A simple closed loop that takes a blob-like shape in the center-left of a blank canvas.

Guilloche (Before)

A painterly swirl like pattern that changes colors from white, to red, to orange, to blue, and back to white as it moves across the canvas from left to right.

Guilloche (After)

The initial shape was duplicated 500 times, and each new duplicate was slightly shifted to the right using the Position (shift) function. The rotation of each of the shapes was set to oscillate from -90 degrees to 90 degrees over many steps, resulting in the painterly, wave-like pattern in the result. The stroke width was also set to oscillate between thinner and thicker stroke values, which is why gaps between lines can be seen in some places, but not in others. Finally, a color blend was applied where the objects would transition from white, to red, to orange, to blue, and back to white. This color blend set was populated with pre-selected colors.

A dark grey circle with a blue outline in the middle of a blank, black square canvas.

Scales (Before)

A scale-like pattern of circles that all overlap each other as they move from left to right and downwards through the image.

Scales (After)

This scale-like pattern can be accomplished by duplicating the initial circle into an overlapping grid by setting the horizontal and vertical margins to be negative. In this case, the margins were set so that each circle overlapped itself by exactly half of its width. Each circle's position can then be oscillated both vertically and horizontally to achieve the wave-like structure of the overall design. Finally, by oscillating the stroke width, and blending the stroke color from dark blue to light blue repeatedly (using the Stroke Color Blend function), you would end up with this final result. The final touch would be to run the script again with in-place duplication and scale shifting to create concentric circles within each existing circle.

A single red sits in the middle of a deep blue canvas with the open part of the crescent facing downwards.

Crescent (Before)

A wild swirl of overlapping blue and red crescents randomly rotated and positioned throughout a deep blue square image.

Crescent (After)

By duplicating the initial crescent, and then oscillating scale, and position, and stroke width, most of this design can be made very quickly. Rotation for each object was shifted sinusoidally with a sin value of 0.5. To switch between red and blue stroke color, each successive crescent was shifted with the RGB submode to have RGB values that were 17 points lower for the red value and 17 points higher in the blue value. Green was left alone.

A single light blue diamond is placed in the middle of a bright yellow canvas.

Diamonds (Before)

A stained-glass like diamond pattern of blues, reds, and yellows create a fascinating transparency effect that covers the whole image.

Diamonds (After)

Starting with a central diamond, use count duplication to create several hundred copies. Position should be randomized to scatter the diamonds around the canvas. Each copy should have a fill color and stroke color randomly applied from a range of blue and yellow hues. Stroke width, opacity, blend more, and scale should also be randomized. Layer order can also be randomized. Another pass with in-place duplication and randomly scaling down can also be done for more coverage and a more intricate design.

A small amorphous blob that's colored with a gradient that transitions from surf green to orange as it goes from left to right.

Coral (Before)

A blue an orange colored guilloche-like design with overlapping shapes in a complex arrangement.

Coral (After)

This design was created by duplicating the initial object in place hundreds of times, and then oscillating the rotation and scale of those objects between two values over a large number of steps. Each object was also slightly moved downwards with the Position (Shift) function. Stroke width was also oscillated with subtly changing values.

A single line of orange text on a light blue square canvas reads 'typography' in capital letters.

Text (Before)

Chaotic, overlapping text of various shades of red and orange, with many different typefaces is all overlaid on top of other copies of the text to create an abstract text-based visual texture.

Text (After)

By copying the initial text objects via in-place duplication, randomizing the font on a per-character basis, and adjusting the color of each character, you would get most of the way to this result. Add some more variety by randomizing the scale, and you're pretty much there. One final step would be to copy all the text, merge them into one shape, and give that shape a white outline so that the text stands out against the background.

A single small, red ellipse sits at the top middle section of the canvas. It's a good illustration of how random color illustrator script can lead to complex designs.

Cone (Before)

A rainbow cone-like design made up of hundreds of rings that start small at the top middle of the canvas and change color and grow larger as they transition down towards the bottom middle of the image.

Cone (After)

This design used many of Randomill's functions, but ultimately was simple to make. Copy the initial ellipse in place a few hundred times, shift each copy downward slightly, oscillate the scale both horizontally and vertically to somewhat extreme values, oscillate the stroke width and opacity to create those intermittent gaps in the final design, and lastly just shift the hue value forward with each duplicate while leaving saturation and lightness alone. Hue cycling should be turned on so that once hue has shifted through the whole color spectrum, it will restart back at the beginning. One final touch touch would be to set the whole design to the screen transparency mode to give it a lighter look.

A single wide, red rectangle sits in the middle of a grey square canvas.

Blur (Before)

A complex brick-like pattern of rainbow bricks that all seamlessly blend between the bricks to their left and right with rainbow colors.

Bur (After)

In this design, the original orange rectangle was duplicated into a grid, and had a random gradient applied to it from a set of 5 possible options. The horizontal scale of each rectangle in the grid was randomly scaled so that many rectangles would overlap each other horizontally. The blend mode of each rectangle was also randomized to create various transparency effects. The ends of the used gradient swatches were set to have their end colors have 0 transparency to avoid hard edges between the rectangles.

A group of three loops with gradient outline colors all rotated a couple of degrees differently from each other. This illustrator rotate scripts turned this image into a complex spiral.

Conch (After)

An intricate, metallic sea-conch-like spiral shape takes up most of the image.

Conch (After)

While this may look like an intricate design, it's very simple to make and only requires a few of Randomill's functions. The real trick is to set up the starting object. The original object is a group of three loops of different gradient stroke fills. Each loop is rotated 5 degrees more that the one before it. By simple copying and rotating the initial group of these three loops, and scaling each new group up slightly, a metallic spiral design can easily be made. The trick is to balance out the scale and rotation values so that each new copy leaves a slight gap between it and the one before.

A single red maple leaf shape with a dark shadow glow around it sitting in the center of a blank white canvas. This is a great way to use a create seamless pattern script in Adobe Illustrator.

Leaves (Before)

A complex scattering of maple leaves that feature fall colors and shadows to differentiate them from other leaves they lay on top of. The whole canvas is covered with leaves.

Leaves (After)

The key components of this design were duplication, position randomization, scale randomization, rotation randomization, and fill color randomization. The trick is to ensure that the position randomization settings allow for full coverage of the canvas, and that there are enough duplicates created to block out any blank space.

An abstract, simple blank blob like loop takes up most of the canvas.

Twirl (Before)

A complicated line loop pattern twists in on itself as it moves towards the center of the canvas and becomes smaller. Reminiscent of traditional Guilloche patterns.

Twirl (After)

While this design appears complex, it only consists of a few operations. With just duplication, rotation, and scale, you can make it in under a minute. Use the Rotate (Shift) function to rotate each duplicate sinusoidally, while also shifting scale by a small, negative amount. Each newly created object will therefore get smaller and rotate a little bit as it disappears into the center of the design. Then, oscillate the opacity between 0% and 100% over 200 steps and that will be the finishing touch that adds that blur effect on the periphery of the design, and helps it from getting too busy. Playing around with stroke weight could also lead to some cool results.

A top left quarter of a blue circle sits in the middle of a dark blue canvas.

Circle Tiles (Before)

A grid of quarter cirlces in a square canvas, randomly rotated in 90 degree increments. All the shapes are various shades of blue. This demonstrates a random fill color script for Adobe Illustrator.

Circle Tiles (After)

To achieve this pattern, the initial quarter-circle shape was duplicated into a 38x38 grid. The resulting shapes then had their fill colors randomized to be within a range of blue hues. Finally, rotation was randomized from 0° - 360° with a step size of 90° to ensure randomized right angles.

A single red square centered within an otherwise blank, burgundy canvas. A great illustration of what can be achieved using the random scale script for Adobe Illustrator.

Flower (Before)

A complex flower like design made of squares that are sized smaller and rotated as they move closer to the center of the design.

Flower (After)

The initial square was duplicated in place hundreds of times. Each new duplicate was rotated sinusoidally and scaled up just 1.75% from the previous square. The nature of the sinusoidal rotation gave the resulting design a flower-like look, and avoided an easily identifiable rotation pattern. Fill color was also shifted in the RGB submode to achieve the alternating red-blue color pattern. Fill color shifting was restarted every 15 steps to avoid iterating through the entire color spectrum.