I saw few Illustrator tutorials in the web, but i didn’t really like the final image, so I had to think and find the right way for drawing a more realistic disco ball… If you are interested, please see below the instruction :)
Create a New Document and then create a rectangular shape (I choosed ~ 175*175px). Fill it with bright radial gradient. Rasterize your image. In the top menu go to Object-Rasterize and just clik “ok” not changing anything there. Then enlarge your square a bit (~150%)
Now go to the Filter-Create-Object Mosaic and play with numbers there. I choosed:
Tile spacing = 1px for both width and height
Number of Tiles =30 (again for both)
Check ‘Delete Raster’ box.
Now we’ve got a nicemosaic. Reduce the size of the image back to the 175*175px.
Select the rectangular and drag and drop it into the Symbols panel.
Now create a circle (mine is ~175*175px as well), make a copy of it and delete its left anchor point with Direct Selection Tool (white arrow). We will need the full circle later so do not accidentaly delete it please.
After that go to Effect-3D - Revolve. Change numbers there following the picture below, change Surface to “No Shading” and go to the Map Art.
In the Map Art window in the drop down menu choose your mosaic symbol we created before. Icrease or decrease its size if necessary.
Now go to the Object - Expand Appearance.
So now we have to delete all rubbish from the picture. Select the shere and press Ctrl-Shift-G three times. Then click on the shere again and move it to any side. Select the rubbish and delete it.
Select a circle we made before (the one we left aside before creating the 3d effect), fill it with the same radial gradient, put it underneath the mosaic (Ctrl+shift+[ ) and align them using the align panel (Shift+F7).
Release Cliping Mask and Ungroup tiles (Ctrl+Shift+G).
So now it’s time to use your imagination to make our disco ball looks more shiny and real.
At first, lets highlight some tiles: randomly select some tiles in the lightest area of the ball; go to Live Color (Edit-Edit Colors-Recolor Artwork). Click on Edit (1), then Link Harmony Colors (2), then increase Brightness to maximum (100%) and decrease Saturation to about 30-40% or more/less (depends on your colors).
Now select another tiles, go to Edit colors again and play with their colors there (make them darker or lighter… It’s better to change Brightness and Saturation only. Unless you want your disco ball looks more colorfull). Keep doing “select-edit colors” until you are satisfied with result.
Now lets add some sparkles to the highlighted areas. Draw a 4 points star with the Star Tool (see numbers for use below). Scale it (~50%), copy and paste in front (Ctrl+F), rotate 90’ and scale (50%) again. Now we have a nice sparkle. Place sparkles to the highlighted area of your disco ball.
Add a holder (just a simple rectangular with a gradient fill). That’s it - we’ve got an disco ball! :)
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Waw! Superuseful. Very nice tutorial and illustration.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Thanks :)
I hope it will help someone one day
November 3rd, 2008 at 6:26 am
awesome dude..
November 12th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
hi, yours it’s the very first tutorial I really wanted to do, inmediately you wanna try it and see what you can get. I was trying to do a disco ball to emulate that one on Justin Timberake’s FutureSexLoveSounds, and it justs looks great.
I’m sorry if I’m anoying or something, can you make a tutorial about that background where you had put the disco ball? pls :P
Oh, THANK YOU SO MUCH
November 13th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Ok, here I am again
Just to show you what I’ve done thanks to you ^^
http://safestplacetohide.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/another-song-all-over-again/
It’s a blog in spanish language, but c’mon, music’s the whole human kind language
Like Madonna says “Music makes the people come together”
Thanks again
November 14th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
angel06, thank you for the good words! :) I’m glad that you found this tutorial useful.
The image you created was very nice even though it’s b/w image! I hope i will find some time to create some new tutorials here.
Good luck
November 14th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
angel06,
i will create a tutorial for the background. i promise :)
November 19th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
woooowww really fantastic tutorial, GREAT
November 21st, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Okay, and I promise use it in one of that creations you’ve seen ^^
I love what you’ve done, I repeat again. And thanks for your words too
Man, you’ve saved my life
January 10th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
OK i dont understand these two parts where you “Select the shere and press Ctrl-Shift-G three times.” and “Release Cliping Mask and Ungroup tiles (Ctrl+Shift+G).”
why are you doing these steps and why cant i get them to work. ( to be more exact i cant get the two spheres to fusion..)
and im a naab! =D
January 12th, 2009 at 2:07 am
jens, all these steps are for removing “garbage” from the image which we always have on the image after expanding 3d effect. You have just ungroup all and remove everything except “tiles”.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
very simple but amazing effects. I tried it myself and it works like magic. This technique can be expanded to many other 3D shapes.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 2:21 am
beautiful tuts, Thank you so much.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
awesome tut Thanks
June 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
June 18th, 2009 at 12:48 am
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
June 19th, 2009 at 1:12 am
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial [...]
June 19th, 2009 at 6:59 am
cool work, great.. thanks
June 20th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
That’s really amazing. Thank you. :)
June 21st, 2009 at 2:56 am
Freakin’ awsome! thanks!!
June 24th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
[...] Tutorial [...]
June 26th, 2009 at 1:31 am
[...] View Tutorial No Comment var addthis_pub=”izwan00″; BOOKMARK This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 7:00 am and is filed under Illustrator Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]
July 7th, 2009 at 2:20 am
hey can u please give me the download link for this image i really love it but i dont have illustrator =(
July 9th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
supercool tutorial ms mosquito! thanks for sharing.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:47 am
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll sense how to emanate a disco round outcome in Illustrator. [...]
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:00 am
rEALLY GREAT! i AM SURPRISED
July 31st, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Hi dear
It’s so nice
I like it very much and i wana show you my sample
But my ps is old and i dont have object or creat so i used the firillary filter just to get the mini squares
http://www.iraqpics.net/images/iobd6d7z7pivngpt78dk.jpg
Thanks dear
August 4th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Hi mosquito
very nice tut, but i cant ungroup my 3d created mosaik ball. i pressed thounsand of times ungroup on it and it doesnt change. pls hepl.thx!!1
August 6th, 2009 at 5:08 am
oh, i found it, lol.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
well i have to download
August 7th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
well site we can learn quickly
August 12th, 2009 at 3:42 am
thank you very much?i learned a lot.
August 12th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
[...] 84.Disco Ball Tutorial [...]
August 30th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
September 10th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
[...] 15.Disco Ball Tutorial [...]
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Downloadable project would be nice :)
October 1st, 2009 at 6:14 am
[...] une boule à facette avec Illustrator ! Chez MOSQUITO’S PLACE Comments [0]Digg [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 9:49 am
WOW ! what an excellent and stunning tuts it is. Thanks for making it available to illustrator lovers
October 9th, 2009 at 7:30 am
When I make the symbol should it be graphic or movie?
I can’t expand the appearance, how can I move “the rubbish” if it doesn’t come off?
And how do I align the balls?
Then if I try to release the cliping mask, I can’t do that. I can only make one, why is that?
Please help, I need this tutorial :)
October 9th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Thank you! Its just what I wanted to learn!! Its a great great tutorial!! KISS
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a disco ball effect in Illustrator. [...]
November 18th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
i dont seem to have Live Color; i have live paint?? is it a CS3 or 4 upgrade. im in CS2. b
November 25th, 2009 at 10:29 am
impressive! thanks!
It’s a great tutorial! and I did learn from you.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Thanks a lot for beautyful tut and great illustration. I enjoy learning it this way.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
[...] 39. Disco Ball Tutorial [...]
December 25th, 2009 at 11:01 am
[...] 2010 naht und damit die Frage, “wie zum Geier werde ich ins neue Jahr rutschen?”. Hat man jetzt nicht gerade ein schweres Leiden oder ein paar Kleinkinder daheim, die als Legitimation für einen aufregenden Raclette-Abend herhalten können, dann kommt man kaum um ein exzessives Hineinfeiern herum. Und was gehört zu einer anständigen Party - genau, eine Discokugel. Da wir nun einmal ein Grafik- und Designblog sind, kann es hier nicht um die tatsächliche Anleitung zur Erstellung einer solchen gehen. Aber ein Illustrator-Tutorial zu diesem Motiv ist doch ein ganz guter Ersatz. Gefunden haben wir dieses auf mosquitosplace.com. [...]
December 29th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Human disco Boy
January 5th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
dear sir/madam
Hi I m janhavi. i dont understand. please help me?
January 9th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
good, but in my illustrator tools have not star tool, can you tell me please how i can find. i have adobe Illustrator CS4.
January 17th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
[...] man eine Vector Disco Kugel mit Illustrator erstellt, wird anhand dieses Tutorials [...]
January 23rd, 2010 at 2:34 am
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial [...]
January 26th, 2010 at 7:56 am
[...] Disco Ball Tutorial [...]
February 6th, 2010 at 12:37 am
Hello webmaster I like your post :)
February 8th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Hello
I´m not sure how you delete the circle with direct selection tool so
I did it with the scissors, or is better to do it with the direct selection tool?
Diana
February 8th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
btw I did it using Path finder (substract and it works too ) :)
February 8th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
WAW… This is incredible.. Thanks a lot!