Hi, this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and today I'm going to tell you about one
of the new features in Adobe Illustrator CC 2019.
And that is the Freeform Gradient Tool.
Now this works a lot like the Puppet Warp Tool, but there's a whole lot more to learn
about it, and it also works kind of like the Gradient Mesh Tool, but it is way easier to
use than that.
So let's get started.
OK, so I've drawn a few shapes here.
This one I drew with the Brush Tool, and this one with the Pen Tool.
So this, if we do CMD Y, you can see what kind of shapes they are.
This is a stroke, and this is a solid shape.
So I'm going to hit CMD Y again.
Now I'm going to open the Gradient Panel, and to do this, you can just double click
on the Gradient Tool, or you can go to Window>Gradient.
As you can see in the Gradient Panel, there are three options.
We have Linear, Radial and Freeform Gradient, and the Freeform Gradient is the new feature
of Illustrator.
Now this is grayed out, and that's because it will not work on a stroke.
So you have to expand a stroke if you want it to work on it.
So I'm going to go to Object>Expand Appearance.
And now it's still grayed out.
And that's because the stroke's in front, so hit X to bring the fill in front, and now
you can see that we can use it.
So I'm going to click once, and it will automatically color this.
It sort of seems random.
I thought it was the swatches... what were available, but obviously it's not pulling
any swatches in except for the white and the black.
But as you can see, we have two points on here.
This one and this one.
It looks like the Puppet Warp Tool, and it kind of acts like that.
You can set different pins, but there are a lot of differences.
One is, if you double click this, you're going to get some colors.
We'll create a different color here.
Since we only have two pins right now, it's just doing a regular linear gradient.
And I'm going to hit Escape to get rid of that.
You can also click on the pin to get rid of the colors.
So I'm going to add another point right down here.
And we'll change this one to a darker pink I think.
And it works a lot like the Gradient Mesh, except it is a lot easier to use, in my opinion.
Another thing we could do if we wanted to, is just grab the eyedropper, and click on
other colors like this black, for example, in your artwork to choose that color.
I don't really want that, so I'm going to undo.
I'm going to switch this to a fill from a stroke.
And to do that, you can hit SHIFT X, and now I'm going to click my Freeform Gradient Tool.
And it's colored it very similar.
I'll recolor this to green.
I'm going to add another one here.
We'll make this one maybe a blue.
So as you can see, it starts to really meld those colors together.
I'm going to get back on my Gradient Tool and add another point in here.
Now this one I'm going to change to, maybe an orange.
And...and I want to show you something else, this little point right down here... if you
click and drag on it, it'll increase the size of the orange area.
And it only goes up so far, so you can't get really crazy with it.
But that's kind of cool.
So this gives you a lot more control.
I don't know if you've messed with the Gradient Mesh at all, but it can be really hard to
control where the colors kind of collide and that kind of thing.
So this is a way easier place to do this.
Now I kind of want to give you an overview of what you can do with each point.
If you click once, you can just delete it... hit Delete on your keyboard.
We're going to pull this up here, and then I'm going to get on my Gradient Tool again,
click on this point, and knock the Opacity down to 30.
And so now you can see right through it to the ribbon underneath.
OK, now there's one more thing I want to show you, and that is how you can use lines to
get kind of like a gradient shading on something.
So we'll need to get back on our Gradient Tool.
And then I'm going to go over here to Lines.
And this is kind of a cool way to control the shading of something.
So first, I'm going to click here, and I'm going to delete this one.
With our line selected, I'm going to click once, and I'll change the color of this.
We'll go with blue.
I'm going to click again.
Now this works a lot like the Curvature Tool, which was new, I believe, last year.
And you can just keep forming this shape and move it around as you need to.
So that is my darker blue.
Now I'm going to zoom in, and I'll create another line that goes right above this that
is going to be a lighter blue, maybe something like this color.
And now we can continue with our line.
Then I'm going to click off.
You can see how this is going to be really nice for shading things, and making them look
rounded.
And that's pretty much everything there is to know about the Freeform Gradient.
So that's the Freeform Gradient feature new in Adobe Illustrator CC 2019.
If you liked this video, please click on the 'Like' button, and I will see you next week
for another graphic design tutorial.
Thank you!!!