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Conical Grads with Envelopes: Construction Guide

The following steps show how to create conical gradients by using envelopes.

First, turn on Smart Guides in the View menu, set up some construction guides and draw a rectangle that has the same width as the circular guide, but 50 % of the circular guide's height. Like this:

Select the rectangle
Object > Create Gradient Mesh: 1 row, 4 columns

Direct select the top left mesh point
Double click the Scale Tool and choose Uniform Scale = 0 %

Now, select the second mesh point from the top left and scale it: Uniform Scale = 0 %

Repeat scaling each single mesh point until all direction lines completely scarper.

Direct select the lower 5 mesh points
Double click the Scale Tool and choose Uniform Scale = 0 %

The next step is to direct select mesh point B and drag it onto the circular guide's anchor point W.

Now, direct select mesh point D and drag it onto the circular guide's anchor point O.

Direct select mesh point A and drag it to the South Pole. Do the same with mesh point E. This is the result:

Take the Convert Anchor Point tool, click on mesh point N and Shift drag to the left until you reach the vertical guide G1.

With the Convert Anchor Point tool click on mesh point W and Shift drag to the bottom until you cross horizontal guide G3.

With the Convert Anchor Point tool click on mesh point O and Shift drag northwards until you cross horizontal guide G2.

Finally do the same at S, but note that there are actually two congruent mesh points, so you'll have to fiddle around a bit in order to drag out the direction lines. However, you should be able to get this:

Now take this mesh object and add it to any Symbol library, so that you can use it as a conical grad maker in future sessions where you just draw a rectangle, fill it with a linear gradient, place the symbol on top of the rectangle and execute the Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Top Object command.

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Illustrator 10 and above