Day 18: Photorealism with Gradient Mesh

By Tony Soh

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Gradient Mesh allows you to create shapes with gradients. And many artist has been able to create photo realistic drawings of people, products and vehicles just by using Gradient Mesh. Here is an example of photorealistic artwork by Halim Ghobane. If you don’t believe your eyes, the gradient mesh line will show the answer.

Halim Ghodbane

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About The Author: Tony Soh

Hi. I'm the founder of Vector Diary. Illustrator is my passion and I have written numerous tutorials on illustrator helping people learn illustrator. My most popular tutorial on learn illustrator has been a hit. It makes learning illustrator so easy and has benefited more than 20,000 people worldwide. Also, I've revealed some of my secret techniques in the premium tutorials. So don't forget to check it out!

Read more by Tony Soh

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• Premium Tutorial: Gradient Mesh Car
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• Illustrator Tutorial: Gradient Mesh Flower

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+Add Comment26 Comments

1. 
   Candy July 31st

   This is excellent. Something bothers me about gradient mesh though, is that later on if I wanna edit the object it’s not editable. Even when I try and expand it.

2. 
   iStockdiary July 31st

   Hi Candy, using Direct Selection Tool you still can select and edit the anchor points anytime.

3. 
   Brian August 30th

   Actually the object is now always a gradient mesh right?

4. 
   Leroy Simpson August 31st

   What tha blood claat man, dis a good tool!!

5. 
   kors k September 20th

   aw shit nigga this tutorial is tight

   i hate this tool though

6. 
   paul September 22nd

   this is amazing. can you create a gradient mesh with a compound paths?? for some reason i can’t get it

7. 
   dinesh October 6th

   good one

8. 
   den November 6th

   http://designsite.com.ua/portfolio.htm best Vector Gradient Mesh

9. 
   Tom December 17th

   Halim Ghodbane*

   http://www.arabezier.com/

   ?

10. 
    dimadiz December 19th

    http://designsite.com.ua/portfolio.htm cool vector

11. 
    Az January 31st

    Would you please explain me how you have created this shape???

12. 
    Az January 31st

    I need your helpppppppppp! How can I create this shape??? Also I can not create this shadow with mesh. PLZ help..

13. 
    Vectordiary January 31st

    Hi Az, first draw a circle. With the Pen Tool selected, hold Alt as you click the top anchor point to convert it a a point shape. Click and drag the point again to move it higher to form the tear shape. Hope it helps. =)

14. 
    Az February 2nd

    Thanks for your help, but it seems that I have some problems in using pen tool. Do you know any video tutorial for this purpose?

15. 
    David February 7th

    Yes, it can be hard to ‘grasp’ for beginners! (pun intended? )

    I started to mess with it even more. If you add more mesh lines and select certain multiple points, you can really mess with the object. I got the teardrop looking like a mallet…or hammer type object!

16. 
    Dave Oliver March 1st

    Incredible tutorials!

    But just a question. When a gradient mesh is applied to an object, the stroke automatically turns off. Is there a way to keep an object’s stroke when a gradient mesh is applied?

17. 
    Vectordiary March 1st

    Hi Dave Oliver, There is no way to turn it on. An alternative solution is to make a duplicate of the shape before you apply gradient mesh. Then send it behind the gradient mesh. You can then add a stroke to that shape. This will create a stroke effect to the gradient mesh.

18. 
    Dave Oliver March 2nd

    Ah, true true. Thank you for the quick response, much appreciated!

19. 
    katy stapleton March 16th

    You make this look so easy …when i connect two points it goes crazy like a child and a crayon and i don’t know how to smooth it.

20. 
    Vectordiary March 16th

    Maybe your water droplet paths are messy, that’s why the mesh turns messy. Try this instead: first draw a circle. With the Pen Tool selected, hold Alt as you click the top anchor point to convert it a a point shape. Click and drag the point again to move it higher to form the tear shape.

21. 
    Carlos Alberto Michelena March 20th

    I like a lot this tutorial.
    Thank you.

22. 
    Kelly Brosky March 31st

    Thank you so much. I’ve been using Illustrator for a while now and have mastered just about everything but the gradient mesh. This simple tut is so much easier to understand than any other I’ve found and now I have a good starting point to practice using the gradient mesh tool!

23. 
    juan salvatierra April 29th

    Bravo!!! thank you for the great tutorial. =)

24. 
    Jeffery Wright June 9th

    its confounding oversights in illustrator that keep me going back to corel.

    like this: “There is no way to turn it on. An alternative solution is to make a duplicate of the shape before you apply gradient mesh.”

    what kind of silliness is this? in corel, one just has to simply ‘convert to curves’!

    why is this missing in illustrator?

    the same reason it was impossible to place an objects outline behind its fill until only recently… which you could do in corel since at least version 2!

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