Random Free Vectors Part 3 – Flowers

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Like them or not, flowers are a huge part of current design trends. Open any mainstream design magazine and you'll surely find them plastered everywhere, not to mention the web, as well as TV commercials and the advertising industry. I've put together a few detailed vector flowers for you to use in your designs and experiment with. Because of the detail in these vectors, it allows you to pick them apart and make more complex designs, from just a few simple vectors. The example below is made from only 3 flowers.

Random Free Vectors Part 3 - Flowers

Flower 1

Flower 1

Download: Flower 1

Flower 2

Flower 2

Download: Flower 2

Flower 3

Flower 3

Download: Flower 3

Tips for exploring this on your own:

1. Adjust all of the colors of the flower at once

You can select an entire group of paths and adjust all of the colors at the same time by going to Filter > Colors > Adjust colors. This is more or less like adjusting the Hue in Photoshop, but you have to actually adjust the RGB sliders. This is most likely much faster than choosing individual paths and changing the fills one at a time, if all you want is a different overall color. Tip: Before you apply the filter, zoom in so you get a better preview. The object has to be selected while you apply the colors, and the path highlights can get in the way.

Adjust Colors

Adjust the sliders to get the “Hue” you want, and Illustrator will adjust all of the different fill colors at the same time.

Red Green and Blue

Example Result:

Changing the flower

2. Use Illustrator's “Rotate” effect to create a little variety from the original flower.

You can take your original flower and make variations of it using “rotate” in the Effect menu. This will change up the orientation a bit, and give you a little more variety to work with. Select your flower like below.

Selecting the flower

Got to Effect > 3D > Rotate.

Rotating

Select your options and click OK to see the result.

3D rotate options

Below is a side by side comparison of the original flower, and a rotated one. Below that are 6 more examples of rotated flowers, all from the original.

side by side
Examples of rotated flowers

3. Make a Custom Scatter Brush from a flower.

You can select a flower and make a custom brush out of it, for further drawing and scattering if you like. Select your flower, like below, and go to the brushes palette options, select “New Brush.”

Creating scatter brush

Play around with the options, but make sure you select “Tints and Shades” as the colorization method. This allows you to change the color easily later.

Scatter brush options

Click Ok, and you should see your new brush in the Brushes palette.

Brushes palette

Now all you have to do is use the Brush, pen, or pencil tool to create a path with your new brush, and see your scatter brush in action.

Using the brush

Because we chose the Tints and Shades colorization method, we can easily change the colors by simply changing the stroke color.

Tints and shades

4. Play with Blending Modes

Overlap your shapes/flowers and play with the blending modes (in the Transparency palette). You can get some really nice effects this way, instead of simply taking down the opacity. (I especially like Overlay, and Screen blending modes) You should definitely try it.

Blend modes