Probably not! But a few months ago I saw some photorealistic vector images and I thought to myself – that’s cool! I don’t know why someone would do such a thing, but it amazed me that it was possible.

When I first started writing some beginner articles about Illustrator here on Creative Curio, Lauren approached me and said she would love an article about the Mesh Tool and the Mesh Grid (Gradient Mesh)! Since I didn’t really use it for anything complicated myself, I put her request in the bottom of a long to-do list.

A couple of days ago I finally bought myself a Wacom Tablet A5 (get your calculator Americans—well, ok I’ll give you the calculation: 5.8” x 8.3” which is approximately the equivalent of your 6×8 tablet) and that started my little Energizer bunny…

There are, in my opinion, two extremes you can accomplish in vector:

1. Drawing a font
2. Photo realistic images

Both require an enormous amount of time, skill and patience, and both should be tried, since it’s the only way you ever gonna understand the finer points in drawing and the tough decisions that go into creating a font or a complicated illustration.

The Three Ways of Drawing Realistically

1. The Photoshop Method
Head over to YouTube for tons of examples, but we love those vectors right?

2. Illustrator with a Touch of Photoshop
Make the base illustration with shadows and highlights in Illustrator and apply the texture in Photoshop. It’s more complicated, but it gets the job done and is fairly efficient.

3. Pure Illustrator
Push the boundaries and go full bore and show those who say “Vector graphics always look a bit flat. ” This is just a sign of laziness in my opinion!

Before We Begin

Before we begin, there are some issues you should take into consideration before you start.

First, this is far from a beginner guide and if you have only a little experience in vector drawing applications, sorry, then this article is not for you. I won’t go over every detail–there are steps that simply won’t be mentioned–so it’s not a complete step-by-step guide.

If you don’t have a tablet, then it’s going to take you twice as long to accomplish drawing these kinds of images. A mouse just isn’t precise nor fast enough.

You need to be fully competent with the Pen tool and have a complete understanding of using anchor points and anchor handles.

You need to reconfigure your keyboard shortcuts in Illustrator and/or express keys on the tablet. The two shortcuts are for “direct select tool” and “eyedropper”, since you will constantly switch between then for hours at a time. If you are using a keyboard, make sure they are right next to each other, instead of the default (”a” and “i”).

Have some painkillers and Band-Aids for blisters on-hand (I’m not kidding!)

Getting ready

The image I used was from Jason Gulledge on flickr. I found it through compfight.com with just a simple search for “fruit” and “banana.” The important things I looked for were the image resolution, a complete object and an even lighting; and the most important part that I could use the image without paying! I don’t like paying for images, when I’m just making an exercise out of them.

When you start out for the first time, you have to realize that texture is an extremely difficult task in Illustrator, especially if you want to keep it in vector and without the use of Photoshop effects (which are raster, or pixel-based). A banana is rather smooth, compared to, let’s say, an avocado. The texture of the object is the tricky part.

The Dreaded Mesh Grid

I know it looks awful, but its actually only misunderstood and looks way more complicated that it actually is. Let me explain the three different ways to work with gradients first.

1. Simple Gradient

Draw a box, give it a normal gradient and apply colors. You can choose between a radial and a linear gradient. Simple and basic, it works great on uncomplicated figures.

2. Blend Tool

Draw to boxes, one within the other, add color and blend them together. This works great since it’s like a “live effects”; you can constantly change them and even make some things that are fairly complicated. See the watercolor flower tutorial on VECTORtuts for a good example.

3. The Mesh Grid (Gradient Mesh)

Takes the prize and can be used for just about anything, it just take a bit more time to perfect when compared to blend tool and the simple gradient. So I suppose only use first two gradient types if you want to be able to edit and try out stuff fast.

Layers Magazine did a comparison that I found useful for the difference between simple gradient and blend tool.

The Two Basic Methods for Making Texture in Mesh Grid

1. Make a mesh grid that completely covers the whole shape and applying gazillion mesh lines so that the textures are a part of the base mesh grid.

2. Make a base grid and then make a new mesh grid in a different layer that single-handedly controls a spot and other larger areas that have a lot of detail.

In this tutorial I use way 2, but I have seen others using way 1 and I don’t know which is the more correct method, but both seem to work flawlessly. The second option is also very handy if you have anything short of a super computer, since you can turn the layers on and off.

Hope you can see the difference on how the spots are made, on those two images.

Off We Go!

I have tried starting the mesh grid with a couple of different shapes; all of them are very difficult to work with. The simple square is your best bet, since circles and polygons make some bizarre grids when you start to manipulate the anchors. I think it’s important to try this out for yourself, though. To begin with, choose a mid tone color for the fill color.

Place your image on the canvas (make sure about the size, Illy sometimes scales images per default), make a new layer and lock the bitmap image.

Draw a square give it a nice base color that seems fitting.

Important: click on the mesh tool in the toolbox and click once in the center of the shape. Now start shaping this square over your image with the Direct Select tool (white arrow).

Cmd/Ctrl + click on the little eye in the layers panel, so that you can see that particular layer in outline mode.

Make sure that all the handles and anchors are in place and the mesh lines look natural (i.e. no curling on the mesh lines and make sure the anchors are aligned and fit the contours of the object). Add new mesh lines accordingly when you need them, but hold back as much as possible to avoid an overly complicated grid. Take your time to place these and don’t rush it, otherwise it’s gonna come back to bite you later on in the process.

Now it’s time to select each mesh point with the Direct Select tool (press A for the shortcut) and with the Eyedropper.

With the Eyedropper (shortcut I!) select a color close to the anchor point. The more mesh lines and anchor points you have, the longer the process. Yes, more mesh lines will get a better result but! only so far! Figuring out the right number of mesh lines you need is something that will come with practice and experience.

Turn the layer preview back and forth (Cmd/Ctrl + click the eye) to see your progress. Be extremely careful you don’t hit Ctrl/Cmd + A and then select a color with the Eyedropper (it will make all the objects the color you select and all your hard work goes down the drain!). It does happen from time to time. Remember that Ctrl/Cmd + Z (undo) is your friend in these instances.

Getting the Texture

The dark spots can be applied by making a new mesh. Turn both layers on preview, give the center anchor a brown color and make the other anchors around the spot, blend with the basic mesh grid.

For making lines and other small contour details, the best solution I have found, is actually a tip from Ryan Putnam and the only difference I did compared to his excellent vector ways, is making those texture into a art brush and use the pen tool to make shapes that follow the contour. I know their are many ways to do things in the art of vector, but keep in mind that this part can take quite some time until you find the texture that seems fitting.

Play with opacity and color mode to see which blends in the most.

For Discussion

This illustration took me 14 hours total and I just hit a wall at some point when I realized it was starting to turn into a Picasso–never being completed! I know that it can be done better and even more realistically, but I just wanted to try a new object and take a different approach.

But what is the point of realistic vector renderings? I can hardly imagine any customers wanting this and less so, paying for it! Well, why do people climb K2 in a blizzard? The same reason I guess: to show off and impress girls. Heh, other than that, this tutorial seems pointless.

Of course technical drawings could be an answer, but since I can’t tell Philip screws from – ehm… regular ones, I don’t think there is a reason to go through this, except for the girls of course! But is there anyone who has an idea how this could be useful or perhaps even receive this kind of work from a paying client?

Clients aside, I do think this exercise is important for establishing best practices. I’ve seen my fair share of amateurish vector designer, making complicated logos with tons of opacity mask. All that fluff just makes it difficult to work the file in an efficient way.