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In this movie, I'll show you how



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you can assign blend

modes to individual fill



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and stroke attributes

in the appearance panel.



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And along the way, I'll show you



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how I created this gradient circle.



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Now, notice that it progresses



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from red to orange to yellow and so forth



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around the outside of the circle.



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But as you may know,

Illustrator only offers



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two kinds of gradients: linear and radial.



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Now, if we were working in Photoshop,



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this style of gradient

would be known as angle.



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In Illustrator, it's known as nonexistent.



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We also have the colors

converting toward the center



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from highly colorful to gray.



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So how in the world do we

pull an effect like this off?



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Well, let me show you.



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I'm going to go ahead and

select the current circle



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and press the backspace

key or the delete key



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on the Mac to get rid of it.



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And then, just to clear out my attributes,



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I'll tap the D-key to instate

my default fill and stroke.



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So I have a white fill and a black stroke



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as you can see here.



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Then, I'll go ahead and

select the ellipse tool



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from the shape tool flyout menu.



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My smart guides are turned on,



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so I'll go ahead and position my cursor



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right there at the intersection

of all those lines.



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And rather than dragging or clicking,



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I'm going to press the ALT key

or the option key on the Mac.



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And click to force the display

of the ellipse dialog box.



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And as you can see, I've

already done this in advance.



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So set both to width and

height values to 480 points.



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That just happens to

work for this graphic.



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And I'll click OK.



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And because I ALT or option clicked,



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I'm creating the shape

from the center outward.



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Alright, now, with the fill selected



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here in the swatches panel,



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I'm going to assign this swatch here



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at the most colorful gradient ever,



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and it does contain, as you can see here,



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a ton of different colors.



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If you want to see what that looks like,



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I'll go ahead and grab the gradient panel.



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Notice there are just gobs of color here.



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And I'll go ahead and drag that panel out,



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so I can make it really wide.



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And I'll expand the panel as well



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so that we can see the

various assumptions.



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And I want you to know that these are just



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the brightest shades of

each one of these colors



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of red and orange and yellow and so forth.



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And they are positioned every 8.3%.



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And that's because

that's the value you get



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if you take a hundred

percent and divide it by 12.



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And afterall, there

are 12 different colors



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inside of this gradient,

with red being a 13th color



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that is repeated at the end.



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Alright, so I just want you

to see what that looks like.



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Now, as I was saying, where

a gradient is concerned,



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you have linear and

radial and nothing more.



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And neither of those

really suits our purposes.



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So I'm just going to go ahead

and grab the gradient panel.



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And I'm going to drag it back

into this group right here,



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and move it over as well,



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just so it's in its familiar location.



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Alright, so the first thing we need to do



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is turn this gradient into a stroke.



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And so I'm going to swap the

fill and stroke attributes



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by pressing SHIFT + X, like so.



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And now we end up with a

black fill which I don't want,



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so for the present, I'm just

going to change it to none.



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That way, I can focus on the stroke.



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And I'm going to crank

the line weight value



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up to, let's say, 200, 'cause I'm



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kind of feeling my way

through this process.



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Alright now, here in the gradient panel,



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I'm going to switch to the stroke



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so that I reveal the

stroke options right here.



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Currently, we're applying the

gradient within the stroke.



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That's now what I'm looking for.



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I want to apply the

gradient along the stroke.



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Unfortunately, it's getting

repeated a couple of times,



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and that's because the

type is set to radial.



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However, if I switch it to

linear, I'll end up seeing



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the gradient repeated just

once, as we're seeing here.



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Unfortunately, it's going

in a wrong direction,



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but that's easily remedied by clicking



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on this reverse gradient icon.



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Alright, now I actually

want to point that stroke



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inside of the circle.



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But if I click an inward stroke



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appear in the control panel,



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notice that I can't change the alignment.



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It has to be centered.



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And so what I'm going to do

is apply a dynamic effect



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specifically to this stroke

in the appearance panel.



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Now obviously, I need a

little more room to work here.



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So I'm going to double

click on the swatches tab



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in order to collapse that panel.



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And I'll go ahead and drag upward



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on that horizontal barrier.



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And then I'll go up to the Window menu



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and choose the appearance command



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to bring up the appearance panel.



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Alright, I'm going to go

ahead and click on the stroke



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because I specifically want to modify it.



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And then I'll go up to the Effect menu,



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chose Distort and Transform,



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and choose the best dynamic effect ever,



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which is Transform.



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As you may recall, if

you've loaded D-keys,



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I gave you a keyboard shortcut of CTRL + E



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or Command E for Effect.



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Alright now, what we want

to do is turn on the preview



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check box so we can keep

track of what we're doing.



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And I had to play around with this



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a little bit to figure it out,



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but in the end, it's pretty simple.



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You just want to change the horizontal



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and vertical values, both of them, to 50%,



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which is going to seem wrong at first,



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but it's got to work out great.



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And now, I'll just go ahead and click OK



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to accept that change.



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And now, what we need to do

is increase the line weight.



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So notice if I change the line

weight value to 400 points,



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we don't quite fill in

the center of that circle.



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And in fact, the only way we're

going to fill in the center



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is to match the diameter of the circle.



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And so in other words, I

need to change this value



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to 480 points, at which point,



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everything works out brilliantly.



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Alright, now I'm going to

zoom in a little bit here.



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And I want you to notice

that at this point,



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we don't have anything that passes



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for a conventional stroke.



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Right now, looks like

we have a filled circle.



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I want to give it a stroke as well.



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So I'm going to drop down

to the Add New Stroke icon



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right there and click on it.



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Alright now, this stroke

looks pretty messed up.



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I'm going to go ahead and press CTRL+0



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or Command 0 on the Mac to zoom out.



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What I'm going to do is

I'm going to drag below



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the other stroke just for the

sake of demonstration here.



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And I'm going to click on

the color swatch right there,



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and I'm going to change it to black.



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Now, obviously, it's way too

big, so I'm just going to reduce



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the line weight to one point, let's say.



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Alright though, notice if I zoom in here



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that the gradient stroke is

covering up the one below it.



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So notice if I turn the stroke off



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that I've got a thicker

one point stroke going on.



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As soon as I turn that

rainbow stroke back on,



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then I'm losing half of that stroke.



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Now obviously, one remedy is

to drag this guy right here



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above the other one, so you

can do that if you like.



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But I just want to show

you you have more options.



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Notice if I twirl this stroke open



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that not only am I seeing

my dynamic transform effect,



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I'm also seeing this opacity option.



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If you click on it, then

you can change the opacity



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associated with this stroke,



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but you can also change the blend mode.



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And so I'm going to change it to multiply,



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and the great thing about multiply,



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notice that the black stroke

survives fully intact.



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So anything in the background that's black



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is going to show through.



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Now in our case, we have a little bit



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too much black black going on.



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And by that I mean, notice this.



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We can see all those pokes.



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And so to cover those up,



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I'm going to change this

fill down here to white.



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In that way, we're multiplying

onto a white surface,



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which is going to work out great.



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Alright now, so far, the

blend modes that we've applied



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have been a little bit unnecessary,



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because I could've just moved that stroke.



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So here's the more exciting

application of this feature.



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I'm going to create yet another fill



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by clicking on the Add New Fill icon



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down here in the bottom

left corner of the panel.



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And then I'll drug this guy

up to the top of the stack,



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so that it ends up covering up everything.



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Obviously, that's not quite what I want.



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So I'm going to bring back my swatches,



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and I want you to see this guy right here.



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It's called opaque to trans

gray - transparent gray.



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And so I'll go ahead and click on it,



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and notice that the

color is set to 50% gray.



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That's it, and incidentally,



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both color swatches are set that way.



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The only difference is that one is opaque,



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so it has an opacity value of 100%,



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and the other has an opacity

value of zero percent.



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And now, I'm going to

change the type to radial,



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so that the gradient is going

from the center outward.



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And I'm actually going

to add another stop here



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at, let's say, 66% should

work out pretty nicely.



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And I'm going to change

the opacity of it to 50%,



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just so we can exaggerate

the amount of gray.



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Alright now, I need that gray to sink in



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to the gradient in the background,



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and so notice that this

fill has an opacity as well,



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so each and every attribute

has its own opacity setting.



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And then you have this one

down here at the bottom,



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which affects the entire object.



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For now I'm going to leave alone,



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but I am going to click on this guy,



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and if you're not seeing it,



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just twirl your fill open like so,



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then click on the word "opacity",



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click Normal, and choose Saturation.



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So here's a really great

use for a weird blend mode.



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And notice as soon as I choose it,



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it goes ahead and reduces the saturation



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of those colors as they

go toward the center.



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And so now I'm going to press the V-key



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to switch back to my black arrow tool,



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and click off the object to D-select it,



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and I'll zoom out a little more



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so we can take in the entire thing.



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Now incidentally, if you're

working along with me,



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you may see some weird little

artifacts inside the circle.



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Those should not end up

printing or exporting.



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In my experience,

everything should work out



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perfectly smoothly.



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And that is at least one application



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for applying blend modes to

fill and stroke attributes



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inside the appearance panel.