Subtitles of the Movie

The Mesh tool, which was at one time called the Gradient Mesh tool, if I remember correctly, allows you to create some very natural and painterly effects using a mesh that Illustrator will create for you. Or, you can create manually. So, I'm going to show you how I created this fruit example in a new document, so we can do it together. So let's go to File, New, and let's go ahead and just draw out a shape. So, I'm going to grab the ellipse tool and draw out a shape like so, and I'm going to give this guy; let's make an apple this time. So I'll give it an apple kind of color. And I'm going to grab my pen tool and click and hold the mouse down so I can add some anchor points. So I'm going to click once here, once here, and twice down here as well. Don't worry, if you miss the path and you get a warning dialog, just go ahead and accept that, and just try again. When you try to add points, try to literally be on the line and you know, I miss all the time, so don't worry if you miss. So, I'm going to now grab my Direction Selection tool and start to move some of these points down and move this over until I have a more apple-like shape. And that looks great. Ok. Now what we're going to do is; I'll show you the first way that Illustrator can help you create a mesh, which is automatically. With your shape selected, like so, go to the Object menu and choose Create Gradient Mesh. A dialog box will appear and ask you how many rows, which are these guys right here going down, and how many columns that go across you'd like to have. You can also change the appearance. I normally leave it on flat. Once you have your mesh, click OK. Then, grab this guy right here, which is your mesh tool, and click on one of these points. Then, you can add whatever color you like. So I add this light color here; I'll click on this mesh point and add that same color, and I'll move down and slowly but surely, I'm able to change the color of this and give it a nice highlight. I'll go with a darker color here and a darker one here. The cool thing about this tool is that you're not stuck with what Illustrator creates for you. I can use my Direct Selection Tool and click on any mesh point and move it around myself. Or, I can click on one point and use the handles to change it using the old good old Bezier handles and dictate the mesh direction and how harsh the mesh will appear as it gets closer to the edge of my object. So it's nice and soft, a little further away, and it's harsher the closer it gets to the edge. And I now I have this nice gradient that looks really cool. Now let me show you another way to add gradient lines here. So I'm going to grab the gradient tool again and this time, I can click anywhere I want to and add my own mesh point and change the color as well. So now that I have the tool selected, I'll click on another point in that same line and add a highlight to the apple on this side and I'll darken the color a little bit as it gets to the edge. How cool is that? You can continue this by simply, once again, grabbing your Direct Selection tool and changing how smooth that blend is going to be, and also shape it yourself. So you can pretty much determine your own light source. Now I can of course, create another shape and add another blend to it and make that a stalk or a leaf or whatever. But you get the idea. It's a great tool. Now if you want to get rid of points, that's easy as well. Grab your Direct Selection tool, click on a mesh point and simply hit Delete on the keyboard, and it gets rid of that section. Just be aware that sometimes the results are not exactly nice looking, so you know, be careful with that. My advice to you is to create shape and fill it with the least amount of mesh as possible. Usually the default is fine. Then add more as you need it with the mesh tool itself. So you have more control and it's easier to grab these points and move them around as you like.