Illustrator - Gradient and other issues please help!

Hello. I am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong here. This is my homework assignment and my teacher isn't emailing me back so I decided to see if I can get help here. I am not asking you to do my homework, I want to learn! Anyways I am using the 2010 Olympic logo as a template and i am supposed to use the pen tool. Anyways to keep this short, I am trying to put the colors in and it won't let me. I can do it for the 2010, and the first half of the logo but I can't put color into the olympic circles. You know the well known logo for the olympics, the 5 rings. Anyways I hope someone can help me here. And I know I suck @ the pen job.

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/61153/olympiclogo-vales-ai.html

Well since we're not supposed to do the job for you!... I find that the more I use the pen, the better I am at it and that it's only a question of practice.

That link doesn't work, btw. Takes me to a weird page, no drawing there.

Yeah I know its a matter of practice but all i have left is to fill it in with color!

When you click the link, at the bottom you have to enter the number and click submit. Then you have to wait 25 secs till you can download it.

If anyone knows some good uploading website then tell me and I will upload it there!

Not sure exactly what it is that you are trying to do here. Are you saying that you are trying to recreate the Olympic logo in Illustrator?
What are you trying to do with gradients that isn't working correctly?
Oh and MHC, turn off your popup blocker if you want to download his .ai file, for some reason I couldn't download it no matter how long I waited until I disabled it.

EDIT: Now I see what your problem is. You don't have any closed paths. You cannot fill the rings in with color because your rings are just lines, not a closed path. If you zoom in on them you will see the breaks in the lines.

D3v1L80Y said:

Not sure exactly what it is that you are trying to do here. Are you saying that you are trying to recreate the Olympic logo in Illustrator?
What are you trying to do with gradients that isn't working correctly?
Oh and MHC, turn off your popup blocker if you want to download his .ai file, for some reason I couldn't download it no matter how long I waited until I disabled it.

EDIT: Now I see what your problem is. You don't have any closed paths. You cannot fill the rings in with color because your rings are just lines, not a closed path. If you zoom in on them you will see the breaks in the lines.

Click to expand...

Hmm ok I'm going to check right now. Gradient is the big part that is white. I need to make that a blue color, but it needs to be lighter on the top and then it gets darker. But it won't do it.

Ok, I closed up all the rings, but ONE doesn't work. It's the black ring. It looks fine to me... But i got colors in the rest of the rings. Do you know why I can't put color in the black ring? I closed it up just like the other ones.

OK, make sure you close all your paths. Many of them are pretty messy. If the shape is whole, aim to get it done all at once. Don't worry about accuracy too much at first, as you can always edit it later (add points, remove points, convert points, tweak etc.) - just make sure it's closed to begin with.

For those objects to have a complete fill, they need to be closed. Even if lines overlap, they won't create a boundary. It MUST be a single shape.

Try to cut down the number of points too. The fewer the points, the smoother the lines will be, and the fewer headaches later. For example - the lowest wavy line (the object filled blue) I would use 4 points, including 1 at each end as a corner point. You have around 12 there. You can use 1 to create each curve, just drag the handles out further, and make sure that one handle is point the way the line continues on. Hard to explain, but basically, you want the handles to dictate the direction of the line.

Now, to do that gradient. First ensure each shape is it's own complete shape. Then, select them all and click the gradient button under the fill/outline swatches in the toolbar. It'll probably just fill with a default gradient. It's a good idea to create swatches of your desired colours first, so you can drag them onto the gradient palette to edit the gradient. Once you've got the colours OK, select the gradient tool, click where you want the gradient to start, and drag out a line to where you want it to finish. That's all there is to it.

When I was learning illustrator, I had to do the very same brief, so I've gone through all this before.

dtownley1 said:

OK, make sure you close all your paths. Many of them are pretty messy. If the shape is whole, aim to get it done all at once. Don't worry about accuracy too much at first, as you can always edit it later (add points, remove points, convert points, tweak etc.) - just make sure it's closed to begin with.

For those objects to have a complete fill, they need to be closed. Even if lines overlap, they won't create a boundary. It MUST be a single shape.

Try to cut down the number of points too. The fewer the points, the smoother the lines will be, and the fewer headaches later. For example - the lowest wavy line (the object filled blue) I would use 4 points, including 1 at each end as a corner point. You have around 12 there. You can use 1 to create each curve, just drag the handles out further, and make sure that one handle is point the way the line continues on. Hard to explain, but basically, you want the handles to dictate the direction of the line.

Now, to do that gradient. First ensure each shape is it's own complete shape. Then, select them all and click the gradient button under the fill/outline swatches in the toolbar. It'll probably just fill with a default gradient. It's a good idea to create swatches of your desired colours first, so you can drag them onto the gradient palette to edit the gradient. Once you've got the colours OK, select the gradient tool, click where you want the gradient to start, and drag out a line to where you want it to finish. That's all there is to it.

When I was learning illustrator, I had to do the very same brief, so I've gone through all this before.

Click to expand...

Ok so I'm done everything except the gradient. I can't figure it out. Like I re did the bottom part that is supposed to be blue, above the rings.. and i can do gradient on that.. but above that i cant do gradient. Thanks for telling me about the pen tool and how many points i should have etc. Although i don't wanna do it all over again haha took a while.. and i just hope my teacher will accept it and at least get a good mark. It's due tomorrow. This is what it looks like now... i hope u can help me out on the last part which needs to be gradient.. 30 C to 100 C

http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/61243/olympiclogo-vales1-ai.html

PS You gotta click the link.. not copy and paste for some reason it won't work if you just copy and paste.

OK, downloading now.
Now, I'm on illustrator 10, but something odd is happening. I click the central shape of the logo (which remains white in my version of ill.) and it selects that shape, BUT it also selects a large frame (may be coloured white, and grouped with other objects, why is this?) No amount of ungrouping solves this.

Closely looking at that middle shape, it's still not a closed shape. Take a look at some screens I've taken, where I separated the pieces.
http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1li5.png

See? These parts should all be one continuous, and connected line. Otherwise, you simply cannot fill it, much less use a gradient. It's not the same as paint programs, where you can break down the line into pieces and still have it register as an outline for a fill.

I downloaded a web image of the logo, and traced that part myself. Have a look at this image to see where my points are, and see that it's connected.

This one shows the lower portion, and what I was referring to when I said I'd use 4 points to create the wave.
http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture2kc7.png

The middle section. Remember, longer anchor points give smoother and more natural curves. This is a great shape to practice that.
http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture3os4.png

Remember, this is just how I would do this, so I'm not trying to say this is the correct way. Others will do it differently I'm sure. This is just designed to be an example so you can see how closed paths look, and a guide to see how to space out and plan your points.

Just try to keep your points simple. Space them out, and draw out the anchor points. Don't switch to other tools WHILE creating the path, because the last created point will become a corner point, and you don't want that. To close off the shape, click once again on the first point (the mouse cursor should alter, to have a small circle by it)

Sorry about that links, photobucket was down for maintenance, so I had to use imageshack, ugh.

That sure is a messy webpage! Yuck!

Ok well like Db says, you cannot fill in shapes unless the paths are all closed.

I don't know what the original file looked like either, but if the circles are meant to be completely circular, why didn't you use the ellipse tool (L for the keyboard shortcut)? Then you could have used the scale tool (S on the keyboard) to create the inner circle. Then once you have the outter and inner circles just right, you choose the selection tool (V on the keyboard) and while holding down the Option key you copy over the shapes, etc.

Could be just a hand drawn look you want though. Like I said I can't see the original file you want to reproduce.

As for gradients, they're pretty straightforward: colours go from left from right. You need to choose in the gradient palette the gradient application method (circular or linear) then you're good to go with choosing the colours you want. If you want or need more gradient sliders, you just Option-click on one of the gradients already in place and slide it: this will make a new one. You shouldn't have more than five sliders otherwise it's pretty hard to manage them and the results look pretty yucky usually.

Alright! It's done. Thank you everyone for your help. The reason why some of the rings are in bad shapes is because the teacher wants us to use the pen tool ONLY and he wants us to copy exactly the way the template is and the rings aren't really perfect circles so yeah. Again thank you everyone for your help!