Concept Photo
The basis for this project is a promotional poster of the Master Chief from the live action Halo series, Forward Unto Dawn. I chose this photo in particular for the simple colour palette — fewer colours means fewer points making the structure of the mesh easier to illustrate and understand.
Mesh Layout
The first step in creating a gradient mesh is laying out the points of the network with the gradient mesh tool. The simplest and most effective way to accomplish this is to start by placing the outline of a simple shape. The outline is then reoriented and manipulated to match the curves of the image. This keeps the subdivisions straight forward and predictable.
Colour Selection
Once the network has been formed, recreating the contours of the image, you can move on to colour selection. Using the eyedrop tool the colours in the original photo can be selected and placed into the grid. Every intersecting line represents a colour point and the space between them determines the intensity of the gradient.
Texture Selection
With the network of colour points completed it is time to consider texturing. Although textures can be reproduced or designed entirely with gradient mesh points, doing so with fine details can be extremely time consuming as the mesh grows incredibly dense. A quicker alternative, which can produce equally impressive results, is selecting appropriate vectorized textures to overlay.
Texture Application
After selecting textures which effectively reproduce the materials of the original image, they need to be applied. The easiest way is to simply mask the images using the forms created from the mesh network. However, this can leave the image looking two dimensional. To create more depth the warp tool can be used to match the texture to the plane on which it is being applied.
Composite Correction
With the textures and gradient mesh combined the image is effectively complete. The original photo has been reproduced as an infinitely scalable asset which can be applied anywhere. I personally prefer to take it one step further. Once the asset has been scaled to the resolution necessary for the final composition I will add in a couple raster effects and textures that match the resolution (the background). I will then create a composite and tweak the highlights, shadows, clarity, sharpness, and colour which created the final image above.