Illustrating Green Olives in Illustrator and Photoshop

Form an oblong circle with the Ellipse tool. Use the Direct Selection tool and pick the top point. Hold the Shift key down and drag down a little to get the actual shape of an olive.

Use the same tool with a darker version of the green and make a horizontal oval.

 

Now add the pimento. Using the Pen tool draw the shape of the circle at the bottom. Select all and duplicate the olive.

 

Select the base of one olive and open Create Gradient Mesh.

Create 16 rows and columns.

Zoom in. Before continuing, choose everything and lock it.

 

 

 

Navigate to the Swatches palette. Pick Select All Unused and throw it in the trashcan.

 

Open the Pantone Solid Matte colour library open. Find a variety of olive colours and drag them onto the Swatches palette.

Use the Direct Select tool and drag around the lower area of the olive. Now click on a colour for the shadow area.

Do the same for the rest of the olive.

 

Choose individual points to fill with the appropriate colour.

Now we have the basic shades applied. Choose individual rows but deselect the side points and pull down to make adjustments.


Choose individual areas and apply colour. Unlock everything and put the pieces on individual layers. Export as a .psd Photoshop file.

Choose the base olive layer and lock it. Use Gaussian Blur set at 22.2 pixels.


Apply a Lens Flare of 105mm Prime to create a highlight area.

Using the Burn tool set at Midtones and make shadows in the hole area.

 

Use the Burn tool set on Highlights for the area near the base for the pimento. Change to the Dodge tool and use Midtones and Shadows to make the highlight area. Reduce the size of the brush as you go along.

 

 

For the second olive, make sure you exported it as three layers. Lock the main layer. Use a basic round brush with the size of 200 depending on the resolution of the piece. Make the Mode Dissolve. Lock the layers. Use the Eyedropper to choose the base green, then double-click the colour swatch and select a darker version of that green.

Paint around it and change the colours when necessary.

Apply a Gaussian Blur of 45.6 pixels. Apply a lighter stroke with a regular brush set to Normal for the highlight area.

Using the same procedure fill in the pimento and inner area of the olive. The olive on the left was coloured in Illustrator while the one on the right in Photoshop.