there is something you don't understand, you are free to ask in the comment.

OK, now we back to the tutorial How To Make Particles Glow In Adobe Illustrator Using The Sprayer Tool.

Step 1 Create the Background Set

First, we must make the background, the reason is because the glow effect that we will make is influenced by the background color that we choose.

For the background, draw a rectangle following the size of the artboard using rectangle tool.

Don’t forget to set stroke to none, and the fill with #000F1A. It’s look like a black color, but it doesn’t.

This is something that really needs to be considered. Do not choose a pure black color, because if not, the glow effect that we will make can not work at all. Once again, the glow effect that we will make cannot work at all.

Create the Left Side Flare Effect

The second step on making the background is to add a Colored Light Bias or the other name is FLARE. Create a new layer and lock the first layer.

For the first flare object, Create circle with Ellipse Tool, Open Gradient Panel and set the first Color Stop to #000000 in the Gradient Annotator, and for For the orther color stop set to #240000. Don’t forget to set gradient type to radial.

As we see here the circle is not blend well, because they have different colors so, we have to blend it. Just go to the window menu > Transparency. In the Transparency Panel there are several blending mode options. In this tutorial I use Lighten, to blend dark colors on a circle against the basic colors on the background, and brighter colors will still appear.

Make another circle by duplicate the first circle and fill with gradient color. Leave the first color stop with black color. For the second color stop set the color to #ABABAB. Location 5%. Mid point 62%.

After the first and the second color stop is set, Create 2 another color stop between the two existing color stops. The first one give color with #AB3A00, location 26%. mid point 55%.

For the last Color Stop give with #AB2100, location: 31%, and mid point 24%.

Create the 3rd Circle by duplication the 2nd circle and give it again another gradient color.

because the 3rd circle that we will create will have almost the same gradient color as the second circle so we don't make too many modifications to it, because the color stop is only 2 then we will delete one of them. Just select one Color Stop and press the delete key on the keyboard to instantly delete.

For the middle Color Stop. Change the color to # 741700. Location: 18%. Mid point: 23%.

Just like the circle that we first made, we will blend the black color in the circle with the base color. So we just need to change the blending mode in the transparency panel.

For the 2nd circle give a Screen Blending Mode. And for the 3rd circle that have darker colors give Color Dodge.

Now, we just need to adjust the position of the two circles. So, as to cause the impression of refractive light from the side.

Here, I change the shape of the 2nd and the 3rd circle to an ellipse. I made a lighter circle bigger than a darker one. And make sure the smaller circle is on top of the bigger one. Make a group between the two circles.

Duplicate this grouped circle and make it bigger. Don’t forget to set the transparency to 30% and arrange them like the picture bellow.

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Create the Right Side Flare Effect

Now, I will try to make the flare effect on the other side.

Create a new circle with Ellipse Tool. Fill with gradient color, For the first color stop still use solid black color and the other Color Stop use purple with #9500BA. Add one more color stop in the middle. So that the color transition was smoother from light purple to black. Give it #4A0072 Color. Position: 17%. Mid Point in Black color: 24%. The Last this is to Set blending mode to Color Dodge.

Again. Create a new circle made, Give it Gradient color and set the both sides of the Gradient Annotator with solid black, in the middle create a new Color Stop with dark purple #4A0072, Position: 70%, for the left Midpoint set to 82%. And the other one: 37%. Blending mode to Color Dodge.

Arrange the position of these two circles like bellow, the size of first circle is bigger than the second one.

For the final touch, Duplicate the smaller circle that look like ring and double the size and adjust the position like bellow so it looks like a simple flare.

Create a new rectangle according to the size of the artboard. Select all the object including the first rectangle then right-click and select Make Clipping Mask.

And the final background will look like this:

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Step 2, Create The Particles

Now, it is time to create the particles. Create a new layer to place the particles and Lock the existing layer.

Create Symbol

First, we'll create the Symbol. Use Ellipse tool to create a new circle, Set width and height to 25 pixel.

Apply default black and white gradient color in the swatches panel. Set the Gradient type to radial and For the white color stop set the location to 50%, Mid point 50%.

Duplicate this circle 2 times, cause we gonna create 3 type of symbol. Multiply the size of the new two duplicated circles from 25 pixels to 50 pixels. For the second circle change the location of white color stop to 10%, mid point 65%. And for the third circle, set the location to 5% and mid point to 40%.

Don't forget to change the blending mode of these three circles to Color Dodge.

Now, open the Symbol Panel to turn these three circles into a symbol. Just go to the Window menu and look for Symbols. After the Symbols Panel is open, Just lift the circle one into the Symbols Panel. Then automatically the Symbol Options Panel will appear. Name it, so that we can easily to identify it, leave the settings by default, then click OK.

Now, The 1st circle has turned into a symbol with the name of ‘Circle One’ . We can recognize it as a symbol, because there is a Plus sign in the middle of that circle. We can also see it in the Symbols Panel, with the name we gave it. Then, just follow the previous steps to change the rest of the circle into a symbol.

Spread the Particles

Well, Now It's time to create the particles.

Same as the explanation at the beginning. First, we use the sprayer tool to create random particles. Go to Symbols Panel and select “Circle One” Symbol. Just like the sprayer, spread the symbol by click on hold, just freely paint in the artboard area. Actually this is the reason why I chose to use the symbolism tool. Because, we freely place an object randomly.

In addition, You can also change the size of the symbols randomly, using the Symbol Sizer Tool on the Symbolism Tool Group.

After we randomly spread the Circle One Symbol, Now go back to the symbol panel, and select Circle Two Symbol and do the same thing as the Circle One Symbol. Last Add more particles with Circle Tree, and try play with the size by using Symbol Sizer Tool.

Now we have done create these particles randomly using Adobe Illustrator.

Before I ended this Adobe Illustrator Tutorial, I just want to say that this is just one of technical process to create some design stuff, you can use one of that technique or you can combine with another technic to create more creative design stuff.

if you want to watch the video version of this adobe illustrator please click the YouTube link below:

How to Create Particles Glow in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

More Tutorials:

How To Create Blurry Glass Effect In Adobe Illustrator

How To Create Skull With Grunge Texture Adobe Illustrator Tutorial