Adobe Illustrator Tutorial: How to Illustrate a Vector Tomato Using Gradient Mesh Tool

You will use Meshes, Gradients and Blends for creating the resulted picture. The skills you will learn here can easily be transferred to creating various objects. So let’s get started!

Tutorial Details:

• Program: Adobe Illustrator CS3 – CS5
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Estimated Completion Time: 2 hours

Illustrator Drawing: Chinese Bamboo

1.Draw the Bamboo Body

Create a path like the image below with the Pen Tool and fill it with the color green. Select the Mesh Tool and click on the lower left corner of the bamboo body (pt. 1) to add a mesh point. Then change it to a lighter tone of green (yellow-green). Now add another Mesh point at the upper left corner of the bamboo(pt. 2). Add another point above pt. 2. Add a final point beside pt. 2 and select a darker green tone for the shadow.

2.Create the Bamboo Stick

Select the bamboo body you’ve created in the previous step, hold down the ALT key, drag it up to make a copy (you can use Copy & Paste if you like). Then resize the new bamboo body horizontally with the Selection Tool. Send this new bamboo body behind the first bamboo body by selecting Object > Arrage > Send Backward or press Ctrl+[. Repeat this step until you get a stack of 5 or 6 bamboo bodies.

Create a Vector RSS Icon with Illustrator

Probably one of the most popular and recognisable icons in the web universe; the RSS icon is displayed on many website to indicate the availability of a subscription feed. There are pre-made icons you can download and place on your website, however this tutorial cover the process of creating your own custom vector RSS icon in Illustrator.
Since the icon is to be created in vector format, it can be scaled up or down in size for implementation on future websites you may work on, unlike a raster version which would have to be remade in larger dimensions to prevent pixelation.

For beginners to Illustrator, the following diagram shows the structure of the elements that will make up the icon. Similar to Photoshop, Illustrator works in layers but also, multiple objects can also be stacked on top of one another within a single layer. By using ‘CTRL/CMD + [‘ and ‘CTRL/CMD + ]’ you can alter the stacking order of a selected object and furthermore, pressing ‘CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + [‘ and ‘CTRL/CMD + SHIFT + ]’ will send an object to the bottom and top of the stack respectively.