When using the blend tool in Illustrator, I get large white patches

Question

So I made one path, then another. Opened Blend, set to Specified Steps, and then applied it to the paths. With straight paths, all was well. But with curved ones, I have large white patches where Blend did not fill anything in. Is this a common problem?

Thank you

Answer 1

I assume you are blending "open" curves.

If so, check if they have got fill color set to "none". Maybe they're still "filled" with white. That would be consistent with your statement

"if they're straight everything is ok".

Answer 2

It may be that the bezier points in the middle of your curves are being twisted around in an unpredictable manner, creating pinches in the middle your blend. Try this:

1. Reduce the number of steps to one or two to see if the intermediate shape is what you expect.
2. If you have a weird intermediate step, try creating an intermediate step or reducing the number of bezier points on the shape.
3. If your intermediate step looks okay, increase the number of steps slowly to see where the wheels may be falling off.

It may be that some combination of 2) and 3) is necessary to trouble-shoot / fix this issue.