INFOGRAPHIC SERIES - RAIN WITH CLOUDS

Clouds with rain. Perfect for March weather here in Seattle. This is a tutorial on creating a clouds with some rain. Either light rain or some more moderate rain. 

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Start with a circle, fill it with a blue suitable for a cloud. 

Duplicate the circles several times, overlapping them half-way over each other.

Duplicate 3 of the circle to the top of the "cloud"  

Use the Pathfinder to Unite all the shapes into one shape. 

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Create a vertical line, using your SHIFT key to draw a straight line. Round the ends, by adding rounded end caps. In this case, it is a 4 pt line.

With the line drawn, duplicate the line by clicking on the line, the OPTION + DRAG to create a duplicate.

Once you have duplicated the line once, use COMMAND + D to duplicate the line several times.

Using the Direct Selection Tool. Select he bottom point of each line, one at a time. Using the UP and DOWN arrows on the key board, move the selected end points up and down to create longer and shorter lines.

Hold SHIFT to move the point up and down at 10X the normal up/down increments.

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Here is the "rain" drips all done, pulled to different lengths.

Select all the rain lines, and select the Shear Tool in the Tool Bar. Hold COMMAND and then CLICK on the upper left corner. This will locate the Shear "pivot"  location AND bring up the dialog box.

Choose the amount of Shear you want to shear the rain to create a slanted rain look.

This is a 20° shear to create the rain effect.