Illustrator: how to recreate a sun-shaped background shape?

Question

I'd like to recreate this Man Utd match poster in Illustrator CC 2018.

I am stuck while creating the grey form used in the background, behind the blue and red circles. How do I make this shape?

Answer 1

My method:

Draw the desired objects and make a pattern brush.

Draw a circle and apply that brush.

Play with the space % in the Pattern Brush Options panel.

See the iamge below:

Answer 2

Sometimes a shape's negative is easier to make than the shape itself.

1. Draw a white cirle;
2. Draw a white, vertical line with its midpoint on the circle's; make it extend both its ends beyond the edge of your canvas;
3. Adjust the line's width to taste;
4. With your line still selected, choose the 'Rotate' tool, hotkey R;
5. Alt/Option+click on the line's midpoint to open up a dialogue box;
6. Choose 10° as the increment and click Copy rather than OK;
7. Choose 'Object' > 'Transform' > 'Transform Again' (Ctrl/Cmd+D) seventeen times;
8. Group and expand or unite as desired.

Answer 3

One approach could be using a dashed stroke:

1. create a circle
2. add a very large stroke and remove the fill
3. in the stroke options, change the stroke to align outside
4. select Dashed Line, and add a bigger value for Dash and a smaller for Gap (for example, in a 100x100px circle I used 150pt stroke, Dash 10pt / Gap 6pt)
5. adjust the dash/gap size to fit your design