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Insight
Creating Blends With the Mesh Tool in Illustrator
Dateline: July 28, 2006
Version: Illustrator 9
More Insight articles
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| There’s no question that creating blends in Illustrator can be
complicated and tedious. That’s why Illustrator 9
brought the addition of the
Mesh tool, which not only
speeds the process but allows
for much more precise color
and shading, as well as shaping. Ann Paidrick used this tool to create photo-realistic chocolates
in a dish.
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Using a photograph as
a reference, Paidrick drew
simple rectangles and shapes
(primarily with the Rectangle
tool). To create the rounded
tops and dimension of the
chocolates, she filled the
shapes with a base color and
clicked in the center of the
shape with the Mesh tool
which gave her two lines going
in either direction with five
mesh points.
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To make a shape and
mesh into a semicircle, Paidrick
chose Object > Envelope
Distort > Make with Warp,
and set the Bend to 100%. She
also used Object > Envelope
Distort > Expand to form the
shapes. She prefers using this
method instead of starting
from oval or circular shapes
because the number of mesh
points on the outside of the
shape is reduced.
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To add contour to the
chocolates, Paidrick moved
the mesh points into the
correct shapes. Since chocolates
aren’t usually perfect
circles, she didn’t always have
two semicircle meshes meet
perfectly. Instead, she placed
a small circle in the middle of
the two pieces where they
met. She also created meshes
for the paper cups and candy
dish and shaped them.
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To color the mesh points,
Paidrick selected each and
used the eyedropper to take
a sample color from her reference
photo. She then carefully
added and colored more mesh
points (clicking with the Mesh
tool). “If I didn’t put in enough
points, the candy would have
been too smooth. If the mesh
wires were too close to each
other, the illustration would be
too stripey,” she explains.
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The final image is shown at left (click to enlarge).
Tip: Command-click a layer’s
visibility icon in the Layers
palette to automatically see
the layer in Outline mode.
Command-click it again to return
to Preview mode. Toggle
between the direct selection
arrow and the eyedropper by
pressing Command-Shift.
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