How to make a fill of "squished together" shapes?

[bronwync37571152]

I have been hunting for a quick way to make something like the attached pic. I.e. put a whole lot of circles together, then make them distort to avoid overlapping. Illustrator does it very well in pattern brushes with the "stretch to fit" option, but that's only on strokes - I need a fill, and I need it to be slightly irregular. I can do it tiny bit at a time by averaging two points in each overlap, but that would take forever in a large thing. I have made a pattern fill that's ALMOST right, but there is still an obvious repetition and the edges of the bits get cropped.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

You could apply a cell-like pattern to a circle, then Expand the Pattern (Object > Expand), and apply a Fisheye Warp (Effect > Warp > Fisheye).

In the attached the Fisheye Effect was applied twice to this default Pattern in the Appearance panel. Then a Circle was used as a Mask (Object > Clipping Mask > Make)

[bronwync37571152]

That would be fine once I got the pattern. It's the pattern I need to make - the cells don't want to be all exactly the same shape and size.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Find some images of cells under a microscope: skin cells under microscope

Trace them with the Pen tool, Group them (Object > Group). Then apply the Fisheye Effect twice to the cells, and use a circle as a Mask.

This should give you the irregular look you want.

[bronwync37571152]

If I wanted traced cells I could just trace cells, yes. But I don't, I want "cartoony" cells that look as though they are the same sort of cells as the ones I draw with brushes, like the attached. I also want to be able to do it with "blobs" of lipid. With these brushes I can vary size and rotation slightly to make them look less uniform and more realistic (in a cartoony way), and that's what I want to be able to do with a fill. I can do concentric circles made with these brushes, and they look sort of OK, but Illustrator doesn't squish the cells in the different concentric circles against each other the way it does with the cells in the SAME circle. Also attached. They overlap, which I don't want.

[tromboniator]

You might be able to approximate it with envelope distort, but I think you may still be stuck with tedious to get it where you want it.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

Now that I'm thinking about it, forget the Pattern. Just draw a bunch of cells totally flat, Group them (Object > Group). Then apply the Fisheye Effect twice to the cells, and use a circle as a Mask.

[bronwync37571152]

It's drawing the cells I want to do quickly. Easy enough for just a few, but when I need lots and lots it's extraordinarily tedious. As I've said, they want to be not identical, but I need lots of them. And they need to butt up against each other, but not overlap.

Ideally I'd like to be able to draw a circle, then draw another circle, push it against the first and have the abutting parts distort to flatness, then add another circle and push it up against the first two, etc etc. As if I were joining bubbles together in real life.

[Jeff Witchel, ACI]

You may want to take a look at the Pattern Libraries that comes with Illustrator, specifically Nature_Animal Skins. (Window > Swatch Libraries > Patterns > Nature > Nature_Animal Skins)

Apply a Pattern such as Cheetah to an object, then double click on the Swatch that will get added to your Swatches panel. This will allow you to deconstruct the Pattern. Change the colors and add or delete shapes that are being used.

It will also help you see exactly how a Pattern like this is created.

Please see attached.

[bronwync37571152]

Yes, I know how to do this. None of the animal skin patterns are close enough together, the edges need to butt against each other. But I’ll have a hunt for other patterns and see what I can find. I guess it’s just not possible to do what I want.