10
Extreme Fills and Strokes
In This Chapter
▶ Creating tone and shading using the Mesh tool
▶ Making artwork partially transparent
▶ Blending artwork
▶ Stroking your way to victory over drab art
▶ Creating custom strokes
▶ Using masks to hide objects with other objects
T
o say that in Illustrator, you can create just about anything you can imag-
ine isn’t an overstatement. The trick is to know which buttons to push
to make your artistic vision become an Illustrator document. This chapter
pushes fills and strokes to their limits, showing you how you too can create
cool stuff. You know — the stuff that makes you scratch your head and say,
“How did they do that?” And then you wonder whether you’ll ever be able to
create anything as artistic.
Well, it isn’t so hard. You just need to use some of the more
arcane Illustrator tools (the Mesh tool, for example) and
a few cantankerous menu commands that don’t want
to do anything unless you apply them just right. This
chapter shows you how to use them to get good
results with the tools and commands that take
center stage. Like temperamental sports cars,
they’re a little tricky to use — but worth the effort!
Messing Around with Meshes
Illustrator is really great at filling areas with solid
colors, continuous patterns, or gradients. Illustrator
gets testy, though, when you try to create a continuous
tone — such as the many skin tones that define a human
face, or how colors fade into one another in a piece of folded
fabric. However, you can use the Illustrator Mesh tool, even if it is a bit of
a crotchety magician. Just talk nicely to it, and it can help you bend the rules
a bit. With the Mesh tool, you can create amazing shading and tonal effects.
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Part II: Drawing and Coloring Your Artwork
And gradient meshes overcome the limitations of gradients (the other
Illustrator feature that enables you to blend colors; for more, see Chapter 5).
Simple gradients fill areas with linear and radial color blends. Period.
Comparatively, gradient Meshes have no such limitation. You can use them to
assign colors to the specific points and paths that make up an object. Where
the mesh lines cross, you can assign a different color to every line and every
point. These colors blend with the colors of the other points. Take a look at
Figure 10-1 for a sample of what you can do with a gradient mesh.
Figure 10-1: The artwork that made up the Illustrator Venus was colored
entirely with the Mesh tool.
Figure 10-1 might seem complex, but
the difficulty lies much more in the
artistry than in the technical aspects.
The Mesh tool might seem daunt-
ing at first, but you can tackle it if
you begin by adding a highlight to
a simple shape, as shown in Figure
10-2. Do that, and you’re well on your
way to gradient mesh mastery, as
spelled out in the next section.
Figure 10-2: Use the Mesh tool to create a
highlight in a path.
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Chapter 10: Extreme Fills and Strokes
Adding a gradient mesh manually
To add a gradient mesh to a simple shape, just follow these steps:
1. Create a shape by clicking and dragging with any of the basic object
tools (see Chapter 4 for more on basic objects) and fill the shape with
a dark color.
You can use any shape. For this example, I created a circle and colored
it black.
2. Deselect the path (choose Select➪Deselect).
Deselecting the path enables you to pick a different color for the Mesh
tool. If you choose a different color with the path selected, you change
the color of the object.
3. Set the fill color to any light color.
Choose Window➪Color to open the Color panel. Click the Fill box and
choose a light color to use as a highlight. (Gradient meshes use only fill
colors and ignore stroke colors.)
4. Choose the Mesh tool from the Tools panel and click the object to
which you want to add a highlight.
As if by magic, two intersecting paths appear on the object, crossing at
the spot where you clicked. (You can see this intersection back in Figure
10-2 where all the blue lines are converging in the red middle of the
star.) This intersection is the mesh point. These paths are the gradient
mesh. The highlight appears where the paths intersect.
5. Click other areas within the path to add more highlights — as many as
you want.
The paths that make up the gradient mesh can be edited the same as any
other path. Click the mesh points in the path with the Direct Selection tool
and move them to create different effects. Mesh points also have direction
points, just like curved paths. (See Chapter 6 for more on paths.) These direc-
tion points can be moved to change the shape of the gradient mesh. You can
also change the color of any point or path segment by clicking it and choos-
ing a different color in the Color or Swatches panels. Figure 10-3 shows differ-
ent effects made by mashing the gradient mesh around.
That’s really all there is to this tool! I moved those points by using the Direct
Selection tool and then tweaked the colors by selecting a point or a path and
choosing a new color in the Color or Swatches panels (accessible by choos-
ing Window➪Color and Window➪Swatches, respectively).
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Part II: Drawing and Coloring Your Artwork
Figure 10-3: Same gradient mesh with mesh points moved.
Letting gradient mesh do the work for you
You can automate the process by clicking the object you want and choos-
ing Object➪Create Gradient Mesh. This method adds a gradient mesh to the
object automatically. Illustrator does its best to estimate where the mesh
paths should go by looking at the shape of the object and figuring out where
the mesh paths should go to shade the object
so that it looks three dimensional. You can even
have the gradient mesh create the shading for
you.
After you select the Create Gradient Mesh com-
mand, the Create Gradient Mesh dialog box opens
(shown in Figure 10-4). Set your options, click OK,
and the command does the mesh-y work for you.
Here’s the all-star lineup of options:
✓ Rows and Columns: These options set the number of mesh paths that
the command creates. The higher the number, the more control you
have over the colors in your object (but the more complicated the
graphic is to work with).
Figure 10-4: Set your Gradient
Mesh here.
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Chapter 10: Extreme Fills and Strokes
✓ Appearance: Select one of three Appearance options. Figure 10-5 shows
the differences between the three options.
• To Center: Lightens colors to place a highlight in the center of the
object, creating the appearance that the graphic is being pulled
outward
• To Edge: Places a highlight at the edges of the object, creating the
appearance that the graphic is being pulled inward
• Flat: Doesn’t change any colors but still creates the mesh, so you
can change colors on your own
Flat Center To Edge
Figure 10-5: The same gradient mesh: Flat, To Center, and To Edge.
✓ Highlight: When you select an Appearance option of To Edge or To
Center, the Highlight setting determines the maximum amount that the
colors lighten to create the 3-D effect.
In Figure 10-5, the two examples on the right show objects with a highlight
applied to them using the Illustrator automatic highlighting process.
Creating soft bevels with Gradient Mesh
You can use the Mesh tool to create a soft-beveled object. The following
steps illustrate a very basic, yet quite handy, method for creating bevels:
1. Create a square by choosing the Rectangle tool and then clicking the
Artboard and dragging. Fill the square with a nice strong solid color,
such as grass green or fire engine red.
Other shapes work with this, but a square is the simplest.
2. Choose the Mesh tool, click just inside the upper-left corner, and then
click again just inside the lower-right corner.
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Part II: Drawing and Coloring Your Artwork
This creates a total of nine mesh
patches on the square, as shown
in Figure 10-6.
3. Using the Direct Selection tool,
drag a marquee around the four
points along the top edge of the
square. Then press Shift and
drag a marquee around the
unselected three points on the
left edge of the square.
You have seven points selected
now, around the top-left corner, all
on the outside edge of the square.
4. Choose Window➪Color.
The Color panel appears, as
shown in Figure 10-7.
5. Holding down the Shift key,
drag one of the right-most
triangles to the left about half-
way. (In the example using
the red color from Figure 10-7,
you could choose either the
Magenta or Yellow triangle.)
The Shift key “tints” whatever
color you selected in Step 1
when you drag a slider in the
Color panel.
6. Again using the Direct
Selection tool, drag a marquee
around the three rightmost
points along the bottom edge
of the square. Then press Shift
and drag a marquee around
the middle two points on the
right edge of the square.
With the lower-right points
selected, you’re now ready to
darken this corner of the square.
7. Drag the K slider on the Color
panel to the right until you
darken the lower-right edge to
your liking.
The result looks something like
Figure 10-8.
Figure 10-6: A square after two clicks with
the Mesh tool.
Figure 10-7: The Color panel.
Figure 10-8: The resulting beveled square.
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Chapter 10: Extreme Fills and Strokes
Making Objects Partially Transparent
and Blending Colors
By default, Illustrator creates objects that hide whatever is behind them.
However, the Transparency panel enables you to change this situation.
With the Opacity option, you can fade objects so that the underlying objects
show through them. You can also blend the colors in the top graphics with
the underlying graphics (in an astonishing variety of ways) by using blend
modes.
One of the powerful features of the Transparency panel is that everything
you do in it is live, meaning that your paths suffer no permanent changes
after you make them transparent. You can change opacity again and again —
or remove it altogether if you want — without changing your path data. This
capability gives you tremendous room to play and experiment with different
opacities.
Fade away with opacity
In Figure 10-9, a red “no” symbol is faded-out to 50% opacity to partly reveal
details behind it.
Figure 10-9: Original opacity (left) and faded to 50% (right).
To make something partially transparent, follow these steps:
1. Select the object (or objects) that you want to fade.
When you select multiple objects, they all get the same opacity setting.
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Part II: Drawing and Coloring Your Artwork
2. Choose Window➪Transparency.
The Transparency panel appears, as shown
in Figure 10-10.
3. In the Transparency panel, drag the Opacity
slider until it shows the percentage of opac-
ity you want to give to the selected object(s).
After you release the mouse button, the selected objects become par-
tially transparent.
By default, transparency applies evenly to both the fill and stroke. To assign
the fill and the stroke independent Opacity values, use the Appearance panel.
See Chapter 11 for details.
Big fun with math! Blending
graphics with blend modes
Pssst! Listen very, very carefully while I tell you what’s really going on with
blend modes. Here’s the scoop: Forget the math and pay attention to what
the resulting artwork looks like.
Illustrator defines every color mathematically. You see that math when you
drag sliders in the Color panel. A bright red color may be defined as R:216,
G:20, and B:7 (in RGB) or C:20%, M:95%, Y:95%, and K:5% (in CMYK). Each of
these numbers reflects a different amount of a component color; every differ-
ent color has its own color value.
Blend modes take the colors in an object and
mix them with the colors in underlying objects,
performing a mathematical calculation using
numbers that identify the colors of the objects.
Therefore, if the top object is red, the underlying
object is blue, and you have the blend mode set to
Multiply, red’s number gets multiplied by blue’s
number. The resulting color is what you see.
Other modes do more complex calculations. What
does that mean? What’s blue times red? What’s
the difference between yellow and mauve?
What’s the sound of one hand clapping?
In short, it doesn’t matter. What the result looks
like is what matters! Try this approach for your-
self: Select the top object and choose a differ-
ent blend mode. Blend modes hang out in the
Transparency panel Blend Mode menu, as shown
in Figure 10-11.
Figure 10-10: The Transparency
panel.
Figure 10-11: The Blend
Mode pop-up menu in the
Transparency panel.
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Chapter 10: Extreme Fills and Strokes
Figure 10-12 shows three (of the 16 possible) blend modes at work on the
same image — and they’re completely changeable. If you try one and don’t
like it, just choose another from the menu.
Figure 10-12: Three blend modes in Illustrator.
Discovering How Strokes Work
Any path in Illustrator can pick up a stroke (. . . stroke . . . stroke! Sorry. Just
daydreaming about going for a nice row on a lake). In Illustrator, a stroke is a
line placed on a path. A stroke can be of any thickness, which Illustrator calls
its weight. Strokes can be any color or pattern.
In Chapter 9, I discuss the specialized strokes that you can make with the
Paintbrush tool. The Pen and Pencil tools also provide distinctive strokes of
their own (Chapters 7 and 8, respectively).
In addition to color and weight, you can give strokes special attributes. These
attributes include the specific look of corners (joins) and endings (caps) as
well as whether the stroke has a pattern of dashes applied to it. To investi-
gate all the advanced ways you can modify strokes, look at the Stroke panel
shown in Figure 10-13. (Choose Window➪Stroke and choose Show Options
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Part II: Drawing and Coloring Your Artwork
from the Stroke panel pop-up
menu.) To change how a stroke
appears, select a path and play
around in the Stroke panel to see
what happens. I won’t tell a soul.
Strokes are applied to the center
of a path by default, which means
that the strokes, especially those
of larger weight, can ooze beyond
the path. The path runs along the
exact middle of the stroke. For
more information on the relation-
ship between strokes and paths,
see Chapter 5.
Caps, joins, and dashes
A stroke can be (and often is) a
continuous line of color that fol-
lows a path, even if the path is as
convoluted as a strand of cooked
spaghetti. But paths can also appear chopped up into dashes. You can tweak
the shape of the dashes all at once, without having to fuss over every single
one. You can set the shape that an individual dash (the basic unit of an open
path) begins or ends with (its cap) and the shape of its corner points (its
join).
Strokes can have any of three different caps and any of three different joins
applied to them. Combine these with the almost-limitless combinations pos-
sible for dash patterns and weights, and you can see the incredible versatility
of strokes. To access these additional options, choose Window➪Stroke. In
the Stroke panel that appears, select Show Options from the panel pop-up
menu; refer to Figure 10-13.
Caps
Shaping the ends of the dashes that
make up an open path can change
the entire look of the path. For
example, imagine a dashed line that’s
500 dashes long. Then imagine that
all 500 dashes have identical ends,
shaped like one of the three shapes
in Figure 10-14.
Miter
Butt
Round
Projecting
Round
Bevel
Figure 10-13: The Stroke panel displaying a full set
of options.
Figure 10-14: Three different caps on three
paths.
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