Starry Sky with Illustrator’s Symbol Sprayer

CATEGORIES: Subscriber, Tutorials, illustrator tech | Adobe | February 16, 2007

Creating a nighttime sky star-by-star would be a tedious task. Instead, you can make a quick and lovely star-filled sky with just a few clicks of the Symbol Sprayer tool.

1
Use the Ellipse tool to create a small white circle. Drag this circle onto the Symbols palette (Shift+F11). Your circle should now show up as a new symbol. Double-click on your new symbol and name it “Star 1″.
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2
Now make a slightly smaller circle and drag it onto the Symbols palette. Name it “Star 2″. Create an even smaller circle and drag it onto the Symbols palette as well, naming it “Star 3″. You should now have three new symbols.
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3
Double-click the Symbol Sprayer tool from the toolbar to open the Symbol Sprayer palette. For now, set the Diameter to 3 in., the Intensity to 8, and the Symbol Density to 5. Make sure all the options on the bottom are set to Average. There are many different options for the Symbol Sprayer, and you can experiment with these settings on your own to create unique effects later.
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4
Click on Star 1 in the Symbols palette. Click-and-drag your cursor across your background, loosely but evenly covering it with the Star 1 symbols. To place an individual star, just click once. You can also create a couple “constellations” by grouping some of the star symbols close to each other. Repeat this step with Star 2 and Star 3 from the Symbols palette.
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5
Select all your Star 1 symbols with the Selection tool. In the Transparency palette (Shift+F10), drag the slider bar till the Opacity is set at 25%. Now select all the Star 2 symbols, and set their transparency to 75%. Leave the Star 3 symbols at 100% opacity.
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6
Make sure all your stars are selected. Go to Effects>Stylize>Outer Glow. Set the Mode to Normal, the Opacity to 100%, and the Blur to .05 in. Double-click on the color square in the corner of the Outer Glow palette, and set the color to white. As in Step Three, there is much room for experimentation at this stage, so feel free to play around with these settings to achieve your desired results.
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And there you have it, the dazzling celestial heavens in a few easy steps!
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