I was very determined after my frustrating experience with learning Illustrator whilst trying to complete the first assessment, so I decided I would give gradient meshes another go. I ended up using a few different 'processes', to create the fruit in order to learn what was better.
- The apple was first, I started with a blobby shape made with the pen tool, then tried to create the mesh, and then coloured it from scratch. This became tedious, and a lot of work needed to be done to fix the angles and positions of the mesh because of the irregularity of the beginning shape
- Next I tried a very basic approach similar to what I would do in Photoshop if I were in a hurry, where I made the shape, filled it, and put a gradient on it. I clicked a lot of things I don't fully understand in order to affix it to the curved shape, but to no avail, and the black spots are merely extra layers with gaussian blur.
- Third was orange, which I attempted after watching a beginner gradient mesh tutorial that was actually about making an apple. I started with an existing photo, made it a template, used outline mode, and created the mesh based on a rectangle first, then curving before creating more mesh points, which positioned them much more effectively. Then it was a matter of selecting each point and sampling the colour from the original orange. After, I found I needed to add more points in the mesh to get enough sensitivity/detail, and creating the dippled texture of the orange peel was a little difficult, but generally I consider it a success.
- Last was the peach, and I decided to make a very compact grid before adding colour in order to avoid as many squarish blotches. Once I was done, I moved sections around slightly, and resampled colours from my mesh in order to smooth sections out, and again, generally happy with the result.
- The bowl is 2 layers, the top with a gradient mesh which I coloured from scratch. I was originally going to attempt wood, then I realised it'd cover up all the fruit, so I went with '70s brown glass bowl your grandmother has had for years' style.