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Design a half-drop repeat pattern (seamless)
Standard grid-repeat patterns are great, but sometimes more variation is needed in the repeat to make it more interesting. Half drop basically means that, rather than a tile repeating in a grid form, each tile will be one "half drop" down from the tile next to it - think how bricks are laid, except vertical. This tutorial builds on my previous tutorial for Basic Repeat Patterns, so be sure to check out that one first!
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- Hannah C. favorited Half Drop Pattern 20 Feb 18:43
- Helen W. favorited Half Drop Pattern 20 Jun 09:16
- Abbi Laura published her project Half Drop Pattern 13 Jun 09:00
You Will Need
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Step 2
Create 4 black boxes on separate layers, each at 30% opacity. Just as in the other tutorial, each box should be a quarter of the area you're working in. Duplicate the pattern sketch and organise your layers so that each black square has its own pattern sketch layer. This time, however, you want to organise them into two folders: one for the left side, and one for the right.
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Step 4
Leave the new left side as it is. Open up your folder for the new right hand side and split it into one folder for top right, one folder for bottom right. Swap the two over. It should look like this, with elements against the mid-left edge corresponding with the elements at the top and bottom of the right hand edge.
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Step 5
Now what used to be on the right is on the left, what used to be top left is now bottom right, and what used to be bottom left is now top right. Still with me? Good.
Again, you can do this with paper just by cutting your piece of paper up, moving the pieces around, and sticking it back together again!
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Step 7
Your finished tile, once cropped, should look something like this! Again, if working on paper, you may want to trace it onto a blank piece or scan it into Photoshop.
This tile can be uploaded to sites like Spoonflower and Redbubble which support half drop repeats - just upload the tile and select "half drop" under repeat options. It will automatically repeat seamlessly!
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Step 9
Simply Line two tiles up next to one another. Duplicate the tile on the right. Move one tile upwards until its bottom edge lines up with the centre of the original tile, and move the other tile downwards until they align. You can then crop so you'll end up with a tile that's the same height as the original tile, but double the width.
This tile will be able to repeat seamlessly!