[lindsayanng]

I just wanted to know what you all use when trying to great some kind of blend.

i work with illustrator A LOT, but I do not do too much with blending colors.. I saw a few random tutorials on "make blend" function in illustrator, but i still dont entirely understand it!!

i wish they had some illustrator classes around here.. I just want to learn to use the darn program.. there is some AMAZING stuff that can be done, i just dont really know all of it.

Any help or links are greatly appreciated.

 

[gnomewerks]

Try typing your questions on youtube. I've found a ton of good info there.

 

[prometheus]

Usually I use Gradients. The gradient mesh tool is one of those things I just haven't really gotten the hang of. Honestly I haven't even played with it that much. When I first started out I used blends here and there, but haven't done much with it in a long time.

On a side note, I worked at a Electronic retailer 8 years ago, and we would get a lot of artwork for products from companies like Sony, that would be done entirely in Illustrator. It was neat to see how much work went into it.

 

[lindsayanng]

OMG i was searching some info on how to use the gradient mesh tool (amazing tool btw, you should learn it!)

anyways, i saw this girl who had an illustration of a cannon rebel xti that looked like a photograph.. It really is AMAZING what some artists can do with illustrator.. I really wish there were classes around here that were specific like that.. if i went back to college i would have to start with art 101

 

[lindsayanng]

check out some of these ILLUSTRATIONS done using the gradient mesh tool!

Yukio Miyamoto | Master of Adobe Illustrator Gradient Mesh Tool

THESE ARE NOT PHOTOS!

 

[lindsayanng]

wow.. i have NO IDEA what you just said.. i dont actually print shirts, but i am doing some designs for clothing companies.. I have no idea about the process.. i make the art, they make it work.

 

[prometheus]

wow.. i have NO IDEA what you just said.. i dont actually print shirts, but i am doing some designs for clothing companies.. I have no idea about the process.. i make the art, they make it work.

In a nutshell, process is the four common colors used to print (your inkjet, color laser, professional printing), it is made up of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK (CMYK). Spot color referes to the Pantone Matching System (PMS) The are specific colors that technically should be the same anywhere they are printed. Think of a corporate color like Coke Red, IBM Blue, etc. These colors are printed with special inks.

With process it is easier to blend your colors than it is for spot. Does that help?

 

[lindsayanng]

yea. it all kinda makes sense.. I guess the way it is working SO FAR is that if my designs arent the right way they will let me know


I just love this gradient mesh tool.. and now that i REALLY know how to use it, i am super psyched at what i can do with it..

AND i just learned how to use Clipping Masks and such too!

 

[prometheus]

Well, when you are ready, show is some work.

 

[lindsayanng]

heres my first ever shirt design

 

[smutek]

Looks nice.

Be careful with your new friend the gradient mesh tool. As far as I remember you can not drop spot colors into it and they can be quite a pain to break up and manually separate. It doesn't seem to be the most optimized tool for screen printing work, unless you are printing process or simulated process.

At my job I am the only artist and I create and sep my own work as well as work sent to me by clients. Over the last two years I have learned the meaning of the old "why printers hate designers" adage. So many of us know how to make a pretty picture but are blissfully oblivious as to how on earth our pretty picture is going to be made to run on a press when we dump it on our printer.

It would pay to heed Fred's advice and at least find out the type of separation process being utilized by your client/employer and to know what its limitations are. In the end it will make you a better artist for a number of reasons. The more knowledge you have of the printing process the more control you have over your final output, the ore mastery you have over your craft.

It also allows the people doing pre-press to work more efficiently, which makes you more efficient.

You also don't want to find yourself up against a tight deadline and get a message back from your printer that they can not print the design as you've submitted it.

We all have our own way of learning this, but just mark my word, it will make you a stronger artist to know the printing side of things. So many of us do not know this stuff and it will only give you and your technique an edge.

Just something to think about.

 

[lindsayanng]

You are definitely right.. the thing is, the people who i am making these designs for dont REALLY even know what they are doing.. I am making them for a clothing company who is basically comming up with idea and outsourcing everything else..

i dont care because no matter what, i get paid.. But you are righ.. in the future, it would be good to know about the printing side.

So what do you do if you need to create some sort of blend/gradient in a screen printing environment. Is the image i posted not idea for that type of printing?

 

[smutek]

No, I think the image you posted is just fine as it uses limited colors and what appear to be simple gradients.

It goes without saying that art does not have to be complex to be good.

For something like you have posted here I would just sep it right inside of illustrator. (assuming it was an illustrator file that was provided).

For more complicated stuff, think photorealism or otherwise tonally complex imagery, I use an automated sep software called vueright/spotprocess.

You can easily make your same design here with spot colors, for example on your red gradient you would just set up a red spot color and drop 100% red into one point and 0% red into the other end of the gradient slider.

Are you familiar with the concept of global swatches in illustrator? If so, spot colors work the same way and will allow you to set up gradients like you have here.

So, with your red swatch, double click it and a menu will appear. there will be a drop down that says CMYK or RGB, change this to spot and click ok. Now, in your color mixer for this swatch, instead of CMYK or RGB sliders you will see a percentage slider.

This will allow you to control percentages of ink for each individual swatch you set up. So you could set up a 100% red swatch, a 50% red swatch, and a 0% red swatch, etc.

You use these for your gradients.

Is this making sense? I'm tired and I feel like I am being confusing.

If not let me know and I will try to find a better way to explain it.

 

[lindsayanng]

I am very familiar with the global swatches, I do use them all the time.. I never use a gradient (usually) with more than two colors.. I try NOT to complicate things too much.

I never really considered photorealism (like what was in those links i posted) for t-shirts anyways.. I do other design work too, so when i figured out how to use thei gradient mesh, i got overly excited because i was thinking about the web design stuff i can do too.

it is all making sense to me now..

 

[smutek]

yeah man, don't get me wrong. The gradient mesh is pretty sick. I've had my own flirtations with it in no screen printing work.

Cool that you know about global colors, spot colors work the exact same way.

Also, wanted to mention that the stuff you posted by Yukio Miyamoto is killer. One of my texts from school came with a CD that shows some of his work and has a few of those actual vector files included, the one he did of the baby and the one of the trombone. Really amazing work, especially when you are able to open the actual file up and disect it.