How to Easily Make a Fur Text Effect in Illustrator

Fur Text in Illustrator

A while back I wrote a tutorial about How to Make a 3D Tube Text in Illustrator and today I'm taking that tutorial further with added step which will bring about the Fur effect. The Fur effect tool is often left unused amongst designer - especially since there are so MANY different tools to choose from in Illustrator. And today, we'll get to focus on how to apply this Fur effect to a hand made text path.

Step 1

Open Illustrator and make a new file at any size you want. In this case, I will setup mine at 1800 x 1200 px.

Step 2

Select the Ellipse Tool (L). Be sure to set the fill to "gradient" and the stroke to none.

Step 3

Click once over the artboard. Set the Width and Height to 60 px and click OK.

Step 4

Go to Window > Gradient and set any color and angle you want for your gradient. In this case, I will setup mine from #1639ff to #d07be2 in a 90º angle.

Step 5

With the circle selected, press Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+F to paste it in the same place.

Step 6

Hold the Shift key and drag the second circle to the right as shown.

Step 7

Select the Blend Tool (W) and click once over the first circle and then once over the second circle.

Step 8

Go to Object > Blend > Blend Options. Set the Spacing to "Specified Steps", the number of steps to 1000 and click OK.

Step 9

Using the Pen or Pencil Tool draw a path with your text. In this case, i will simply write "hello".

Step 10

Press Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all and then go to Object > Blend > Replace Spine.

Step 11

Lastly, go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. Apply the following settings and click OK.
Note: Depending on your object size and shape, you may need to change these values a bit.