From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

777 Freeform gradients: Points versus lines

From the course: Deke's Techniques (2018-2021)

777 Freeform gradients: Points versus lines

- Hey gang! This is Deke McClelland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques! Now this week, we're still inside Illustrator CC 2019 working with freeform gradients, which by default allow you to position independent points of color inside of an object. But now, we're going to connect those points with line segments in order to create organic color transitions. And specifically, we're going to take this artwork right here with this pepper and its stem over here on the left hand side and we're going to turn them into these beautifully, sculpted shapes right here. Here, let me show you exactly how it works! Alright, here's the final version of the artwork just so you can see it onscreen and at the risk of repeating myself, this guy right here is the product of a gradient mesh in advanced maneuver achieved in part using the mesh tool. And this guy is the product of the new freeform gradients here inside Illustrator CC 2019 and I presume going forward. Alright, so I'll go ahead and switch to this base document and I'll select that foremost pepper shape which is currently filled with a solid color quite obviously red. As a result, I'm not seeing any gradient controls up here in the control panel. To make those controls available, I'll just go ahead and switch over to the gradient tool which you can get by pressing the G key and then I'll simply click inside that shape at which point, in my case anyway, I end up with a linear gradient. I also have access to my three gradient type icons. Linear gradient, radio gradient, and the new freeform gradient. I'm going to go ahead and click on that third icon and I see that Illustrator has automatically added two color points to the shape. Your results may vary. I'm going to go ahead and drag this guy upward like so and then I'll double-click on it in order to bring up my swatches and notice that I've created a couple of red swatches in advanced here including this guy pepper hi for highlight. If I were to click to set another point, notice that by default, I end up with a unique color stop that is separate from the first one. However, I can draw them in lines instead. So I'm going to get rid of that new color point either by pressing CTRL+Z or CMD+Z on a Mac to undo, or I could just press the backspace key or the delete key on Mac. Notice up here in the control panel, that we have two radio buttons, points, and lines. These are also available in both the properties and the gradients panel. So I'm going to go ahead and switch to lines and then I'll click on that first point there in order to select it and now notice as I move my cursor away, that I am drawing a straight line. At least until I click to set a second point. After that point, then the line begins to curve as we're seeing right here. Notice, that's going to curve that first segment as well. We have the same behavior that we get with the relatively new curvature tool. If I were to click to set another point over here, you can see that nothing is happening and that's because I'm too close to that first line. I need to move my cursor down until I see that segment preview right there and then I click. But I don't actually want to add more points to this existing line so I'm going to press the backspace key or the delete key on a Mac to get rid of that most recent point and to deactivate this first line, I'll press the escape key. That way if I click again, I will start a new line as we're seeing here. Now I can continue to add more points like so and they will be connected to each other. But in my case, the colors are all wrong. So I'm just going to press CTRL+Z or CMD+Z on a Mac a couple of times to get rid of those most recent points. I'll double-click on this first guy and I'll select the other red swatch, pepper lo in order to apply that color and then I'll press the enter key or the return key on a Mac to accept that change and I will click a couple of additional times in order to create another line of color like so. Now notice what happens if I click on an existing point. I'll connect it to the last point. Which is not actually what I want. So I'm just going to get rid of that point by pressing the backspace key or the delete key on a Mac and we end up with a bunch of blackness at the bottom of this pepper. I'll go ahead and click right there in order to start a new line. I'll double-click on that guy and change its color to pepper hi this time around, press the enter key or the return key on a Mac to accept that change. Click down here in order to create another point then I'll click right about here and I'll drop down to the mid-section of the pepper and click there. And I'll click right about there. Now let's say I want to change the color of this point right here, it appears based on that segment preview as if we're going to join the points together but that's not actually going to be the case. Notice if I double-click, that just goes ahead and brings up the swatches panel once again at which point I will select pepper lo. While these controls are pretty easy to use, they do take some getting used to. Now I'm going to start a new shape right here and I'm calling it a shape because I'm going to trace all the way around this time and I'll bring it back up to right about there and notice the appearance of my cursor. Right now it looks like a little circle with a wavy line next to it? As soon as I move over the first point, that wavy line becomes a tiny little circle showing me that I'm going to close that little shape. I'll go ahead and click at this point, and double-click on it because that's the wrong color. I want it to be pepper hi once again. Then I'll click right about here and perhaps down here is going to work nicely. Now I'll move my cursor over to this location. Notice as soon as I move outside of this shape that I lose my segment preview and that's because Illustrator's not going to let me cross one line over another. You might think you could just click to start a new line but instead you have to press the escape key and click. Notice, anytime you're seeing a circle cursor with a little plus sign next to it, that means that you're going to begin a new line. So I'll go ahead and click here. I do not want white so I'll double-click on a point and switch it to pepper lo this time around. Because I want to create a kind of shadow with this location. Now I'll click here. Anytime you have two points, you're going to get a straight segment in between. If you want curvature, you have to have at least three points. Now I'll move my cursor outside the pepper path and recall from last week, if you want to hide all of that interface falderal, then all you have to do is either press and hold the space bar in order to temporarily switch to the hand tool. Notice that we're getting some very nice contouring here. Or you can press and hold the control key or the command key on a Mac to temporarily access the black arrow tool. Now I want to show you one more thing. Notice that we can actually see that modeled fill at the bottom of the tool box meaning that I can transfer that fill from one object to another. For example, let's say CTRL or CMD+Click on this background rectangle in order to select it, notice that it's got its own special freeform fill. But if I wanted to replace it, I could just switch to the eyedropper tool, which you can get by pressing the I key. Then I would click inside that pepper like so and that is going to transfer that custom freeform gradient to the larger shape. That's not what I want however, so I'll just go ahead and press CTRL+Z or CMD+Z on the Mac to undo that change. That is how you switch between points and lines when creating and editing freeform gradients here inside Illustrator CC 2019 and moving forward. Alright now, if you're a member of LinkedIn Learning, I have a follow-up movie in which I show you a couple of freeform gradient gotchas. Specifically, you can't drag a point outside of a shape. Why would you want to? I'll show you. And you can't cross the lines. If you're looking forward to next week as well you should, I'm going to show you how to crop and develop a great white shark! I shot this! In Camera Raw or Lightroom! Ah, Deke's Techniques each and every week! Keep watching!

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