I love Adobe Illustrator for its power to produce awesome artwork with just basic tools and techniques. In today’s tutorial we’re going to use nothing but Illustrator’s Blend tool to create a wireframe that’s so detailed you would think it was made in a complex 3D programs. By just drawing a few basic paths with your mouse, Illustrator can generate a series of intricate lines that resembles an animal skull. It takes a little trial and error to find the perfect layout, but once you do the results are epic!
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I’ll be creating this wireframe longhorn buffalo skull as part of this tutorial, but the technique works for any kind of animal head. Stags, rams and bulls are all great subjects to play with. Their horns can be tricky, but they produce the most striking results.
Find a reference photo of an animal skull and place it into an Illustrator document. I’m using this Long Horn Buffalo Skull image from Shutterstock. Reduce the Transparency of the image to around 50%, then press CMD+2 to lock it into place to avoid accidentally selecting it.
Chris I’ve been using the blend tool for a long time and it never occurred to me to use it this way! Nice down and dirty trick! Thanks for the great tutorial.
It’s one of those tools that can be used in all kinds of different ways. It’s also great for blending colours together too.
Cool!
Nice one!, really simple and great effect also didn’t realise you could add gradients to strokes so learned something there ;)
Chris Brillaint Tutorial from your side! I’m following your videos on YouTube and almost tried everyone of them.. Hopping to see more awesome stuff from you.
Thanks for taking the time to watch my videos too, Saqib.
I’ll have to create one based on this technique sometime in the future.
Really awesome, will try this in my work. Thanks for sharing Chris.
I am SOOOO trying this right now!!
Thanks Chris!
Neat effect.
Chris…you just keep knocking me out!
Darn, that’s real brilliant, Chris. I’ve been using the Blend Tool a lot, and it’s one of my favorite tools, but I’ve never seen it being used in this light. Thanks!
Awwsome .. Chris !
Cheers :)
thank your informasi
Great tutorial! Easy to follow along and great practice with the blend tool. Thanks!
wow cool! how i can do that..
cool use of the blend tool. Gee wish i had a ranch as a client right NOW. : )-
This is just outstanding! Taking animal Skulls and make this amazing concept is brilliant… Thumbs up!!
Ridiculously awesome post. Thanks so much!