First Attempt Using Gradient Meshes in Illustrator.

[ravenmark]

I did not do this for a shirt design, but it is my first serious attempt at using gradient meshes in Adobe Illustrator to pull off something realistic. This one is 100% vector and was built over an actual photo, well the girl at least. I would love to see any of you guys and gals attempts, if you have any please share.



Wireframe View

[royster13]

Good job.....Looks like you have a much better understanding of this tool than me.....

Even though I have used Illustrator for many years, it has only been recently that I have discovered gradient meshes.....A client file had an effect I could not understand and eventually my investigation took me to gradient fills....So I saved a bunch of Youtube videos and have been watching them on my new TV...Love the Youtube app for my Samsung TV....

[ravenmark]

Good job.....Looks like you have a much better understanding of this tool than me.....

Even though I have used Illustrator for many years, it has only been recently that I have discovered gradient meshes.....A client file had an effect I could not understand and eventually my investigation took me to gradient fills....So I saved a bunch of Youtube videos and have been watching them on my new TV...Love the Youtube app for my Samsung TV....

I straight up learned the process off of you tube. You have got to love those tutorials on there. I would have killed to have all of these resources when I first stated out in the biz. I will not lie to you the whole process was quite time consuming & I think I could have pulled the image off twice as fast in photoshop but I wouldn't have learned anything. I have not tried any spot colors with it yet, there are so many nodes involved I think it would be impractical to use in a work environment for seps right out of Illustrator. If you decide to give it (gradient meshes) an attempt I would love to see the end result!

[Fluid]

Very Nice. I have some vector people (women) I have done yet not with any mesh. Never really got into the mesh tools. I also create custom brushes for my shading, etc. depending on the look I am after.  Currently working on a new one for fun and learning. Will pot later on when I get a little more done to it.

[ravenmark]

Very Nice. I have some vector people (women) I have done yet not with any mesh. Never really got into the mesh tools. I also create custom brushes for my shading, etc. depending on the look I am after.  Currently working on a new one for fun and learning. Will pot later on when I get a little more done to it.

Looking forward to seeing it Fluid!

[3Deep]

I saw a vid on using the mesh tool looks very time consuming, I,ve use it just a little, but mostly stick with the basic tools...hey nice work by the way how much did you have in that pc?

Darryl

[ravenmark]

I did it back in December during our Christmas break so it is kinda hard to remember. Probably at least 4 hours. At work I pay attention to time but when I am doing my own stuff I kinda get lost and just flow with it. The background I remember doing in no time.

[Command-Z]

Nice job! Gradient Mesh is tricky... it takes some getting used to. I've used it for some minor details, never for an entire illustration.

Here's a rattlesnake scale pattern I did recently, showing the mesh. I made a pattern out of it to export for use in Photoshop.

It's all mesh except the cast shadow, which is a transparency with a gaussian blur added.

[ravenmark]

Nice pattern Command-Z, did you make a seamless tile out of it? I used some shapes with gaussian blur too to cover areas for high lights where I could not get the mesh to do what I wanted. Together the two make a good combo if you have the time to devote to it. As you demonstrated, if you do a blur close to an edge there is always the mask route to keep it clean. Great job and thanks for sharing!

[Command-Z]

Nice pattern Command-Z, did you make a seamless tile out of it? I used some shapes with gaussian blur too to cover areas for high lights where I could not get the mesh to do what I wanted. Together the two make a good combo if you have the time to devote to it. As you demonstrated, if you do a blur close to an edge there is always the mask route to keep it clean. Great job and thanks for sharing!

Thanks Derek. I could make a seamless out of this, but I needed it to follow the body contours of a snake rendering, so I used "strips" of it and used the Warp in Photoshop to shape it. (I'll post the finished art here soon in its own thread, but here's a close up of what I'm talking about).

The pattern of copied meshes in Illustrator made for a HUGE file that takes forever for AI to render on screen, even with 10 GB of RAM. I've been doing more illustrations in AI lately and that's the big thing I've noticed... blends and blurs eat lots of memory. So much easier for me to just airbrush in PS... But repeated patters and such are so much easier to set up in AI.

[ravenmark]

Command-Z. Nice illustration so far, excited about seeing the finished product! It always pays to use the strengths of each program at your disposal when creating higher end art as well as knowing which one will give you the best results for a particular job. Over the years I have received a lot of art from graphics students and what not that have done flat text and graphic designs in photoshop or some other form of weirdness. Makes me wonder what they are teaching in college now days. Is your finished product going to be grey-scale or color? And for those that are reading that may not be as far along as you or I, if you are going to do this in color, what method of coloring are you going to use out of all the options out there? It might be something cool to include in your post, or here.

I am with you on the AI memory issues, blends and blurs can be memory intensive.

[Command-Z]

Final art for the Snake design posted here:

http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,3128.0.html

[ScreenFoo]

Derek:  Is there any way you could post the wireframe of the mesh(es) you used?  Very cool.

That finished snake design is out of control--as much as I love seeing challenging stuff to put on press, I don't know if I'd want to even ATTEMPT to touch your stuff, Z.   

[ravenmark]

Derek:  Is there any way you could post the wireframe of the mesh(es) you used?  Very cool.

Foo there is a link to a wireframe version of the art right under the pic.

[ScreenFoo]

Should've noticed that...    I guess I've been stupid before. 

I've been playing around with meshes just a little bit--I'm a recent convert, and long time Corel user, but the more I learn about Illy, the more I'm kicking myself for not getting it long ago... 

Is it pretty well standard practice to frame out the shape and then add points that contour as such, or is it just faster that way than playing with nodes and distortion?
Interesting stuff.