Blur Only Part of Line / Edge in Illustrator

Question

I found a graphic that I like on Adobe Stock:

Basically, I'm wondering how to re-create this graphic in Illustrator. I understand how to create a gradient from left to right, or even a shape with three gradient markers as you see above (orange, dark blue, light blue) - but I don't understand how the top edge of each ellipse gets blurred into the next. I know how to blur using Photoshop, but is it possible to do this in Illustrator?

I.e. here's my attempt at recreating the graphic in Illustrator:

Part of the reason why I want to re-create this graphic is because I want to change the color of the orange and blue slightly.

The original graphic is very complex and it's not realistic to change the color of each individual pixel to the color that I want.

It looks like there might even be another gradient on top of each ellipse - blue going from upper-left to bottom-right.

Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to do this? Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

You could do this in Illustrator, however I feel it would be far easier in Photoshop.

Anyway, one possibility would be to group everything, and make a blurred copy of the artwork. Then make a black shape and blur it, then use that blurred shape to add as an inverted opacity mask on the blurred copy group.