Illustrator Gradients

[stiney51]

Does anyone have or know where I can find any collections of gradients for Illustrator? I'm primarily looking for ones to create the look of metals and/or jewels.

To be honest I can do some of this myself, but never can get the right look I'm going for... One of many areas where my skills don't quite hold up to what my creative mind wants to accomplish. :-(

[Tamlin]

Hi stiney,
I don't really know much about Illustrator, so sorry if this is a dumb answer, but how would it be if you opened up a "metal" gradient in the gradient editor in Photoshop and then manually duplicated the settings in the gradient editor in Illustrator? From what I've seen, the gradient editors seem to work in pretty much the same way. I know this would be a bit laborious, but it might work.

Attached is a ZIP file containing two metallic gradients for Photoshop to get you started.

[Can't Sleep]

I don't think the tools work in the sasme way. I've not been able to find any gradient libraries for Illustrator. Have you tried the gradient mesh tool? That seems to give you more control over the appearance and placement of gradients. It's really frustrating to get used to and it's kind of time consuming, but the effects are amazing. I found the portfolio of Yukio Miyamoto. CHeck out what he can do with blends and meshes:
top_08

[Hummingbird]

stiney

i'll have a look around for you,can't promise i'll find the gradient style you are looking for but i'll come back with some free gradients

[stiney51]

Thanks for the help, I found some default ones in the preset folder for Illustrator, but still would like to find some more. If anyone comes across some others, let me know.

In the meantime, trying to duplicate the gradients isn't a bad idea.

(Yes Tamlin, I did search G**gle).