Choose what works for your illustration! Each type of shadow brings a different aspect of three-dimensionality to the scene.Click here to show unsolved question posts (and try to help the posters) The Sidebar Remember, you can apply either a drop shadow or a shadow shape, or both. Here’s our finished bird: This cheerful chick just got even happier! Now the shadow looks like it is caused by the body, and fades out as it reaches its edge.įinally, go to the Layers panel and drag the shadow oval underneath the bird body. Alter the gradient aspect ratio and the color stop placement
#Drop shadow illustrator full#
This increases the area with the full 40% opacity so that the shadow seems to originate from an oval center rather than just a point. Next, drag the left color stop a little bit to the right. This squashes the radial gradient so that it fades out while still inside the oval shape. Pull the black circle on the top of the radial gradient’s perimeter down until it is just inside the oval. To fix this, we need to edit the gradient using the Gradient tool. Right now, our gradient is cut off by the bounds of the oval rather than fading out like a shadow. Change the right color stop to black with 0% opacity. Change the gradient Type to Radial.ĭoubleclick the left color stop and change it to black, with an opacity of 40%. The actual gradient doesn’t matter because we are about to change it. Next, go to the Swatches panel and click on the Black-to-White swatch to fill it with a black and white gradient. Place it just slightly to the left, since our light source is overhead and to the right. Select the Ellipse tool (or press L) and drag out an oval underneath our bird. Make a black transparent radial gradient to fill the oval shape You can see a similar application in the Pen Tool Tutorial – each part of the cat and mug got a drop shadow so you could see how they overlapped. This is to emphasize that the wings are in front of the bird’s body. We need three drop shadows: one on the body, one on the left wing, and one on the right wing. If the light source is slightly to the right, the shadow will be slightly to the left.įor this bird, the light source is overhead and slightly to the right (this was decided in the previous tutorial involving the bird). If the light source is directly overhead, the shadow will be directly underneath. When placing the shadow, think about your light source. Tutorial: Apply A Drop Shadow & Shadow Shapeįirst things first: Where is your light source? We’re going to walk through adding both types of shadows to this bird you worked with in a previous tutorial.ĭownload the Illustrator file here it has the bird and background all ready to go! Give the happy bird some shadows! Notice the shadows underneath the birds and the nest
For example, in the Angry Birds story or menu scenes, you can see shadow shapes underneath the characters. Shadow shapes are also used for marketing materials like screenshots or ads, or for special illustrations in the game. Each figure or object has a shadow shape below it Many games with a three-quarters top-down view like Fieldrunner below use them so that the characters appear to be above the plane of the ground. Shadow shapes are used to create a sense of three-dimensional space in the scene. For example, game controls (like a Play or Pause button) with a drop shadow will make it clear that they are not part of the action going on behind them. Apples with and without drop shadowsĭrop shadows also help objects pop out of the background. For example, without the drop shadow on the apples below, they blend into each other.
Use a drop shadow on objects or characters when they need to look like they overlap. You can apply one or both types of shadows to your game objects and characters. A comparison of drop shadows and shadow shapes Shadow Shapes, which approximate where the real shadow would fall if the scene were three-dimensional. There are two types of shadows that you can apply to your object:ĭrop Shadows, which make the object visually feel like it’s popping off of the page, or is in front of other objects.
#Drop shadow illustrator how to#
Read on to learn how to give the characters and objects in your illustrations their own shadows. The answer is probably this: it needs a shadow! In real life, everything has shadows. But you want something a little more to make it pop out of the page and into the user’s imagination. This post first appeared on Say you have a cute little character or object for your game, and you’ve applied gradients to make it look three-dimensional.
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