Happy Holidays Snow Globe

Snow Globe Illustration

I created the illustration below to share with the AiBURN community for the holidays. It represent my family on christmas morning. The snowman with the top hat represents me. The snowwoman with the pink/purple scarf and cap represents my wife. The little guy represents my son looking super happy about to open up all his presents.

I also want to review how symbols where used to create the snow in this globe. This tutorial will cover numerous techniques for working with the Symbol Sprayer Tools.

Making Snow with the Symbol Sprayer Tools

We are going to use one shape to create all of our snow. I looked at some pictures of snow globes and found that sometimes the shapes used for the snow is something other than a sphere. So to be different I decided to use a colored triangle. First step is to draw your shape at approximately the size you want to use it at. The shape below is zoomed in on so you can see the gradient. I drew a triangle and gave it a white to blue gradient. Then open the Symbols Pallette Window > Symbols (Shift + Command/Ctrl + F11) and drag and drop the shape into the Palette.

Make sure your new symbol is selected in the Symbols Palette. Then grab the Symbol Sprayer Tool from the Tools Palette (Shift + S). In the Illustration below I detached the Tool Set from the Tools Palette. In the first panel at top left you can see that I focus on one area of the illustration. I didn't spray across the whole globe at once, but rather worked on one area at a time. In Panel One at top left you can see the bottom right hand corner of the globe being worked on. Panel Two at top center shows the Symbol Spinner Tool in action. This tool is good for changing the direction of your symbols. Next up top right is the Symbol Sizer Tool. This can make the shapes larger by default. I held down the option key while using this tool and that makes the symbols smaller.

Now view the lower row of screenshots. The Symbol Scruncher Tool is used to bring shapes closer together. When shapes are sprayed onto the canvas with the Symbol Sprayer Tool the shapes get pushed further from the center of where you are spraying the longer you hold down the mouse. The Scruncher Tool will move these symbols closer to the center of where you are pointing. The next tool used in the bottom center panel is the Symbol Screener Tool. This tool is really cool. I've found that to get good results you have to move the tool fairly fast. I selected a 30 percent black fill for screening the object and then quickly moved the tool over some of the symbols. It added depth to the snow in the illustration.

The final panel at bottom right shows the results. The bounding box encompasses the area of symbols we just created. There are a couple tools I didn't use for this illustration in the Sprayer Palette. Try them out to get a feel for everything these tools can do. Also, hit return while any of these tools are selected and it will bring up the Symbolism Tools Options Box where you can make adjustments to things like the Diameter or Intensity of the spray. Hints are given in this dialogue box on how to use shortcuts with these tools.

After completing one section of the globe I copy, drag, rotate, and resize that symbol group around the globe to fill the whole globe with the snow symbols. You could also go in and spray some more or make any adjustments you feel necessary with the Sprayer Tools. I found that focusing on one area at a time is more effective than trying to spray the whole globe at once.

Happy Holidays

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you are getting some much needed rest and family time during the Holiday Season. If you have any questions on how other parts of this illustration were created let me know in the comments below.