Hello everyone this is Chris from Spoon Graphics
back with another video tutorial for Adobe Illustrator.
A big new movie trailer was released recently for Thor Ragnorok, which features a pretty
cool 80s inspired chrome text effect in the title art.
I've already produced a tutorial on how to create such an effect in Adobe Photoshop,
so I thought I'd use this example to show how similar effects can be created in Illustrator.
We'll use Illustrator's simple 3D tool to give the text that three dimensional appearance,
then create the shiny chrome look with a series of gradient fills.
So begin by creating a new document in Adobe Illustrator.
I'm going for a generic A4 layout but with the units set to Pixels and the color mode
as RGB.
We'll be using some raster effects, so make sure these are set to high.
Select the Rectangle tool and clear out the default white fill by clicking the none icon.
Switch the black stroke over to use it as the fill colour.
Draw a rectangle to cover the entire artboard from top left to bottom right, aligning it
carefully to each corner.
The default black in Illustrator is actually the CMYK black, so since we're using the RGB
colour mode we can make this black even blacker by moving the colour sliders to zero.
Go to Object > Lock > Selection to avoid accidentally moving this shape out of place.
There's a couple of free display fonts that are a good match to what's used in the official
Thor Ragnarok logo, named Dameron and Modi Thorson.
Dameron in particular is pretty much spot on, but Modi Thorson is the closest I could
find for the word Ragnarok.
Set out the two words of Thor and Ragnarok in their respective fonts, then adjust the
sizing and kerning as necessary.
Use the align buttons in the top toolbar to centre them up.
With both text elements selected, go to Effect > 3D > Extrude and Bevel.
Change the settings to 14, 0, 0 for the orientation, with a perspective of 45 degrees.
Click the More Options button, then change the Blend steps to zero.
Check the preview icon to see the effect in action.
If you notice some of the faces are missing, a quick fix for this glitch is to increase
the rotation to 1 degree, then back to zero.
Go to the Object menu and select Expand Appearance to permanently apply this 3D effect, then
right click and select Ungroup.
Right click and select Ungroup again to completely break apart all the pieces.
Apply a Gradient fill to all the shapes, then double click the first gradient swatch.
By default Illustrator only using the K channel, so quickly add a random swatch to bring up
the RGB values, then configure the colour to 115, 0, 0.
Change the other colour in the gradient flow to 35, 0, 0.
In some areas of the 3D effect, particularly any curved surfaces, the outline is split
into numerous pieces.
Hold the shift key and select these shapes and click the Unite button from the Pathfinder
panel to neaten up each letter.
Currently all the gradients are flowing in the same direction.
It's a tedious process for just a subtle change, but randomly changing the gradient flow for
each shape improves the overall appearance.
Use the gradient tool to click and drag a different direction for each shape.
You can quickly toggle back to the selection tool to click the next shape by holding the
CMD key.
Hold the shift key and select the four letter faces that make up the word Thor.
Right click and select Group, then change the first gradient colour to yellow, which
is 255, 255, 0 in RGB values.
Change the second gradient colour to a darker orange of 255, 140, 0.
Hold the ALT key, then click and drag the gradient swatches to make an alternating series
of colours between yellow and orange, then tidy them up by evenly spacing them out.
Change the gradient angle to 90 degrees so the bands flow horizontally across the type.
With the text faces still selected, go to Object > Path > Offset Path.
Enter -3px in the options.
Drag away all the additional swatches in the gradient setup to remove them, leaving just
a basic yellow to orange gradient.
Make sure the flow begins with orange at the bottom, so change the angle to -90 degrees.
Activate the Stroke setting in the toolbar, then apply the yellow swatch that's available
below it.
Change the setting to Align to Inside from within the Stroke panel.
Shift and select all the letter faces that make up the word Ragnarok, then group them
together.
Go to Edit > Copy, followed by Edit > Paste in Front.
Change the first gradient swatch of this word's fill to 214, 255, 255.
Add an extra swatch in the middle and use a light blue of 100, 230, 255, then alter
the darkest colour to 0, 50.
150.
Alter the angle to 90 degrees so the gradient flows from the darker blue at the top.
Select the Line tool and clear out the gradient fill, replacing it with just a black stroke.
Draw a straight line from one side of the word to the other while holding the Shift
key.
Increase the stroke weight to 3pt, then hold the ALT key and nudge upwards with the cursor
key to make a duplicate.
Position this second line around halfway up the text, then reduce the stroke weight to
1pt.
Add the first line to the selection, then go to Object > Blend > Make.
Head straight back to Object > Blend > Blend Options.
Change the settings to Specified Steps, then set the number to around 5.
Move the blended lines so there's an even gap at the bottom of the text, then go to
Object > Expand.
This first expand command has converted the Blend into stroked paths, but we need to expand
again to convert the paths into outlined shapes.
Click on the Ragnarok text faces group, then go to Object > Compound Path > Make.
Add the blended lines to the selection, then click the Minus Front button in the Pathfinder
panel to punch out the lines from the text.
Grab the Direct Selection tool from the toolbar and select all the upper portions of each
letter.
Give them a white stroke and align it to the inside.
We can make the little dividing line from the official logo by adding a small circle
with the ellipse tool.
Clear out the white stroke, then alter the gradient to flow from a single blue swatch
to black, but change the opacity of the black swatch to zero.
Change the gradient type from Linear to Radial.
This circle can now be squashed and stretched out to form a long glow line.
The main text effect is complete, but we can add a few more finishing touches to replicate
the cosmic background where the logo appears in the trailer.
Go to Object > Unlock All to activate the background rectangle, then select the Gradient
Mesh tool.
Click somewhere in the upper left region, and again somewhere in the lower right to
add some mesh points.
Use the Direct Selection tool to select each mesh point in turn and add a subtle blue colour.
I'm using 20, 30, 40 for the first one, 20, 20, 30 for the second, 15, 20, 25 for the
third and 10, 15, 20 for the last one, all of which are really subtle variances of the
same dark grey-blue colour.
Select the Ellipse tool and draw a small circle somewhere on the artboard.
Change its fill to the previously used radial gradient, but change the first colour to white.
Switch over to the Transparency panel and change the blending mode to Color Dodge to
allow the gradient to interact with those subtle colours in the background.
Create a new symbol out of this gradient circle, then delete the original.
Select the Symbol Sprayer from the toolbar and click and drag a series of little stars
all around the artboard.
Click and hold the Symbol Sprayer tool group to select the Symbol Sizer, then hold the
Alt key while randomly clicking to reduce the size of some stars.
Repeat the process with the Symbol Screener to fade some of them out, giving this space
background a little more depth as if some stars are further away than others.
Right click and go to Arrange > Send to Back, followed by Bring Forward, to position the
stars behind the text but on top of the gradient background.
Or use the Shortcuts CMD+Shift+[ and CMD+]
The entire collection of stars can also be toned down by reducing the opacity to around
70%.
In some empty space elsewhere in the document, draw a straight vertical line and give it
a white stroke.
Select the rotate tool and click on the lowermost point, then hold the ALT key and drag a copy,
positioning it at a random angle.
Repeat the process of plotting the rotate pivot point, then dragging out some duplicate
lines at random angles, then adjust the stroke weights between 1 and 6pts.
Draw a selection around all these lines, then Copy and Paste in Front a couple of duplicates,
rotating each one to increase the number of flared lines.
Select all the lines, then go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
Enter 50 pixels, then position them centrally over the main artboard.
Hold the Alt key to stretch out the flared lines so they extend beyond the artboard edges.
Change the blending mode to Color Dodge at 10%.
The final result replicates the shiny chrome effect of the Thor Ragnarok title logo pretty
well, and shows how you can create some really cool retrowave style text effects in full
vector.
So I hope these tips come in handy for your future projects.
Be sure to stick around on my channel by hitting the subscribe button if you want to stick
around for more, and don't forget to check out my older Photoshop based tutorial for
creating a similar 80s style chrome text effect.
As always thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.