When I first started on this piece, I wanted to push the envelope with Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to see how far I can take vector artwork and make it as realistic as possible.
Here is the entire Phoropter seen through the Preview feature in Illustrator CC 2014. Gradient Meshes used to frustrate me a lot when I first used it. Now I'm in love with it !
(Above) Working on the tuning dials was the toughest part of this project. The tricky part with applying gradient meshes to shapes created with Bevel & Extrude comes AFTER you expand the appearance of the shape. You will find yourself tackling many hidden shapes and lines that will get in the way with the target shape you want to manipulate. This is a result of the rendering of the Bevel and Extrude feature.
