Experiment in Photo-Realism With Illustrator

For many designers, the gradient mesh tool can be a little intimidating.  It combines two concepts that can be tough for many designers to master; the pen tool and gradients.  With this piece I decided to adapt the technique I devised to create pixel art and apply it using a gradient mesh.

In the beginning, I was a little weary of how this design would turn out but after seeing some finished segments I was pleased with how the technique looked; especially with how the skin, beard and reflection in the sunglasses turned out.

What I learned was that this is a useful technique for working with organic elements like people, animals, etc.  As you can see, there are some jagged edges around the sunglasses.  To me, this means that this technique would not be useful for creating images with smooth lines such as sunglasses, buildings or autos.  You can counter that by adding more grid lines.  This will create more detail but will also add to the time you will spend working with your artwork.

In my next piece, I plan to experiment with the mesh tool a bit more.  After spending some time with it, I found that it wasn't as intimidating as it looks.