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I have 1 rule when creating mesh objects.... Always start from a standard shape - rectangle or ellipse.

For some reason, results are really odd when you simply try and apply a mesh to an abnormal shape. However, if you start with a standard rectangle, add the mesh, you can then alter the mesh into any shape and when you add more mesh points they act exactly as expected.

You have an uneven number of anchor points per segment and in addition, I woul assume that those redundant points that are close to each other on the left and loweer segment have a different tension setting then the immediately neighboring ones, throwing the tools off track. Removing those points and checking the tension of the corner points might actually make it work as expected...

Mylenium

I guess even many Gradient Mesh veterans didn't know about the approach moluapple is demonstrating above.

Valuable pointer, moluapple.

This is the same sort trick as you use when making blends.

Only select important/corresponding anchor points.

In older versions of Illie it was the only way.

For trick read technique.

moluapple, that rocks. how has that been left out of every tutorial and article i have read on the gradient mesh?

strongbeaver, i would assume that you would then have to start with a regular shape. if you have eight sides, you would start with an octagon. of course without knowing what kind of shape you are trying to make i'm not sure if there is a better way or not. but i have used octagons with gradient meshes before and it worked out fine.

also, she selected those points because they are the corners. you dont want to selct the points that are just defining the path. the corners are what is important.