In this video, you'll assemble this rocket using the pieces on the left and you'll explore reflecting, shearing, rotating and other transformations.
With Illustrator CC open, open this practice file for this tutorial to follow along.
And to make sure you see all the artwork, choose View, Fit All in Window.
The flame shape you see here is only half drawn.
It needs to be copied and then flipped to create the second half.
So, to select the flame shape, select the Selection tool and click to select it.
And to zoom in a little bit closer to it, choose View, Zoom In.
To make a copy of the shape, choose Edit, Copy, and then choose Edit, Paste in Place.
There is now a copy right on top of the original in the same place.
To flip the copy, in the Properties panel, select the bottom center point of this reference point right here.
Now the points in this little box correspond to the points you see around the shape.
That means the flame shape will flip across this point on the shape.
Click the Flip Along vertical axis button to flip it across the bottom center point on the shape.
Now you rotate these shapes, you can add them to the rocket.
So, press and drag across them.
Then, to rotate them, just move the pointer off of a corner around the box here.
When the rotate arrows appear, you can begin dragging to rotate it.
As you're dragging, press the Shift key to rotate it in 45-degree increments.
When it looks like this, release the mouse button and then the key.
To move them into position, just drag the flame shapes up here.
When they're about right here, release.
These yellow flame shapes need to be behind the orange flame shapes.
So, what you can do is you can arrange the objects to do that. choose Object, Arrange, Send to Back.
The yellow shapes are now behind your shapes.
This group of rocket shapes is only half drawn, and it needs to be copied and reflected to create a whole rocket.
To move up so you can see it, press the Spacebar and drag with the Hand tool, then release the Spacebar.
Click to select the Rocket Group.
What you're going to do is you're going to make a copy of it right on top of the original, then you reflect the copy.
So, to copy it, choose Edit, Copy and then Edit, Paste in Place.
Now you reflect the copied rocket artwork using the Reflect tool.
To select the Reflect tool, press the Rotate tool on the Tools panel on the left, and select the Reflect tool from the menu of tools.
Now, the crosshairs you see right here in the center of the artwork is actually where you'll reflect around by default.
Now, this rocket artwork should really reflect around the right edge.
That way you don't have to move this copy after it's reflected.
Move the pointer over the right edge of the selected artwork. and when you see the word Path, click to set the reflect around point.
To reflect the copy, begin dragging out here.
As you drag, press the Shift key to constrain it to 45 degrees.
When it looks like this, release the mouse button and then the key.
Now, this circle over here will actually become a series of windows on the rocket.
You'll drag it onto the rocket and make a few evenly spaced copies.
So, select the Selection tool and drag the circle onto the rocket right about here.
To make it a little bit easier to see, zoom in by choosing View, Zoom In.
Now you'll drag a copy from this circle.
So, press the Option key on Mac OS or Alt key on Windows, and drag this circle to the right.
Release the mouse button and then the key to make a copy.
Now to make a third copy, you can have Illustrator CC repeat what you just did using the transform again command. choose Object, Transform, Transform Again.
The final step is to apply a shear transformation to make these lighter blue rectangles look like a reflection in this window using the Shear tool.
So, click to select these shapes, then to select the Sheer tool, press and hold on the Reflect tool on the Tools panel and select it.
Move your pointer over here and drag to the right. as you drag, press this Shift key to constrain the movement.
When they look something like this, release the mouse button and then the key.
To move this window onto the rocket, you're going to select all the shapes.
So, select a Selection tool, and drag across the window shapes and drag them into the center of the rocket here.
Now, to finish the artwork, so you can see everything again, choose View, Fit All in Window.
Select all the rocket artwork by dragging across it, then drag it onto the artwork to the right about here.
And to rotate the rocket, you can also set a rotation angle on the Properties panel here.
So, choose 330 from the Rotate menu.
There really are a lot of ways to transform artwork in Illustrator CC.
The more ways you know, the easier it will be for you to be creative.
