I’m a big fan of www.vectips.com. Recently I was reading Creating Halftone Effects and wanted to play with it for a project – halftone gradient bubbles, etc sounded like fun.
The problem: how to apply gradients or other objects smoothly.
Once you’ve created your halftone image you’ll find if you apply a gradient it looks all bumpy.
The solution:
Smooth it out with the gradient tool (drag in your favored direction). Then, to create a more realistic look, apply a 3% blur to the gradient. Play with the transparency settings in Illustrator and use layers to combine images together for complex effects. Circles and other simple shapes work well, but you can apply a halftone effect to any object in Illustrator.
Extra credit:
Make your basic gradient shape and turn it into a brush, pattern, or symbol
Now you can use transparency or effects to update the look of your object.
