In this tutorial I will show you how to make a simple vector tree in Adobe Illustrator. Mainly using shapes and the pathfinder with some gradients, and wa la! You have a fully scalable tree in 8 simple steps.

1. Lets get started. First off, lets open up Illustrator and create a new document. Select the Eclipse Tool (m) and hold the SHIFT key and draw a circle. Fill it in with

#5E8523 or RGB(94,133,35). You should have something that looks like this:

2. Now that we have the circle, lets add some more to give it the shape of the tree. We are going to do this by holding the ALT key, and move each shape around to give it the shape of the tree, like in the image below.

HINT: Holding the ALT key creates a new shape each time you click and move it.

3. Now that we have the basic shape of the tree, we want to make each of those shapes in to one, and this can be done by using the Pathfinder. Under “Shape Modes” click the first one “Add to shape.” This will create one big shape. Once completed “Expand” the shape by clicking the button to the right of the Pathfinder palette.

4. Now that we have the tree as one shape we want to shrink it a bit to create the front layer of the tree, we can do this by simply pressing “CTRL+C/CMD+C” (copy) and then pasting in front using “CTRL+F/CMD+F” and now select the top layer and using the Transform Tool and making it slightly smaller like the image below. Once we have that we want to fill it with a gradient. Refer to the image below and color codes are in RGB and angle is “-142.6″.

5. Ah…finally! We are starting to see the shape of the tree appear. Good. Now lets work on the base of the tree. Select the “Rectangle Tool” (m) and create the base of the tree similar to what is shown in the image, after it is drawn go to “Object -> Arrange -> Send to Back” or the shortcut “SHIFT+CMD+[” will send the base to the back. Like so:

6. Now lets add some color to the base of the tree, for this I am going to use a brown gradient. Refer to the image below for RGB values.

7. The last thing we really need is a shadow to give the tree a little perspective and to show that is has a place and is not floating around.  First off, create an even circle by holding the “Shift” key. Once you have done that, go up to “Effect -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur” and use “3.0″ as the amount to put on the shape. Shrink it down by selecting the “Selection Tool” (v) to something like the image below:

8. Once you have shrunk the shadow down in to relative size to the tree, use the same method to send it to the back – “SHIFT+CMD+[”. And I decreased the opacity to “70%”. Your final product should look like below! Congratulations, those are the easy steps to creating a very simple vector tree using Adobe Illustrator.

You can also add some more small features to it and get a result like below. If you have any comments or question on this tutorial, leave a comment or send me an e-mail and I will get back to you. Enjoy!