Soccer Ball Drawing

Step 1

Create a new document in Adobe Illustrator and draw a hexagon like in the next picture using Polygon Tool in the Tools Tab:

Step 2

Duplicate the polygon (CTRL+ENTER) and repeat the step until you obtain the below result. (Colorized the polygons like this):

Step 3

Select all the polygons, right click and choose Group:

Step 4

Now draw a circle (using Ellipse Tool in the Tools Tab) and duplicate it:

Step 5

Select the polygons and apply the next effect: Effects > Distort & Transform > Pucker & Bloat with the next settings:

Step 6

Select the polygons and the red circle, right click and choose Make Clipping Mask:

Step 7

Move the green circle over the mask area and set the border color to black:

Step 8

Repeat the steps 1 to 7 but, this time, invert the colors of the polygons and create a single circle (the green circle):

Step 9

Move the new polygons over the polygons that were first created:

Step 10

Select the new polygons (the newly created polygons) and apply the next effect: Effects > SVG Filter > AI_Static:

Step 11

Set the opacity in the Transparency Tab to 45%:

Step 12

Draw a new polygon and set the color to gradient (black/white) and the opacity to 30%:

Step 13

Repeat previous step for all the black polygons:

Step 14

Draw a new circle and select the polygons with the blend color right click and choose Make Clipping Mask:

Step 15

Now make a new polygon with a gradient color like this and opacity to 20%:

Step 16

Duplicate the polygon for all the white polygons, draw a circle, select all the polygons and the new circle and select Make Clipping Mask:

Step 17

Apply feather effect for the black and white polygons (Effects > Stylize > Feather) with the "Feather Radius" set to 5:

Step 18

Resize the ball and add some kind of shadow and you have a soccer ball: