Ask Ninja 12: Vector swirls and curls
Ninja January 21st, 2009
In one week, I got emails from 3 brides-to-be, 2 bands, and 1 curious student all asking:
Q. How did you create the swirls in your First Kiss Illustration?
First Kiss
A. I drew all the paths using Adobe Illustrator’s pen tool—no fancy shortcuts. This was before I discovered the handy swirl tool. I would endlessly tweak and make many trips to my local Kinkos for large-format prints.
Now, I wouldn’t leave you hanging. Here’s my tutorial on making swirls and curls in Adobe Illustrator. It does require basic knowledge of the pen tool. If you’re not familiar with the pen tool, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has a great pdf guide and practice exercises here.
And for the truly pressed, I’ve included links to free vector swirls and curls at the end of this post. Now, on with the tutorial.
Step 1—Draw a spiral
Click and hold down the mouse on the Line tool to reveal the other tools. Select the Spiral tool.
Click and drag outward. If you’re a bit of a control enthusiast, you can also click on your art board, and a Spiral Options window will appear. Here, you can enter the spiral radius, decay, spiral segments, and spiral direction. I’m using the default 80% of decay, 10 segments option.
Using the Direct Select tool (white arrow), you can choose points and drag them outward to alter the spiral’s decay. Or as mentioned above, you can change the decay in the Spiral Options window.
Set the stroke weight to 10 pts.
Step 2—Covert to outline and modify shape
Object > Path > Outline Stroke
I like to work in outline mode, so I can see stray points more easily and then delete them. To access Illustrator’s outline mode, hit ⌘ + y. If you’re on a PC, substitute the ⌘ symbol for the Ctrl key. To exit outline mode, hit the same key combination again.
Once in outline mode, use the Direct Select tool to choose points and drag them to alter the line weight of your swirl.
It will look like this in the normal viewing mode.
Step 3—Draw ornaments
Lock your swirl layer, and create a new layer above it. This is the layer where you will draw your ornaments. I named mine, “leafy bits.”
Be sure to turn on the Smart Guides and Snap to Point options. It will make drawing a lot easier.
Select the Pen tool and begin drawing abstract shapes. Use the Selection tool (black arrow) to move your designs and place them on the swirl.
Use the Direct Selection tool to select individual points and snap the points onto the swirl.
Continue using the Pen tool to create additional abstract shapes and snap them in place with the Direct Selection tool.
I made this last one fairly large to hide the awkward transition in the curl of the swirl.
Step 4—Create repeating basic shapes
Using the Ellipse tool, create an oval.
Then select the Convert anchor tool 
and click on the top of the oval. Now you have a leaf shape.
Hit e to manually scale the leaf. I pushed it inward for a more squished shape. To keep its proportions while scaling, hold down the shift key while dragging outward. Use the Direct Selection tool to place the leaf.
Copy and paste additional leaves.
To make crescent shapes, select the Ellipse tool and create a circle. Next, select the Convert Anchor tool and click the top and bottom points of the circle. Use the Direct Selection tool to select the left anchor point and move it inward. Now adjust the arms of the anchors until you have a crescent you are happy with.
Use the Selection tool to move and place the crescent.
Copy, paste, and place additional crescents and build the ornamentation on the swirl.
Hit e and scale the crescents. Use the Direct Selection tool to drag the arms and points to vary their shapes.
Hit ⌘ + y to exit outline mode. This is what the final swirl looks like.
I hope you enjoyed that tutorial. Good luck!
Happy drawing,
Ninja ^______^
Got any more burning questions? Feel free to email me at ninja [at] ninjavspenguin [dot] com. Penguin is also available to answer questions, too! He can be reached at penguin [at] ninjavspenguin [dot] com.
Free vector downloads
Created by Jennifer of jlwdesign
+ Download Swirly Curls: Vector Garden symbol set here
Created by Createsk8
+ Download Swirly Curls: Mother Nature’s Bad Hair Day here
Created by Ann Storer
+ Download Vector Ornaments here
