This tutorial is dedicated to vector landscapes technics. The main instrument used in this tutorial is Pen Tool (P), so you can use any vector software to create such landscapes. I did it with the help of Adobe Illustrator CS4, but you can do it with Adobe Illustrator 8 as well.

Tutorial Details

• Program: Adobe Illustrator
• Version: CS4
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Estimated Completion Time: 1-2 hours

Step 1

Create new RGB document 1000px wide and 500px high.

Step 2

Now you need to get your color palette. Since this is going to be a landscape the colors should better be “natural”. I prefer using PANTONE process coated palette. Click on the small triangle on the top right corner of the swatches panel and choose Open Swatch Library > Color Books > PANTONE process coated.

Step 3

Add blue and green swatches to your swatches panel. The colors should not be too dark or too light. I’ve chosen PANTONE DS 203-2 C (blue) and PANTONE DS 291-1 C (green).

Step 4

With the colors selected create a rectangle (Rectangle Tool (M)) with the same dimensions as the document (1000X500px). Add a gradient fill to it. Place 2 blue swatches and 2 green swatches to the gradient and remove black and white ones (or whatever you have by default). As you might know the colors in your palette can be 0 to 100% filled (0% means the shape will be colored white and 100% means it will have the color of the swatch. Don’t confuse this with opacity parameter). Your gradient fill should be 100% filled blue on top, 30% blue in the middle, 30% green in the middle and 100% green on the bottom of the shape. Now rename the layer to “background”, lock it and create a new layer named “mountains”.

Step 5

Creating mountains is a piece of cake – use the Pen Tool (P) to add some straight lines across the horizon. The mountains should be as wide as the document – 1000px. If the mountains bottom line is not straight subtract (Minus Front) a rectangle from it. Than add two more mountain ridges. Try to make them look random, avoid situations when peaks of different ridges look the same. Parallel lines can kill your scenic view as well. The colors don’t matter right now.

Step 6

Add PANTONE DS 327-1 C (black) to your color palette and fill the mountains with gradient fill with the left swatch 40% black and right swatch 70% black. Make the fill vertical -90^o.

Step 7

Adjust the gradients of the back mountain ridges. The further the object is the lighter it looks. I suggest 30% left swatch and 60% right swatch for the middle ridge and 20% left swatch and 50% right swatch for the back ridge.

Step 8

To create glaciers use the same technic as you have used to create the mountains. After you have made a bunch of glaciers unite ‘em and intersect with the copy of the ridge. Their color can be a gradient with white on top and very light blue (16% blue) on the bottom. Right Click the glacier > Release Compound Path and adjust the gradients. The color fill of the middle glaciers should be a bit desaturated so they will look like they are further to the horizon. Use a gradient with 3 swatches. From left to right: 10% blue – 30% blue – 50% black. Don’t make any glaciers for the back ridge – this means we can not see them from this point of view.

Step 9

Create a new layer and name it “lake”. Create a wide ellipse using Ellipse Tool (L). Intersect it with the copy of the background rectangle. Make the top of resulting shape straight. Change the gradient fill to 20% blue for the left swatch and 100% blue for the right one. The angle would be -90^o. Finally move the “lake” layer under the “mountains” layer.

Step 10

Make a copy of the lake shape and send it to back (Command + Shift + [ ). Color it with gradient fill with 100% PANTONE DS 12-1 C on the left and 100% PANTONE DS 6-5 C on the right. The angle would be -90^o. Use the Wrap Tool (Shift+R) to make the sand line look not so smooth and straight. Change the lakes bottom line as well.

Step 11

Duplicate the “mountains” layer and rename it to “mountains reflection”. Group the mountains, right click the group, choose Transform > Reflect > Horizontal. Place the group below the mountains. Copy a lake shape and put it over the reflection group. Lock all layers except “mountains reflection”. Select all > right click > Make Clipping Mask. Change the objects opacity to 50%.

Step 12

If you are not happy with the bottom line of the mountains and their reflection it the time to fix it. Use Direct Selection Tool (A) to select the top anchors of the mountains group inside the clipping mask, press Enter and adjust their vertical position. Adjust the bottom anchors of the “real” mountains – if you’ve chosen Position: Vertical: -20px for the reflection, then choose Position: Vertical: +20px.

Step 13

Now it’s time to make the sky look more dynamic. Add a new layer “sky elements”. Create a huge shape going along the sky and color it with a two-swatched gradient with PANTONE DS 180-5 C (purple) color no the left and the blue color on the right. The angle would be -90^o as always. The tricky thing about this shape is that you should avoid it touching the peaks. Otherwise your picture will not be clear and clean enough. Finally add a semicircle on the left part of the sky. It’s gradient should be horizontal this time.

Step 14

To create the sky elements reflection copy ‘em and paste inside the clipping mask that can be found in “mountains reflection” layer. Right click the sky elements, choose Transform > Reflect > Horizontal. The transparency of this clipping mask is already adjusted, but you can always change transparency of the objects inside the mask. So if you feel like the sky elements should be more transparent than mountains it’s time to change their opacity.

Step 15

Add a new layer “clouds” and create few circles using Ellipse Tool (press L, then hold Shift while dragging the courser). For the bottom line of a cloud copy bottom anchor points of two circles, delete the anchors in between the curves, select the bottom anchors, Right click > Join, select the top anchors and join them too. After you’ve added enough circles and ellipses unite ‘em and fill with gradient – 0% blue on the left and 30% blue on the right, click the gradient slider (the small rectangle between the gradients swatches) and set its Location to 80%, the angle would be -90^o. Add more clouds using the same technic – just remember if the clouds are further towards the horizon, they should be less contrast with the sky – in our case this means, they should be darker. Use the higher percentage of blue in the gradient swatches to achieve the desired color.

Step 16

To make the scene a bit more dramatic add a storm cloud with lightnings flashing. You can use the black color you’ve chosen for the mountains to fill the cloud and PANTONE DS 1-1 C (yellow) and PANTONE DS 22-1 C (orange) to color the lightnings – they should be orange on top and yellow on the bottom of the gradient fill. This will make ‘em coming out of the storm cloud.

Step 17

As you might notice before, the green land on the bottom of the screen looks a bit flat and still. To add some dynamics to it add PANTONE DS 289-2 C (dark green) swatch to your palette and change a bit the background rectangles gradient fill: move the green swatch to the Location 80% and put a dark green swatch on the right (Location 100%) side of the gradient.

Step 18

Create a small sailboat on the left side of the lake using Pen Tool (P). It can be made of very simple shapes all colored with gradients using the same swatches you’ve used before while doing this tutorial. Add the sailboats reflection to the mountains reflection clipping mask.

Step 19

Create a new layer “sun” and add a huge sun using Ellipse Tool (L) and holding Shift. Color it with same gradient as the lightnings using Eyedropper Tool (I), then change the angle to 90^o so the orange will be on the bottom of it and yellow on top.

Step 20

Finally make a copy of the sun and move it towards the top of your canvas and bit to the the left. Create another copy of the sun and intersect it with the first one. Change the angle of the gradient to 135^o.

This is it. Such landscape can be a background for a flash game, or a part of a bigger illustration, or a background of a resort-camp flyer, or whatever.

P.S.

Just few more things I’d like to mention:

• Always separate the objects in logical groups and layers
• Give the layers meaningful names
• Don’t use lots of swatches unless you really need them
• Remember, simple shapes can be descriptive