In this week’s free Deke’s Techniques episode, Deke recreates the AI antagonist HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey inside…AI!

In case you were wondering, the best way to build a computer in Illustrator is with nothing but circles. In fact, this project does just that, starting with this innocuous black circle.

To which is added this slightly more sinister red circle<

And an increasingly menacing bright red circle

All of the above are then combined with a Blend operation in Illustrator to make this gradient effect:

And then another circle with another gradient becomes HAL’s ever-observant pupil

Then Deke creates custom gradients for the outer edge of the eye.

And then the inner edge:

And if you’re a member of Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning, you can see how Deke added a few more carefully colored circles to create the volumetric lighting effect in the final creation of HAL 9000’s eye.

Deke’s Techniques, taking you along on Adobe Illustrator artificial intelligence Odysseys.