Dec 21
Colorful gradient effects in Adobe Illustrator CS
2004 at 02.25 am posted by Veerle Pieters
After all that try-out cataloging software of last week, it’s time to take a break and be creative again. In other words, play-time for you, show-time for me! ;-)
So what do you think about creating a colorful illustration using all kinds of gradients and gradient effects? Good idea? Well, here’s a small tutorial in PDF.
As you may have noticed I’m a big “fan” of Adobe Illustrator. It was one of the very first graphical apps I’ve learned working with as soon as pencils and brushes were replaced by Macs way back then.
One of the powerful features in Illustrator CS is the Appearance palette. This palette gives you the color information of a shape. The power of this palette lays in the fact that you can add several fills and strokes on top of each other on 1 single shape. Each fill or stroke can have a different opacity, different transparency mode, ...
If you apply several complex gradients on top of each other, each with different transparency modes and different opacity, you can achieve very weird looking effects. The examples above might look a bit ‘kitschy’, but I’ve made them just as an example and to explain what I mean.
Maybe you need a header for your blog but don’t have a clue where to start? Start with the creation of an abstract looking background. Experiment and you’ll get surprising colorful effects. It’s just a thought…
Enjoy!
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8served
1
I didn’t ever think about combining gradients. I have always been wrestling with the mesh tool to get complex gradiations. The mesh tool is great but you have to know what you’re doing.
thanks
2
Thanks for the tutorial! Nice idea with those cactus needles / dotted strokes.
3
One question, since I love your tutorials…
On this fabulous site: http://justwatchthesky.com/Lomo/ there is this banner behind the lomo. It has a kind of gradient, but yet in a special way, could you explain me pleeeease?
Thanks.
4
Hi, very nice topic here. I was looking since a while for special gradients.
But i have a little question for somehting i would like to draw in illustrator.
Look at this picture please : http://www.smirnoff103.com/printer.jpg
And take a closer look in the red cirkel.
The gradient is taking a turn of 90° and i wonder how i could do this in illustrator ?
Thank you.
5
i think the answer to to Ine’s question is the ‘inner glow’ effect (Effect > Stylize > Inner Glow). Except you need to change the colour to something dark rather than the default pale yellow. You would combine this with a standard gradient fill.
6
To answer Smirnoff’s question: i think you would use the mesh tool. First create the shape and fill it with the darker colour. Then select the mesh tool and click twice inside the shape near each end. Then using the direct selection tool (the white arrow) select the two new points and all points on the bottom line of the shape. Colour these points the lighter colour. You may need to experiment to get what you want.
hope this helps
7
@Ine, it is indeed just like nerdcool say an inner glow effect that is applied to the white border that is on top of the blue gradient background.
@Smirnoff, again just like nerdcool mentions I would use the gradient mesh tool to achieve this effect. This seems like the best way to me.
@nerdcool, thanks for helping during my midnight hours ;-)
8
Thanks nerdcool, the gradient is now okay, thanks to you !