Quickest Way to Make Specific Shape

[DDmUSA]

What is the quickest method to create the pale yellow shape with the numerous fingers that exists within the brown circle ?

[Monika Gause]

Make astar with many points.

WHile dragging the star tool and with mouse still down you can press arrow-up-key to increase number of points. Also press Cmd resp Ctrl to change the pointiness of spikes.

Then apply a thick stroke with rounded corners.

[sishamIAGD · Accepted solution]

Similar to how Monika said to be honest...

I jut selected the star tool clicked and then selected 'Radius 1: 5mm' then 'Radius 2: 18mm' then finally 'Points: 60'. Then added a stroke of 3pt and rounded corners.

This is the result I got:

[lo21]

There are a couple of ways. One is to make one shape, we'll call it a petal, and duplicate it around a circle.

1. Make horizontal and vertical guidelines, so they cross in the middle of the page. This is so you have a mid point.

2. Make one petal, the one at the top (12 o'clock position) Keep it selected with the Selection tool. make sure its lined up on the vertical guide and above the horizontal guide.

3. Click once on the Rotate Tool in the tools. (or hit R on your keyboard)

4. Hold Option or Alt, then click on the mid point where the guidelines meet. (petal is still selected)

5. This brings up a dialog box. Type in 360/36 (the 36 is the number of petals that you want, I didn't count yours) This formula is saying that there are 360 degrees in a circle, and you divide 360 by the number of petals that you want. Your answer is the number of degrees the one petal is rotating to make the second petal.

5. Hit OK, then choose Object>Transform>Transform Again. This will make another petal. keep choosing Transform Again, or hit Command D or CTRL D to keep making petals around the circle, until you get back to the beginning.

This will make an absolutely perfect shape. I think yours looks a little hand drawn, so you can them adjust each petal individually.

Another way would be to

1. Draw a circle

2. Object>Path>Add anchor points (you'll have to play with the number to get what you want.) if you have 4 points on a circle, the default, then you'll have 4 petals.

3. Choose Effect>Distort & Transform> Pucker and Bloat.

4. Turn on Preview and move the slider towards Bloat to get what you are looking for.

5. Again, this is perfect, so you might have to choose Object >Expand Appearance to remove and apply the Effect so you can modify all the points with the direct selection tool.

I hope one of these helps.

[DDmUSA]

Thanks for the reply.  I tried making one petal, to then follow your instructions, but I must not be doing something correctly.  To make the initial petal, I used the pen tool and drew a slanted line vertically, then drew a line across, and then drew the third line down the other side to complete the shape.  To make this shape look like a petal, I rounded the top corners, which resulted in a point at the bottom.  Maybe I am not making the correct petal shape to fully learn this approach.

[Monika Gause]

So the star approach is too simple and too quick for you?

[lo21]

If you want just a quick solution, the star solutions that have been mentioned above are very simple and quick.

If you want to make it with one petal going around a circle, then to make the one petal, I would probably just start out by making an oval - tall and thin. You could also make a rounded corner rectangle. Any shape will work

This is the guides, and the oval with a orange fill

this is after the one oval has been rotated around the center point. It will look different depending on how thick, tall or wide your oval is and how many you choose.

[lo21]

In Step 5 above, (first answer)  I said to click OK. that should be to click the COPY button.

[DDmUSA]

I had realized on my own that I could make a star, and use the up arrow to create additional points, to then round the corners.  The gap between each of the petals should be less, so I could re-shape the initial petal to have a smaller gap in between.  Thanks again for all of the suggestions.

[rcraighead]

Looks like you have plenty of good answers.