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3D Pill
Tutorial Category: Illustrator

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All those long hours and sleepless nights designing can really get to you. With this tutorial you’ll learn how
to create a 3D pill to cure your design headaches!

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STEP ONE

Using the Ellipse Tool, draw out a circle. Hold down Shift to make the circle proportional. Choose any color
for the fill. You don’t need a stroke color.

STEP TWO

Using the Rectangle Tool, draw out a rectangle making sure it overlaps the circle. To help you with lining the
shapes up while drawing, make sure the Smart Guides are on. Go to View > Smart Guides and make sure it’s
selected.

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STEP THREE

Now let’s merge the shapes together. Using the Selection Tool (the black arrow), select both shapes. Hold
down Shift to select multiple shapes. Go to Window > Pathfinder to open up your Pathfinder palette. While
holding Alt click on the “Add to shape area” option.

STEP FOUR

We have the bottom half of the pill done. Let’s create the top half now. Select your bottom half with the

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Selection Tool (the black arrow) and then go to Object > Transform > Reflect. Choose “Horizontal” and then
click “Copy”. A second shape was just created. You want to move this shape up so that it meets up nicely
with the bottom half of the pill. You should have the following:

I filled the top half of the pill with white and no stroke color.

STEP FIVE

Because we’re going to make these shapes 3D using the Revolve feature, we only need half of each of them.
So using the Rectangle Tool draw out a rectangle over the two shapes. We’ll use this to cut the shapes in half.

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STEP SIX

Before we cut away from the shapes we need to keep a copy of the rectangle shape in memory. You’ll see
why in a second. So make sure the rectangle shape is selected and go to Edit > Copy or hit Control + C.

Now using the Selection Tool (the black arrow) select the rectangle and bottom shape. Hold down Shift to
select multiple shapes. Go to Window > Pathfinder to open up your Pathfinder palette (if it isn’t already
opened from before). While holding Alt click on the “Subtract from shape area” option. You should be left
with the following:

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STEP SEVEN

Notice that the rectangle shape is now gone. We still need it though to do the same thing to the top shape.
That’s why we made a copy of it. So go to Edit > Paste in Front and the rectangle is available again.

Using the Selection Tool (the black arrow) select the rectangle and top shape. Hold down Shift to select
multiple shapes. While holding Alt click on the “Subtract from shape area” option on your Pathfinder palette.
You should be left with the following:

I selected both shapes and grouped them together. You can do this by going to Object > Group or hitting
Control + G.

STEP EIGHT

Let’s get to the 3D now! With the grouped shapes selected go to Effect > 3D > Revolve. The following box
appears:

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Make sure the “Preview” option is selected. Also, make sure the Offset is set to Right Edge. Since we were
using shapes on the left we need the revolve to go right! Play around with the Position and Surface to your
liking.

STEP NINE

One other thing to note is the “Map Art” option. If you’ve already clicked ok when you were in the previous
step you can always get back to an effect by going to Windows > Appearance. This will open your
Appearance palette. Double click on an effect to edit it.

The “Map Art” option will allow you to place a symbol on your 3D shape. For example, I want to place my
logo on there. First, you need to make sure it’s a symbol. Go to Window > Symbol to open your Symbol
palette and then drag your logo in:

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Click on the “Map Art” option. The first thing to do is choose which surface area of the pill you want it to
appear on. I chose surface area 5 and then selected my logo from the drop down box:

Then position your logo where you want it. You can also select to shade your logo by checking the “Shade
Artwork” option:

Here is my final result:

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And there you have it, the pill to cure all of your design headaches!

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