Illustrator Warp Tools: Part 6 The Scallop Tool

Adobe Illustrator has a collection of tools under the Warp Tool set, all for the purpose of molding and reshaping objects.  Here’s a list of the tools I’ve covered so far:

• PART 1: Warp Tool (molds objects with the movement of the cursor)
• PART 2: Width Tool (allows you to create a stroke with a variable width)
• PART 3: Twirl Tool (creates swirling distortions within an object)
• PART 4: Pucker Tool (deflates an object by moving control points towards the cursor’s center)
• PART 5: Bloat Tool ( inflates an object by moving control points away from the cursor’s center)

In this post I’ll be looking into the Scallop Tool and what you can do with it.

The Scallop Tool

This warp tool adds random curved details to the outline of an object.  Here’s the button for the Scallop Tool:

Using the Scallop Tool around the edges of shapes will create a curvy pattern around them.  If the brush’s cross-hairs are outside the shape when this is done, then the curves will be convex (going outwards).  But if the brush’s cross-hairs are going around the inside edge of the shape then the curves will be concave (going inwards):

Making the Scallop Tool brush larger then the object your using it on can be used to create a flash or sunburst effect:

As you can imagine, this would be a great tool to illustrate an image of the sun.  Create a yellow square with the Rectangle Tool and then select the Scallop Tool with a brush larger then the square and click over it.

Next you’ll need to give the shape a gradient in order to give it that sun-like appearance.

Make sure the shape is selected and in the Gradient Panel (Window > Gradient) set the Type to Radial.  You need 3 swatches here in different positions: white (rgb 255, 255, 255) at Location 0%, a light yellow (255, 255, 55) at Location 37.5% and white again at Location 100%.

Next, copy & past the shape.  Rotate 25 degrees, make the opacity 30% and go Object > Arrange > Send to Back.  Finally move the copied shape right under the original one in the center:

And there you go!

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