In this week’s free Deke’s Techniques episode, Deke creates a honeycomb out of simple repeating hexagons by applying Transform to a simple hexagon. It’s one of those delightful Illustrator exercises in which you start with something simple, use commands to apply effects, and end up with something that takes form before your very eyes (sooner if you remember to turn on the Preview check box.)

If you can draw a hexagon with the Shape tool in Illustrator (and I know you can, because I can do it and I’m as efficient in Illustrator as I am at making rice—at which I inexplicably suck), you can rotate, duplicate, and embellish that shape into a sweet effect.

So, you start with the shape, measure some stuff (Deke will show you how), and create this grid of hexagons:

To this you apply a series of transformations to get this effect:

And if that’s not enough, there’s a lynda-member exclusive movie this week in which Deke adds multiple stroke effects to increase the 3D nature of the honeycomb. Like this:

(Not a member? Get a free week’s subscription at lynda.com/deke.)

Sweet, huh? Check out the video to get the details on how you can create this from scratch.