How To Create Colorful Circle Spirograph in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

How To Create Colorful Circle in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

Video How To Create Colorful Circle in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

There are many techniques in Adobe Illustrator that you can use to create a masterpiece quickly and automatically just by using several tool in adobe illustrator as I show in the image below it's only create from 1 tool only and small adjustment. 

In this short Adobe Illustrator Tutorial I'm gonna show you how to make colorful circles like this in Adobe Illustrator.

Colorful Circle in Adobe Illustrator

Without further ado let's get started. Create a new document in adobe illustrator, as usual set the color mode to RGB.

Create The Background

First of all create a background using the Rectangle Tool along the size of the artboard. Give it a solid Black color.

Open the layer panel and lock layer 1 where the rectangle that we have created is located. Give it name "Background". Then create a new layer for the next step. also name it "Circle".

Layer Panel

Create the Circle

Create a circle using the Ellipse Tool. Click anywhere in the artboard to open the Ellipse Panel, set the width and height to 400 pixel and change the stroke weight to 0.5 point.

the Circle with Ellipse Panel

Another Tutorial:
How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 1
How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 2
How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 3

How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 4

Give it a Gradient Color

Set the Fill to none and for the Stroke give it a Gradient Color. 

Open the Gradient Panel in the Window menu. 

On the Gradient Annotator, change the colors of the existing two Color Stops to light gray. And create another Color Stop in the middle with location of 80% and for the position of the mid point on the left change its position to 20% and the other one to 80%, and give it a darker gray color. Lastly, change the angle to 45 degrees.

Gradient Panel

Duplicate the Circle to Create Spirograph

Now we're going to duplicate this circle to form a spirograph by using Transform. 

Go to the Effect menu > Distort & Transform & Transform.

On the Transform Effect Panel, let the Horizontal and Vertical Scale remain at 100% position. 

For the Horizontal Move, set it to 17 pixels, and the Vertical Move to 9 pixels. For the rotation angle, fill with 14 degrees, Copies to 179. For the options just leave it like that. 

Transform Effect Panel

You can also experiment with these numbers to get different results, you don't have to make the same as I did here and when it's finished just click okay.

And the circle we made earlier now turns into a spirograph form just by using the transform Effect in Adobe Illustrator

Spirograph

At first glance, it's looks like a three-dimensional donut, that's because we gave the previous base circle a gradient color to the stroke. Otherwise if we just give the circle a flat white color the result will look less dimensionless and it's look like usual spirograph.

Create Colorful Gradient

Now it's time to give it a Colorful gradient. 

For the Gradient Color that we will give to this spirograph it is not enough just by directly give it some color. Keep in mind, that this is just a line that is duplicated using a Transform. So it's not a complete object that we can color it directly. 

After all we've given a black and white gradient to the Stroke.

I have tried another ways by expanding it and making it as an object path, and giving it a Freeform Gradient. But this kind of method makes my pc work very slowly and the resulting color also looks dark and saturated.

So I tried another way namely by using the Mesh Tool. 

Previously I have prepared some colors here, you can use these color if you want to try to create this colorful circle in Adobe Illustrator.

Create a rectangle by using The Rectangle Tool in the Toolbar following the size of the artboard. 

For a while, color it with red.

Open the Transparency Panel or you can find it in the Window menu and search for Transparency. 

Change the Blending Mode from Normal to Color on the Transparency Panel.

Transparency Panel

This Color Blending Mode creates a Result Color with the luminance of the Base Color and the Hue and Saturation of the Blend Color. This preserves the gray levels in the image and is useful for coloring monochrome images and for tinting colors.

That's the reason why I've grayed out this base circle. Because if we use white or black color then the Blend Color has no effect on the Result Color.

You can see what happens if we lift the rectangle out of this spirograph.

The Red Spirograph 

As we can see here, which is affected by the red color only the spirograph lines which are on gray color. And the black background is not affected at all. For this reason I chose the Color type of blending mode.

For a while, the results we get look perfect. We just need to give it a few more colors to make it look more perfect.

Create Mesh Lines

Select this red rectangle then activate the Mesh Tool on the Toolbar. Create meshes like this with 2 horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines, you can make 3 or more if you want multiple colors. 

Mesh Lines

The intersections of these lines are also called anchor points. You can select it by using Direct Selection Tool and we can put the colors we want on this anchor points.

Coloring the Anchor Points of The Mesh

Select one Anchor Point by using Direct Selection Tool. After one of the Anchor Point has been selected the go the Swatches Panel and pick a color to apply to this Anchor Point.

The Rest, we just need to do the same with the other three Anchor Points.

Spirograph with Colorful Gradient Color

Now we're done coloring this Spirograph or Colorful Circle. But if you are still not satisfied with the color arrangement, you can edit each Anchor Point to adjust the position of each Anchor Points. Besides that you can still add a few more meshes to add more color to the circle.

And we're done creating this colorful spirograph.
If you have questions about this video or this artwork, please write in the comments, I really appreciate it. 

Another Tutorial:
How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 1
How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 2
How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 3

How To Create Realistic Neon Light Effect In Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Part. 4