Creating sunbursts in Illustrator (easy!)

Quick trick I discovered to create sunbursts in Illustrator:

1. Using the star tool, create a new star with a large difference between radius 1 and radius 2. I’ve used a 100:1 ratio. Points will set the number of streams of your burst, divided by 2 (if you want 5 streams, use 10 points. Even numbers work best.

Your star will look something like this:

2. Zoom into the center of your star (cmd+spacebar) to see the points of your inner radius. It should look like this:

Using the pen tool (delete anchor point tool), delete every other point on this inner radius. In progress, it will look like this:

And here it is completed (zoomed out):

You can vary the look of the sunburst by changing the number of points:

Add a radial gradient, and it’s a pretty useful little trick!