Create a Crazy Sticker Bombing Seamless Pattern in Adobe Illustrator

Are you ready to twist your mind and create
a super-bright and playful seamless pattern with crazy characters? In this
tutorial we’ll go through the entire process of developing a sticker bombing
style pattern, rendering every character with basic shapes and Warp Effects and then gathering the
created elements into a fancy overlapping texture with the help of the Pattern Tool. Let’s get started!

1. Create the Character Stickers With
Basic Shapes

First of all, let me say a few words
about the actual style of our future pattern in order to inspire you and to make
the topic clearer. 

Sticker bombing is a whimsical and ambitious design style
which came from Japan with their special JDM stickers. A similar style was also formed by a group of
enthusiasts from New York who created a lot of fancy graffiti images one over
another, the so-called “bombs”. 

It’s usually associated with street art and the
way of decorating various things (mostly vehicles, skateboards and so on) with colorful overlapping stickers of various sizes in order to emphasize
some part of an object and to attract the viewer’s attention. 

Sticker bombing
commonly uses some ready-made stickers with well-known characters, but in this
tutorial we’ll go further and create our own crazy band of heroes.

Step 1

Let’s start by creating a funny hipster cat
with a cup of coffee. 

First of all, let’s create a squashed ellipse with the Ellipse Tool (L) and fill it with
bright-orange color. Then move to Effect
> Warp > Arc and set the Vertical
Bend value to 48%, bending our ellipse
to the left side. Now that we have one of the cat’s paws ready, Object > Expand it and create the
body base by forming an almost even circle. Stick our banana-shaped paws to
both sides of the body. Keep a couple of copies of the paw-shape, because we’ll need
them later.

Unite all the created elements in Pathfinder, making a single shape. Our shape looks more like a chicken now, so we need
to smooth the sides. Select the side anchor points that are left in the places
where the paws merged with the body, and delete them by clicking the Remove selected anchor points button in
the control panel above. Then edit the area in the bottom part of the body, by
moving the anchor handles with the help of the Direct Selection Tool (A).

Use the paw copies that we created
earlier to add a pair of cat’s ears in the upper part of the body.

Step 2

Let’s put some trendy hipster glasses on
our cat! Start by making an ellipse and delete its upper part with the Eraser Tool (Shift-E) by holding the Alt key to erase an even half. Go to Object > Path > Offset Path and
set the Offset value to about -5 px, creating a smaller shape inside
the first one. Your Offset value may
differ from mine, but you can see the actual scale of the objects in comparison
to each other in the screenshot below.

Select both objects and use the Minus Front function of the Pathfinder panel to cut out a hole,
thus creating a glasses rim. Duplicate the rim by clicking it with your left
mouse button and dragging while holding the Alt key.

Step 3

Add a simple and cute nose to our cat by
forming a triangle with the Polygon Tool
and then smoothen its corners with Effect
> Stylize > Round Corners. Set the Radius to about 4 px and
check the result by ticking the Preview
box. Object > Expand the nose and
fill it with bright pink color.

Let’s add a pair of funny round peepers to the kitty. Start by placing a white even circle by holding the Shift button and making a shape with
the Ellipse Tool (L). Add a smaller
brown circle inside for the iris. Finally, create a white triangle highlight on
top of the iris and form the second eye.

Step 4

Move on and create a paper coffee cup that
our character will be holding in its paws. Make the base from a brown rectangle
with the help of the Rectangle Tool (M).
Then select its lower left anchor point and click the Enter key to call out the Move
options window. Set the Horizontal
Position value to 5 px and other
values to 0 px, thus moving the
point straight horizontally to the right. Repeat the same with the right anchor
point, setting the Horizontal Position
value to –5 px this time and moving
it closer to the center, thus making the cup base narrower at the bottom.

Add a light-yellow rectangle for the cup’s
cap and make its lower part wider in the same way as we did with the cup base.
Finally, make an additional anchor point in the middle of the cup’s bottom part
and drag it down a bit, making the shape smoother and more curved.

Add another rectangle of a pale-yellow
color across the middle of the cup for the paper wrap. Bend it down with the Arch Warp Effect, setting the Horizontal Bend value to -20%. Duplicate the cup base and use
the Intersect function of Pathfinder to cut off the unneeded
parts.

Step 5

Add an elliptical logotype in the center of
the paper wrap and use the Knife Tool
(you can find it in the same folding menu as the Eraser Tool) to draw a curved line across the created ellipse, thus
splitting it into two halves. Separate the halves from each other, forming a
coffee bean. 

Step 6

Cover the left side of the cup with a
narrow rectangle and apply Arc
effect with 10% Vertical Bend value
to curve the rectangle. Object >
Expand the shape and fill it with dark-brown color, switching the Blending Mode to Screen in the Transparency
panel, this way creating a warm overtone on the cup. Add another bent rectangle on the opposite side of the cup and switch it to Multiply Blending Mode, making a shadow.

Step 7

Place the cup above the cat’s tummy and use the Pencil Tool (N) to draw a curved freehand
shape for the “arm” or paw. Fill it with linear gradient from yellow on the tip
to orange so that the arm blends with the cat’s body and at the same time pops out. Add the second arm, placing it on the opposite side, so that the cat is holding the cup.

Step 8

Create another squashed ellipse, this time
for the cat’s tail. Apply the Arc Warp effect
with –4% Horizontal Bend value to
make the bottom part wider and expand the shape. Apply another Arc effect to the same shape with -24% Vertical Bend value. Attach the
tail to the cat’s body and expand it if you’re happy with the result. Otherwise, increase the Bend value to make the
tail more curved.

Step 9

Form the inner pinky part of the cat’s ears
by applying the Offset Path to the
cat’s body, creating a smaller body silhouette inside. Fill the created shape
with pink color and separate the upper part with the Eraser Tool (Shift-E), deleting the bottom part completely. 

Make
the cat’s figure a bit more three-dimensional by adding a gentle shadow. For this
purpose, duplicate the body base twice and move the copy down and to the right
a bit. Use the Minus Front function of the Pathfinder panel to cut off
the unneeded parts, leaving only a thin stroke along the edge of the body. Fill it with darker
orange color, forming the shadow.

Step 10

Let’s add an outline to our character in
order to separate it from other stickers when we’ll be forming a pattern.
Select the body shape and set the Stroke
color to dark brown. Head to the Stroke
panel. Here we need to set the Weight
to 3 px and switch the Cap and Corner in the middle positions. As for the arms, let’s
change the Profile of the outline to
Width Profile 1 (you can find these
options in the upper control panel), thus making the lines very thin at both
ends. Don’t forget to add the outlines to the coffee cup and the cat’s tail as
well.

Step 11

Let’s use the base of our hipster cat to make another cat character with an aristocratic look. 

First of
all, change the position of the paws and the tail to make the characters differ
from each other. Then start adding minor details. Form a monocle rim by
creating two even circles, one inside the other, and cutting out the center.
Add another smaller circle for the glass and make it semi-transparent by
lowering the Opacity in the Transparency panel. Make a group of
stripes and turn them into a single object by creating a Compound Path (Control-8). Place the created stripes above the
glass, cutting off the unneeded parts outside the monocle, and switch it to Screen Blending Mode, creating a
highlight. Add a small overtone to the rim as well, by selecting a rim shape and
creating a smaller and lighter brown element inside with the help of the Offset Path.

Let’s make the cat’s eyes half closed to
give him an important and haughty look. Duplicate the white eyeball shape and
fill it with orange, a bit darker than the skin tone. Use the Eraser Tool (Shift-E) to delete the
lower part, forming the eyelid.

Step 12

Our cat needs a few more appearance details
that will make him look like a sir. Firstly, let’s add a fancy curled
moustache! Start by forming an even circle and use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to drag its right anchor point further
right and up a bit. Use the Anchor Point
Tool (Shift-C) to move the anchor handles, forming a sharp angle. Continue moving the
handles to form a twisted curl.

Step 13

What’s a sir without a top hat? Let’s make one!
Form a dark-brown rectangle and make its bottom part much narrower, as we did with the paper coffee cup. Add a squashed ellipse for the hat brim and make the
hat more three-dimensional by adding a highlight from one side and a gentle shadow from another. Decorate the hat with a bright turquoise stripe made with a narrow
rectangle and Arc effect. Rotate
the finished hat slightly and let it cover one of the cat’s ears.

Step 14

Our cat’s hands are still empty, so let’s add a
few more items! These will be a smoking pipe and a teacup.
Start forming the pipe from its upper part, which consists of two squashed brown ellipses,
one inside the other. Make the top ellipse darker, depicting the deepening in
the pipe.

Add another ellipse of lighter brown
color for the base of the pipe and place the first group of ellipses right in
the middle of the new ellipse. Erase its upper part, forming a rounded wooden pipe
bottom.

Duplicate one of the cat’s arms and attach
it to the pipe, making a mouthpiece.

Step 15

Use the base of our pipe to form a simple
teacup, making its inner part a bit larger. Switch the colors to
light-turquoise and use the Pencil Tool (N)
to add a tiny crooked shape for the cup handle. Put the cup and the pipe in the
cat’s hands.

Add outlines to the cat and the items.

Step 16

Our next character is a cute chicken. The
base of its body is created in a similar way as the cat’s moustache, but not so
curly. Start with an even circle of a bright yellow color and move both side
anchor points up a bit to make the top of the ellipse more flattened. Drag the
lower anchor point down and reposition the anchor handles to create a
sharp-pointed tail.

Step 17

Draw two ellipses one inside the other for
the chick’s eye. Make the inner circle dark-brown, forming an iris, and add a
tiny white spot above for the highlight. Make a copy of the eye and move it
to the opposite side of the bird’s head. Select both the body and the eye-copy
and use the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M)
to delete the unwanted parts by holding the Alt key and clicking them.

Use the Polygon Tool with 3 Sides
to form two tiny triangle shapes for the beak. Rotate the shapes and move their
central anchor points closer to the right.

Step 18

Add another orange ellipse for the chick’s
wing and use the Shape Builder Tool
(Shift-M) to make it fit the body. Use the Blob Brush Tool (Shift-B) with
default settings (or check out my settings in the screenshot below) to form a
small arched line for the bird’s leg. Add three tiny fingers and Unite all parts in Pathfinder. Duplicate the created element and move the copy to the
right, adding the second leg.

Make our bird more childish and cute by
adding a funny curled lock on the top of the head with the Blob Brush Tool (Shift-B). Add dimension by forming a subtle shadow
on the right part of the body and, finally, outline our character, making it
more defined and vivid.

Step 19

Let’s add more birds for our future
pattern! This time we’ll make a funny owl. Form a blue ellipse and modify it by
flattening its upper part. Use the Eraser
Tool (Shift-E) to delete the bottom part of the body and start adding
small details: place an even circle in the lower left corner of the body shape.
Hold Shift and Alt at the same time and drag the created circle to the right,
creating a copy. Press Control-D several times, repeating your last action to create more copies, thus forming a skirt-like shape. Unite
all the elements in Pathfinder,
making a single shape.

Add a light-yellow ellipse for the face.
Squash the shape by moving its upper anchor point down and extend the side
anchor handles to make the face heart-shaped.

Add big rounded eyes and form a small
triangle beak in the center of the owl’s face.

Step 20

Let’s form a feathered wing. Place three
squashed ellipses close to each other, varying their height. Group (Control-G) the shapes and go to Effect > Warp > Arc, bending the feathers to the right side
with –50% Vertical Bend value.

Object
> Expand the wing and Unite the feathers in Pathfinder.
Duplicate the shape and reflect the copy to the other side of the owl. 

Select
the body base and go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Free Distort
to reveal the pop-up Free Distort
options window. Make the bottom part of the body narrower by moving the lower
points of the square closer to the center. Add a gentle shadow as we did
previously and outline our character.

Step 21

Let’s make a copy of our owl and modify it
a bit to render an entirely new character. Change the color of the body parts to violet and work at the facial expression. Erase the upper part of the eyeballs,
creating a grumpy look. Select the beak shape and go to Effect > Warp > Arch, setting the Vertical Bend value to 45%
to make a crooked beak.

Style a wind-swept bang on top of the
owl’s head with the help of the Pencil
Tool (N) and don’t forget to Stroke
it.

Here is how our grumpy owl looks at this
step.

Step 22

The last character of our sticker set is a lovely T-Rex dinosaur. Start by forming his head from a green circle and
make it slightly extruded by dragging the left anchor point further left. This
will be the dino’s nose area. As for the body, let’s take our cat’s basic body
shape and fill it with the same green color, attaching it to the head and
forming a distinctive dinosaur silhouette.

Step 23

Move on and make another essential body part: a long green tail. Place a narrow shape made with Rounded Rectangle Tool at the lower
part of dino’s body. Head to Effect >
Warp > Arc and set the Vertical
Bend value to 5%, making the
tail wider from its left side. Expand the shape and add two more anchor points closer
to the tip of the tail. Use the Direct
Selection Tool (A) to bend the tip by moving its final anchor point up.

Step 24

Use a pale-yellow circle to form a row of
funny teeth. Place the teeth group beneath the head shape by rearranging its position with Control-[ keys combination. Add
two short rounded paws touching the dino’s cheeks. Finally use the same teeth-circled shapes to create a chain of spinal elements running along the edge of the body right to
the tip of the tail. Form two arched strokes for the eyes with the help of the Blob Brush Tool (Shift-B) and add two
tiny round nostrils.

Use the Eraser Tool (Shift-E) to edit the scales, which we’ve placed on
dino’s head, by erasing their bottom part. Switch the color of the scales to
light green and add several groups of elliptical spots to the body. Finish up
by adding a dark-brown outline to our character.

Step 25

We’ve already created a paper coffee cup and a
fancy teacup that we can use separately from our characters in order to fill
the blank spaces of our pattern. Let’s add one final element that we’ll be able
to use for the same purpose! This will be a simple donut.

Start by forming an even circle of creamy
color. Cut out a hole in the middle and deform the shape slightly with the help
of the Warp Tool (Shift-R) (I’ve
left the Warp Tool options as
default, but you can change the brush size or the intensity if
you click the tool icon twice).

Use the Offset Path function several times to create two smaller shapes one
inside the other. Fill the newly created shapes with yummy pink color, making
the top shape brighter to give it a glazed look. Sprinkle the top of the donut
with bright yellow confectionery crumbs made of tiny rounded rectangles. Add a
solid brown stroke to the donut.

Step 26

Now that all items are ready, we can start
rendering the pattern! You can finish up with the characters at this step or go
further and add a few minor details to each of them, making the images more
intricate and cartoonish. 

For example, I like the spots that we’ve formed for our
T-Rex, so I decided to add the same spots to other characters as well. I also decorated both owls’ bodies with two additional layers of feathers. For
this purpose I just copied the body shape several times, moved the upper copy
up, and cut off the unwanted pieces that were left outside the character.

When you’re satisfied with the result,
let’s move to the final part of our tutorial!

2. Render a Crazy Sticker Bombing Seamless
Pattern

Step 1

Select all the items that we’ve made so far
and go to Object > Pattern > Make.
By entering the pattern creation mode, you’ll be notified that the new pattern we’re creating will be added to the Swatches
panel. You can edit the created pattern any time from the Swatches panel, even after returning to normal mode.

Find the Pattern Options window and set the Width and Height of the Tile to 600 x 600 px. Leave the Tile
Type as Grid to make the
arrangement of the objects easier.

Start moving the characters over the canvas
and rotate them by various angles. You will see transparent copies of the
objects, which help you to form the pattern, imagining the whole picture.

Step 2

Use the Reflect Tool (R) to mirror the objects over the Vertical or Horizontal (if you want some objects to be upside down) Axis, making the pattern more dynamic
and diverse. Put the stickers one above the other, making them overlap, so that
there are no white spots or blank spaces between them.

Step 3

If you see that some objects blend with
each other, making a mess, feel free to recolor them (don’t forget to keep
the initial copy as well)! For example, we’ve placed two orange cats too close
to each other. In order to visually separate them, let’s change the skin tone
of the hipster cat to lighter yellow. Switch the color of the glasses to lilac
and make a bright spot by coloring the coffee cup pink.

Step 4

Continue filling up the composition, adding
more characters.

Add donuts and cups here and there to make
the scene more varied.

If some elements happen to cross the
character’s faces or look as if they are in the wrong place, just reposition or delete them completely. For example, select and rotate the brown cat’s
tail to move it away from the lower cat’s eyes.

Step 5

As soon as you’re happy with how your
pattern looks, click Done in the
upper panel, quitting the Pattern mode. 

Let’s try out our texture! Make a rectangle of 600 x 800 px size, find our pattern in the Swatches panel and apply it to the created shape. Now we can leave it
as it is or make the tiling smaller. Find the Scale Tool (S) in the Tools
panel and click it twice to call out the options window. Set the Scale to Uniform with 70% value.
Tick the Transform Patterns box,
unchecking the others, and hit Preview
to see the result.

Boom! Our Crazy Sticker Bombing Seamless Pattern Is Finished!

Great work! I hope you’ve enjoyed styling playful characters and designing this fancy seamless texture, discovering some new tips
and tricks! Try out these simple techniques and get back for more! Good luck!