Creating smooth complex gradient (meshes?) in Photoshop or Illustrator.

Wow, thanks for spending that much time on it. What you've done looks great. The first problem I'm having though - and this is always an issue for me - is that I can't get my mesh lines to orient the way yours do in the first diagram.  And Even if I could (which I hope you'll be able to show me), I can't figure out how you got your shadow color to be that size and shape. (See my attached). I've tried filling every combination of mesh points and mesh spaces I could think of, and it can't come close to what your shadow fill looks like.

If you could answer this here then I'd be happy to post more questions to get through all of this.

Thanks,
John
mesh-lines-2.jpg

I have gone on record saying that a program like Photoshop is a much better and far easier method to do this. It's not too late to turn back.

But if you want to tackle this thing called Illustrator Gradient Mesh, hang on. The road ahead is steep and full of twists and turns and there's not much of a map to guide the way. Many a strong man has turned back in frustration. Arrrrgh!

As you have discovered. The gradient mesh tool puts control lines wherever it jolly well pleases. There is not much say that you other than the number of rows and column.

But just because the program hands you a mishmash of points, that doesn't mean that you have to keep bound to it.

Every one of the points can be moved and adjusted. But you will discover that they can't be edited near as much as you would like, moving points on the outside edge not only tends to mess up your shape, you can't move a control point past your original Bezier point that you used to draw the object.

But do your best.

The idea is to think in terms of a 3D wire frame. You want your control points to follow the natural contours of the shape. This, in turn, will make the highlights and shadows follow the contours that you define. Then, to the ability that you have to control the lines, you will have the ability to control the shape of the shadows and highlights.

But it's not too late to do this in Photoshop.

3D.jpg

I was afraid of that, but thanks.  Photoshop, here we come!

Hey if you're still listening, how did you do the mesh in Phostoshop? please take a look at this other question of mine: https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/23490508/Adding-a-mesh-in-Photoshop.html

 tried following the steps in the linked tutorial with no results at all. Maybe the poster misunderstood my question, but as od now I'm clueless about how to do what you did abiove.

Thanks!

John

Ah come on. That was just the first step. It gets harder.

In truth, most illustrators use a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop and move back and forth to take advantage of each one's strengths.

Unless the final output has to be in vector format, Photoshop is the way to go for complex blends and shading.

I'll keep an eye out for your Photoshop questions.

thanks for the grade!

David Brugge

You and i were posting at the same time. Let me take a look at your question.

Throw your mushroom image up and lets talk about how to accomplish it (unless you want to try another image)