Gradient fill and Distort

[SIGNTEK GUY]

Im doing alot of designs in which im using the gradient fill to illustrate our airbrushing on vinyl work.......problem is that I'll do the layout and and often i use the distort feature to add some spice to the layout........then ill try to add the gradiant fill to show the client what the end result will be, but im stuck saying...." well, it'll look like this but the fade will follow the curve of the fonts.....! Im hope i made that clear, in other words, the flow of the gradient seems to just flow in a straight line. Granted, i can change the direction of the line, but i cant distort it, nor get it to follow the distort in the text....Any ideas?

 

[signguy95]

The only thing I can think of is to convert all text to outlines and fill each letter seperately and rotate the gradient to fit your needs as the text curve...Kinda time consuming but not that much though. And If you plan on trying several fonts I would suggest copying the line of text before converting to outlines. Just my thoughts?!

 

[Fred Weiss]

You might want to consider using blends instead of gradients. You have considerably more flexibility with them. Most applications including Illustrator, Coreldraw and Flexisign can do blends with no difficulty.

Some simple examples:

 

[Mike Paul]

Apply the fill to each letter. Sometimes uncompounding does this.
I wouldn't change the angle especially if you are using a thermal printer

 

[cdiesel]

Fred -how'd you do that?

I've been fooling around with gradients and fills for a while and haven't quite figured it out. I see alot of fills that come from the outside of the letter in or vice versa. I only seem to be able to have them come from one direction. I'm using Corel12. help please......

 

[Fred Weiss]

The screen shots below demonstrate a couple of different ways to use blends. They were done in Illustrator, but Corel should work pretty much the same. It's really limited to your own imagination.

Take the time to experiment and practice and you'll get good at it in no time at all.

In example #1, I started with a black and white vector. Next color is applied as desired. Third, a small, internal shape is set where the light hitting the apple is centered. Select the spot and the outside shape of the apple and apply blend. Either shape may now be selected for a color, size or position adjustment. Finally, execute an Expand command to convert the effect to vectors. This is needed so that other applications can correctly import the graphic when needed.

Example #2 we start with three separate shapes, each a different color. We select the center and left shapes and blend then. A duplicate center shape is positioned over the original and used for the right side. Each half can now be adjusted. Finally, expand the result.