Transcripts
1. Class Introduction: Do you want to level up your
flat vector illustrations and make them jump off the page? Well, you came to
the right class. I'm going to show you
how to add depth to your vectors using
light and shadow. I'm Amy, a surface
pattern designer, illustrator and skill
share top teacher. If you've met me in one of my previous skill share classes, welcome back to class. Taught several classes on
the tools in Adobe Fresco. And in this class, I'm
sharing my secrets to creating vector illustrations
with depth and dimension. As an artist who started out in pencil and paper and
moved to digital tools, I've always tried to infuse more life into my
vector illustrations. Working with vectors gives me scalability without
a loss of quality, but my work felt a bit flat when I first started
using the tools. Adding shadows and
highlights can give life to
otherwise flat forms. But unlike pixel brushes, vector brushes don't naturally allow for soft gradual shading. In this class, I'm going to share some tips for how
to bring the concepts of light and shadow to vector illustrations with
the tools in Adobe Fresco. I'll show you all the tools
you'll need for this class, but it may be helpful to
know some of the basics of Adobe Fresco before
you get started. If you're new to Adobe Fresco
or Just Need a refresher, I recommend watching
my skill share class, Intro to iPad Art Part two, Adobe Fresco before
watching this class. If you love the versatility
of vectors and want to create illustrations
with more depth, this is the class for you. And if this class
sounds fun and you don't want to miss out on
new classes I publish, be sure to follow me
here on Skill Share. You can also find me on
Instagram or Pinterest at Amy EB Designs. If you're ready to get started, join me in the next lesson.
2. Class Project: Um, For the class project, we will be illustrating
a water drop with the vector brushes
in Adobe fresco. We will start by discussing the basic concepts of
light and shadow to make sure we understand
what happens when light falls on an
object to create form. We will then move
into Adobe fresco to talk about the difference
in illustrating with vectors versus pixels
and the tools we will be using to add highlights and shadows to our vector
illustrations, namely blend modes
and clipping masks. We will then be ready to
create our water drop. I'll take you step
by step through the process of
adding form shadows, highlights, and cast shadows. We will finish by making some adjustments and
exporting our work. In the project and
resources tab, I have included a
reference image that we will use in this class. You can download the
file and save it to your iPad to be imported
into Adobe Fresco. I like to save mine to files. When you're ready, please upload your project to the
class gallery page. You can upload any
part of your process, and you can always go back and update your project at any time. To upload a project, just go to the project and
resources section of the class page and
tap submit project. When the page opens,
you can upload a cover image and add a
project title and description. The cover image will be
automatically cropped, so you can also share
additional images and then click Publish. In the next lesson,
we will start by discussing the basic concepts
of light and shadow.
3. Basics of Light and Shadow: In this lesson, we will start by reviewing the basics
of light and shadow. Light and shadow are what give an object weight,
depth, and form. When you draw a flat object
and then shade it to convey areas of light and
shadow, you give it dimension. Let's start with
a simple circle, a flat two dimensional object. Next, we add in a light source. Now to keep things simple,
we're going to work with a single light
source for this example. The top of our circle
where the light hits is the light
side of our object. The bottom where the light is
blocked is the shadow side, and the transition
from light side to dark side is the shadow
line or terminator. With this in mind, we can
add in some initial light and shadow to turn our
flat circle into a sphere. The brightest area of our
light is the high light. This is where the light
directly hits the object. The transition from light to dark is made up of half tones, and the darkest area of the
shadow is the core shadow. These areas make up
the form shadow. As an object's form turns
away from the light, it creates the form shadow. There is a second type of
shadow, the case shadow. When one object blocks light
from hitting another object, it creates a cast shadow. In this case, it would be the surface our
sphere is sitting on. The darkest part of the
case shadow is the area directly beneath the object
called the occlusion shadow. This is where the least amount
of light hits the surface. Because light bounces
off surfaces, you will also have an area of reflected light towards
the bottom of your object. Lighter surfaces
reflect more light, so the value of the
reflected light will change based on the
value of the surface. So by adding a light source, we took a flat circle
and made it a sphere. If we change the angle and direction of
that light source, the light will bounce off
our object differently. First, the position of the case shadow will shift
to the angle of our light, and the steeper the angle, the longer the case
shadow will fall. The shadow line will also change to match the angi light source, along with the location
of the high light, half tones, coarse shadow,
and reflected light. Understanding how
the direction of a light source affects the
form shadows, cast shadows, and areas of light will help you create realistic dimension
in your subjects. In addition to the direction
of the light source, the intensity of the light will affect areas of light and
shadow on our object. Intense direct light will create high contrast in your
highlights and shadows, while weak or diffused light creates softer shadows
and lower contrast. Value or tone is the lightness
or darkness of a color. Contrast is all about creating visual differences
between elements. High contrast in values means there's a large difference in
the light and dark values, and the effect is more dramatic. Low contrast means there's a
small difference in value, which creates a subdued effect. The cache shadow
will lose sharpness and contrast as the
light source softens. A case shadow will
also soften as the object casting the shadow moves farther away
from the surface. If, for instance, our sphere was hovering above the ground, the case shadow
would be lighter and the reflected light would
lessen or disappear. These are the simplest
principles for understanding how light
and shadow create form, and they can be applied to other basic shapes like a
cylinder, cone or cube. Curved shapes like
the cylinder and cone have gradual transitions
from light to shadow, while the cube's hard edges
have sharper transitions. All complex forms are
made up of spheres, cylinders, cubes, or cones. So if you understand how light falls on these four shapes, you can render any form
with depth and dimension. In the next lesson,
we'll take a look at some real objects to discuss additional concepts
of light and shadow.
4. Effects of Texture and Color: So far, we've been working with basic shapes in black and white. In this lesson, let's take a
look at real life objects to see how light and shadow are affected by texture and color. Here I have images
of four objects, each with different surface
textures and shapes. Some are shiny like the bulb
or the top of the mushroom, and some are matt
like the pickle ball or the marble coaster. Notice how the shiny surfaces
have sharp highlights, while the dull surfaces
have soft highlights. These are all taken with natural indirect
light from a window. The light is coming from
behind the objects, so the cast shadows are
subtle with soft edges, and they fall in
front of each object. Let's take a closer
look at each of these objects under different
lighting conditions. Here we have the
ceramic mushroom with its shiny glaze cap
and rough matt stem. This is a good example of how different surfaces
reflect light. Notice how the highlight
along the rim of the cap is a sharp white line, while the highlight on
the stem is very subtle. What if we add in a light
from a lamp sitting on the right side and angled slightly away from the mushroom? We know the direction
and angle of the light because of the
angle of the cast shadow. Notice how the case shadow
is well defined but has a subtle hallo around it
to soften the outer edge. If we move the lamp closer and more directly
over the mushroom, the cahado shrinks and darkens and the edges
become sharper. Notice how the core
shadow moves and we see more reflected light than
the previous images. Next, we have the light bulb. Notice how light reflects off
the glass versus the metal. Both are shiny surfaces, but the light bounces off the glass in so many directions, leaving several
areas of highlights. Light streams through
it and reflects off the surfaces of the table
bouncing back into the glass. We can add in the lamplight and see how the cast
shadow changes. Notice the filament
and the edges create the darkest area of the cast shadow
from the glass, and the sharpest highlights come from a reflection
of the lamp light. This is more exaggerated if we move the lamp closer and
right above the bulb. Notice the lamp highlights
are distorted by the shape of the
glass and reflected back in multiple areas. Now let's look at
this pickle ball with its map plastic surface under
the indirect window light. The form shadow is
soft and subdued. Notice how the holes allow the
interior of the ball to be lighter because the light bounces off the inner
surface and reflects back. The addition of the lamp light increases the contrast
of the form shadow, but the rim around each hole also has its own
highlight and shadow, showcasing the thickness
of the material. When we move the light closer,
the contrast increases, and you'll notice the holes let light through to
the cast shadow. Lastly, we have the
marble coaster. Notice how the subtle
highlight at the top rim and the form shadow at the bottom
have sharp transitions. This is because the
top surface is flat. Unlike the sphere with
its gradual curve, the edge is sharp
so the transition from light to dark is sharper. We can see this further
with the lamp light. The form shadow
has more contrast as the light curves
around the side, but the top is completely flat, so we have an even light. As we move the light closer, the change from the
top flat surface to the curved sides
becomes more subtle, but the top is still
lighter in value. The density of the object makes the cast
shadow well defined. If we put two objects side by side and add
in the lamplight, notice how the cast shadow of the mushroom is interrupted
by the coaster. And this is because case shadows follow the contours of the
surfaces they fall on. Think of your shadow
hitting a wall. Your lower body would
fall along the floor, but when it hits
the right angle of the wall, it shoots straight up. This is important
to keep in mind if you're drawing groups
of objects together. Another thing to understand is the way color reflects
onto a surface. Here we have our pickle
ball in the indirect light. If we put a bou piece
of paper next to it, the light from the
window bounces off the paper and reflects blue back into the form shadow and even cools the soft cast shadow. So it's important to consider the color of nearby or
overlapping objects. The lighter and
brighter the object, the more it will reflect color back onto
surrounding surfaces. The best way to study light is to observe objects
in real life. Working from a reference
image can make it easier to draw your subject
matter realistically. Once you're used to
drawing from life, it becomes easier to
draw from imagination while still creating forms that follow the rules of light. In the next lesson,
we'll start working in Adobe Fresco to
see how drawing with pixel and vector brushes changes how we approach
rendering light and shadow.
5. Blend Modes: Now that we've covered
some of the basics, let's take this
into Adobe Fresco to use these principles
in our illustrations. In this lesson, we're
going to discuss how to incorporate what we've learned into illustrating
with vector brushes. Growing up, I drew lots of still if objects with
pencil or charcoal. Shading with a pencil
lets you build up shadows slowly with beautifully blended transitions from light to dark. Working with digital
brushes lets you mimic this blending
because the images are made up of tiny
rectangular pixels with small variations in tone. Vector images don't have pixels, so the edges are crisp. They're infinitely scalable, which makes them
easy to work with, but they look flatter
than pixel illustrations. Here are two circles I've drawn. One is shaded with a
digital charcoal pencil, and the other is shaded with
a basic round vector brush. If I zoom into the pixel image, you can see the subtle
changes in value as it transitions from highlight to shadow because it's
made up of tiny pixels. On the vector image,
you can see I created some gradations of value to simulate shadows
and highlights, but the transitions
aren't smooth. If I zoom into the
vector circle, you can see the transition from one shade to the next
has a distinct edge, and there isn't a
gradual change. Now, this can be
more subtle if we lower the contrast and
added more values, but there's still a distinct
line separating them. This is why a lot of
times you just see the representation of shadows and highlights on
vector illustrations. My favorite way to
add highlights and shadows to my vector
illustrations is with blend modes because you can achieve some really
nice effects with them. Now, you may be familiar
with using blend modes, but if not, let's
take a look at them. First, let's create
two new layers, and we'll turn off
this layer group. And with my first
new layer selected, I'll tap to open the drawing
aids and select a circle. I'll use the fill bucket to fill the circle with
a lighter color, and I'll slide my
drawing aid over, and I'll select the second layer and fill it with a darker shade. And you can see that my two circles are on
two separate layers, and they overlap each
other just slightly. And I can even drag and
drop to reorder the layers. We'll find our blend modes on the right side in the
layer properties panel. You can see there
is a drop down menu with our blend mode options. Now, the default mode is normal, and this means that the
layers are 100% opaque. So the light circle covers up the dark circle because
it sits on the top layer, and the blend mode is normal. I can hide the top layer, and you can see the
full circle again, or I can make the pink circle
visible to cover it up. Now, if I select the top layer
and change the blend mode, it changes how the
layers interact with each other in the areas
where they overlap. Blend modes are applied to a blend layer that sits
on top of a base layer. The color information
of both layers is blended together to
create a new result. Each blend mode creates a different result based
on the brightness, color, and contrast of the
base and blend layers. Now, there are 26 blend
modes in Adobe Fresco, and they can be divided
into six categories. Normal, darken, lighten, contrast,
inversion and component. Blend modes in the darken
category, blend colors, so the result is darker
than the original tones, and white will
become transparent. Blend modes in the lighten
category, blend colors, so the result is brighter
than the original tones, and black becomes transparent. Contrast blend modes increase the contrast by making darks
darker and lights brighter, using 50% gray as the divider between
light and dark values. Inversion blend modes invert or subtract colors
between the layers. Component blend modes blend
specific color components, hue, saturation, and luminosity. Blend modes create non
destructive changes, so you can easily adjust them, change them, or
switch them back to normal mode again without altering your image permanently. This makes them a great
tool for experimentation. In this class, we will focus on the multiply blend mode
from the darken category to create shadows and
the screen blend mode from the lighten category
to create highlights. I find that these two are
the best for creating realistic shadows and highlights
in vector illustrations, and I'll show you how I use these when we get into
the project lesson. In the next lesson,
we're going to talk about trimming areas
of our illustration. There are a few different
ways to trim an Adobe Fresco, and these techniques
will come in handy when we
create our shading.
6. Masks and Trimming Tools: Now that we have a basic
understanding of blim modes, let's discuss trimming
options in Adobe Fresco. In this lesson, we'll discuss
how to use clipping masks, the vector trimming tool,
the paint and side tool, and the selection tool with a race to trim our shaded areas. First, we will look at
the vector trimming tool. If you've taken any
of my other classes with vector illustrations, you see me use this
tool because it's one of my favorites. Here
we have a circle. And if I want to
add a shaded area, I can select a vector brush and just draw a line
right through the center. And then I will double tap and tap once more to turn on the secondary
touch shortcut, and I simply cross through
the areas I want to trim. Now my line is trimmed perfectly to the
edge of my circle. You can see here,
it's nicely trimmed. Next, I'll use the fill bucket to fill in the remaining area, and that will create
a form shadow. Now, it's important to trim first and then
use the fill bucket. So let me just undo those
steps with a two finger tap. And if I fill the area first, and then I turn on
my secondary touch shortcut and I trim, it's actually going to
let the entire area because once I
filled in the area, Fresco saw it as a single shape. So just be sure to
trim and then to fill. Now, another trimming
option is paint inside. So I'll go back and
select a vector brush, and then down at the bottom
here in my tool options, I can simply tap the
icon to turn it on, and you'll know it's on
because it turns blue. Now, when I draw with
this feature turned on, it only draws in an area until
it meets a contour line. If I draw a line starting on
the outside of my circle, it'll stop at the edge and then continue on the other side. So if I start in
the negative space, I can only draw in
the negative space. But if I start inside my circle, it stops my stroke when
it hits the edge and will only paint inside the
circle until I lift my pencil. If I want to fill in my circle, I would start close to one edge and then go back and forth. And as long as I don't
pick up my pencil, it'll continue drawing. So this can be a little
tricky when you start painting really
close to a border. If you start outside,
it'll cut it off. So just be sure
to paint from end to end without picking
up your pencil. Now, I'll undo those strokes and let's look at
additional settings. Now, if I tap and hold to
see the additional settings, you can see I can turn on
transparent areas only, and this won't let it paint anywhere where there is
a color on that layer. So if I try to
paint in my circle, nothing happens because
there's already color there. In the area surrounding
my circle is transparent. If I turn off the white
background layer, you can actually see the
transparent area on that layer. So with the setting turned on, I won't be able to
add a form shadow, but I can create a case shadow around the outside of my circle. And as I draw the case shadow, the paint inside
feature will stop painting once it meets the
contours of my circle. So you may find this feature helpful in this
particular situation. Now, I'm going to clear
out all of those marks, and I'll come over here and add a new layer so we can
look at clipping masks. I'll start by drawing an
area for a form shadow, and I'll fill it with a color. And it doesn't
have to be perfect because I can go over to
the right side panel, and with that layer selected, I'll tap the clipping
mask icon to conform it to the
borders of my circle. So this trims any areas of the clipped layer that fall outside the borders
of the circle. And my circle acts as a window and only allows the areas of this shape that fall within
the borders to be visible. We can use our
transform tool to move the shape around and
change what's visible. If I move it completely outside the borders, it's
not visible at all. And the layer with our
circle acts like a window. I can even adjust
the circle layer to change the visible area. So I'll tap Done to exit that. Like blend modes, clipping
masks are non destructive, meaning you can
turn the mask off. So with it off, you can see that my original shape
is fully intact. Nothing was actually trimmed. So this allows you
to continually make adjustments
while you're editing your illustration
without permanently altering your shadow layers. The last option I want
to discuss is using the selection and erase
tools to trim areas. Let me unclip this layer. And then I'm going to go
over to the tool bar, and I'll press and hold to see the selection tool options, and I'll choose Magic Wand. Now, I want to select the
layer containing my circle. If I tap anywhere
outside the circle, it'll select the
entire background. And notice that there are
these diagonal stripes slowly moving along my circle and the area outside
my artboard. So this indicates that those areas are not
currently selected, and the selection is
everything that is clear. So with the selection, I want to tap the
layer containing my shaded area and then go
down here and tap erase. So this erases the selected
area of my form shadow. I'll go down and tap
deselect to turn off the selection tool
and you can see that the area has been trimmed. It looks the same whether I
turn the clipping mask on or off because it was actually trimmed to the shape
of the circle. Much like the vector trimming and paint
and side features, this is a permanent change. The only way that
I could go back is to undo it by tapping
with two fingers. So I like to do this at the
end when I'm cleaning up layers or I need to bring my illustrations into
Adobe Illustrator. It's important to note
that if you need to export your illustrations
to Adobe Illustrator, any vector layer
with a clipping mask attached will convert
to a pixel layer. So, I like to use clipping mask while I'm still editing
the illustration, and I like to use the
selection and erase method to trim clip layers and turn off the clipping mask
before exporting. Now that you understand
these trimming options and how to use Blend Modes, let's put everything
we've learned into practice and start creating our project in the next lesson.
7. Draw A Water Drop: Reference Image: We're finally ready to start
illustrating our project. Over the next few lessons, we're going to go
through the steps of drawing a water drop. Drawing water can be tricky
no matter the medium. So I think this will be
a great test for putting all the principles of light and shadow we learn to good use. We'll start in this lesson by studying the reference image we downloaded from the project and resources section
of this class. I'll start by setting
up a new Canvas, and I'll keep the
unit as pixels, and I'll change the
dimensions to 1,000 pixels by 1,000 pixels and the
print size to 300 PPI. And then I'll go up here and
I'll give it a new name. I'll just call this
one water drop, tapo and then tap
to create document. Let's start by importing our reference image
so we can study it. I'll go to the place menu, and I have mine saved in files, so I'll tap to select that option and then tap
to select the image. And now that it's in, I can tap done, and we are ready to study
our reference image. Now, the first thing
that we can see is that the light is coming
from this top right corner, and we know this
because the cast shadow falls along the bottom
left edge here. You'll also notice
that the lightest part of the water drop is
this bottom section because the light is actually coming through the top
surface of the water drop, and it hits the paper
that is sitting on, so it's making that paper
brighter right here. And we also can see that the
form shadow actually sits along this top
right edge because our bubble is actually
curving away from us there. The shadow is the backside
of the water drop, and we can see it because
the surface is transparent. So light is bouncing off surfaces and reflecting back
in different directions. And the shadows and highlights are going to reflect
differently on this shiny transparent surface than they would on a
solid opaque shape. You'll see here a highlight, which is the reflection
of the window that sits along this
side of our image. It is the light source, and
the reflection for it has a curved shape because
the water drop is round. And we're going to
take that into account when we draw this water drop. You'll also notice there
is an appearance of a dark outline around the
contours of our water drop. The outline is created
by the edge of the cache shadow
falling on the outside of the water drop where it
meets this bright interior. The dark line of the case
shadow at the bottom meets the form shadow
around the top edge. And the form shadow sits inside the contours
of the water drop, and it has a distinct
edge where it meets the bright area of the
paper along the outside. We can see where the form
shadow and cast shadow meet and transition to create the
appearance of an outline. Now that we have made some observations about our subject, we can build out
the form shadows, highlights, and cast shadows
over the next few lessons. We will start by drawing the main shape and then adding
in our form shadows first. Join me in the next lesson
to start building our form.
8. Draw A Water Drop: Form Shadows: Now, the first thing
that I want to do is clip my reference image
so it's out of the way. I'm going to come down here to my drawing aids and
I'll choose the square, and I'm just going to resize
it to create a little box, and then I'll fill it. Ooh. Oops. I'm on
the wrong layer. Let me fill this and
now I can clip it. And now that it's clipped, I can drag it to group it, and then I can go over to my transform tools and
I'll move it to the corner so it's
out of the way and I can use it as a reference. So I'm going to create
a new layer and I'll start by laying down
the base shape. Because it's pretty
much a circle, I'm going to come down to my drawing aids again and I'll press and hold
to select my circle. I'm just going to
resize it a little and it's really slightly
more of an oval, so I'll just stretch that
out, and I'll turn it off. And I'll come over here
to my color palette, and you'll notice that I already have a color
palette created. When I imported my image, Fresco automatically created
a color palette for me. So I can either use
that or I can use my eyedropper to select
a color from my image. So I'm just going to pick this and then I'll fill my circle. And now I have a background
color for the base shape, and this is a shape
that I'm going to clip all of my shadows
and highlights too. Now, I'm going to go in
and add a new layer. And the next thing
that I want to do is lay down a large
area of shadow. So I'll go back down to
my drawing aids for this, and I'll just
resize it slightly. And I'm going to create this
circular shape in this area, and I'll fill it with a
slightly lighter color, something like that, shade. And I'll turn off
my drawing aid, and I'll clip that
layer to my base. And it's just going to clip
that little bottom section. I'll open up the blend modes, and I'm going to change
this to multiply because this is going
to be a shadow. And I also want to
take down the opacity. So I think I'm going to
choose something like 35%. And you can see that
it just starts to create a simple form shadow. And next, I'm going to
add a second layer, and I'll lay down more shadows to the top
half of my water drop. Because you're gonna
notice that the top half of the shape is darker. So I just want to
slowly build out shadow layers to gradually
create that dark rim. And I'll select my vector brush, and I'll choose a slightly
more saturated color, something like this, maybe. And I'll start to draw out my shadow, something like this. And I'll fill it in,
and then I'll clip it, and I'll change the
blend mode to multiply. And I don't want
it to be too dark, so I'm going to try
something like 15%. And you'll see that these
shadows start to overlap each other because every layer is going to blend down with
all the layers below it. So it's going to slowly
build up shadows that are more complex as they
layer on top of each other. Let's add in another layer, and I'm going to
keep building out the shadows in this direction, and I'm just going to
use the same color, and I'll start by drawing
an arc shape here. And I can hold before lifting my pencil and
it'll smooth out my line. And then I'll draw
this second part, and I'll fill it in, and
I'll just clip the layer. And I want to change
the opacity be somewhere in between
the first two. So I'll make this 125, and I'll create a
light shadow there. Next, I want to add another
rim shadow at the top. So I'll just start
right about here. Oops. Actually, need to
create a new layer first. So let me just try that again, lay that down here, and I'll
hold to smooth out my line. And that looks about good. I'm just going to
finish coloring in this small section
here to fill it out, and I'll clip it and
change it to multiply. I want to make this
one fairly faint. So let's make that about 8%, and I want to make it even
thinner version of it. So I'm going to duplicate and then I'll nudge it
back just a little bit, and I'll move that
maybe about there. And I'll darken it. Let's say, let's take that up to about 25, and there we go. And I'm going to nudge it a little bit more than
I can see it better. And this creates a dark
rim around the back. And you'll notice there are some light shadows
along the sides here, so I'm going to build
those out next. I'm going to create a new layer, and I'll go back
to my first color. And I just want to lay down some soft shadows along
this side edge here, something like this,
and I'll clip it, and then I want to go up
and select, multiply. And let's make that about 25%, and then we'll add a new layer, and I'm going to do
a similar shadow on this opposite side. Oops. Let's redraw that one. Something like this. And then I just need to fill
that in and clip it, and I'll make that
one about 25%. Okay. And then I'm going to
add one last shadow to this section up
here at the top. And because they're all
different colors and opacities, they're going to create
just this complex layer of shadows to our overall
form. To fill that in. And it doesn't
have to be perfect because it's going
to be clipped. So I'm going to change
that to multiply, and I'll take that to about 20%. So now I have these
layers of shadows that create my
overall form shadow, and all of this can
be adjusted later as needed once I have
created my highlights. So join me in the next
lesson where we're going to add some highlights
to this form.
9. Draw A Water Drop: Highlights: Um, Now that we've laid
down our form shadows, let's start adding in
our areas of highlight. I'm going to add a new layer, and I'm going to go back to my drawing aids to create
my large highlight. And I'm going to choose a darker color for
this first one. So I'll choose,
let's see, this one, and I'll fill in this circle, and then I'm going to turn
that off and clip my layer. And I'm going to go back up to my blend modes,
and this time, I'm going to choose screen because we're
creating a highlight. And I want this first one to be quite a soft highlight to start building up
the highlight areas. And I'm going to create
a second layer and I'm going to create another
large highlight, but this one will be more
compact than the first one, something like maybe this. There we go. And I also want to go a little bit brighter
with the color. So I'll select this
one and fill it there. And I'll turn that off. And again, I'll clip that layer and I'll go back up and choose screen since
it's a highlight. But for this one, I want
to make it about 25%. And you can see it's just starting to brighten
up that section again. The next thing I want
to do is bring in a highlight to brighten
this area here. So I'm going to
create a new layer. And this time, I'm
actually going to use my vector brush to
draw this highlight. Now, I want to go pretty
light on this one. So I think this
color, that'll work. I'll draw a small
section out here, and I can always
refine this later. But I'm just going
to put that in, and then I'll clip that for
now and I'll select screen. And I don't want to
make it too dark. So maybe like 15. There we go. If I turn on my primary
touch shortcut, I can use it as an eraser brush, and then I can reshape
this area a little bit. Maybe like this. There we go. I just wanted to
be more rounded. Turn that off, and
I'll add a new layer. And I want to create the window reflection
here at the top. So I'm going to keep
the lighter color, and I'm going to take my
brush size down a bit, and I'll just draw the shape
of the window reflection. Oops. Something like this. I need to move it over
just a little bit. Okay. Now I can create a second
line down here like that. And I just need to round out the top
line a little bit here. I'm going to trim
these excess segments, so I just want to draw a rough outline of the
shape I'm trying to create. And I'm just going to refine
this line here a little bit. And I can always refine
this more later. I just want to get these oops, main shapes down first. I turn my touch shortcut
on for vector trimming, and I'll just trim out
all these extra sections, and then I'll fill in the
shape with my fill bucket. Okay. Let me go back to my brush
and I'm actually going to turn on the primary
touch shortcut, so this will become
an eraser brush, and then I can just erase out the middle section to divide this create those separations that you see in that
window reflection. Okay. And I'm also
going to clean up these contours just a little
bit more around that out. Okay, and I can always
modify this more later on. But for now, I'm
going to keep it. And I'll go to my blend modes, choose screen, and I'm going to bring this
down to about 20%. So a little bit brighter than
this, but not too bright. And the last thing
I want to do is create a little sharp
highlight here. I also need to clip that layer, and I'll turn off my
primary touch shortcut. On my new layer, I'm going to create a little bright spot. You can see here
there's a couple of subtle bright spots
in the reflection. I'll draw a small line here, change that right
here and then there. Again, I'm going to
change it to screen, but I'm going to
make it a little bit brighter than
all the other ones. Let's do this at about 40%. Alright. Now, the
last thing I want to do is add a background color. So I'm going to go down
to the bottom and add a new layer right
above the background. I'll take the fill
bucket and select that original color we used for our base shape and fill it. And now you'll start to see
the highlights and shadows of the bubble are really
starting to take shape now that we have
our background in. The last thing we need to do
is create our cast shadows. So that's what we're going
to do in the next lesson. Join me there and we'll start building out our case shadows.
10. Draw A Water Drop: Cast Shadows: The next step is to
create our cast shadows. And because there's a
soft diffuse light, we're going to create
a subtle shadow. Now you see a bit
of a crisp edge, and then it softens
as it spreads out. The simplest way to create a shadow is to duplicate
the base layer. And with the bottom
copy selected, I'm going to change the
blend mode to multiply, and then I'll take the
opacity down to about 20%. The next thing I want to do is go over to the
transform menu, and I'll zoom in a little
so you can see this better. And we're just going to nudge
it down and to the left. Now, it's very subtle, but
there's a tiny shadow there, and I'll tap done. And I'm going to duplicate
the shadow layer, and I'll take the opacity
down by 1% to 19. I'm going to go back
to the transform menu, and again, I'm just
going to nudge this one. This time, I'm going to nudget
two pixels down and over. So with it zoomed
in, you can see that the first layer is
now slightly darker. And if I turn off
that new layer, you'll see it even better. So each new layer is going to darken the opacity of
the previous layers. And I'm just going to
keep building these out. So if I duplicate
and take it down by 1% and then go over
to my transform tool, I'll nudge it just down
a little bit more, and then I'll just keep
repeating these steps, and I'm just going to speed
this up a little bit. You can start to
see that it creates a soft halo effect
with the shadow. And I'm going to keep going
until I get to about 5%, and then I'll stop reducing the opacity and just duplicate. So the next one is 13, and I'll speed this up again. And now I have this
nice soft shadow. And I also notice that there is a deeper section of
the shadow right here. So one thing I could
do is duplicate that last layer and I'll open
the transform tool. But this time, I'm going to rotate it and then shrink
it down just a little bit, and maybe even move
it over slightly. And now I'm going to create a little extra shadow
depth in this area. So from there, I'll duplicate the layer and keep it at 5%, and then I'll nudge it over, and it'll just add some complexity to
that occlusion shadow. So you can see that I've
got the main cast shadow, but then I'm creating this
deeper section right here. And that's how I build out
a diffused case shadow. So you can see that our water
drop is really starting to feel much more three dimensional with the addition
of that case shadow. In the next lesson, I'm
going to talk about how to make adjustments
to this illustration.
11. Draw A Water Drop: Adjustments: Now that our water drop
is fully illustrated, we can go back in and make adjustments to any
of our layers. For instance, let's find
our window reflection, which should be this
one right here. And I'm going to go
in and erase it. I'll turn on the
primary touch shortcut, which will turn my vector
brush into an eraser. And I'm just going
to trim this down and round out the edges a
little bit more to refine it. I just want to keep it
a little more rounded. Now, I can make any adjustments
that I want because everything is on
a separate layer and nothing is permanent, which makes it less stressful to draw a line or trim an area. Another option is I can go
back into the Transform tools, and I could rotate this, move it around, resize it. I can also choose a layer and go in and change
the opacity level. If I feel like something's
not quite working, it may take you a minute to find the right layer to
adjust everything, but everything can be edited. All these layers can be recalibrated until we
get it just right. The other thing that
I might want to do is organize my layers because
there are so many of them. I can group these
by dragging and dropping each clipped
layer into a group. In that way, I
have my main shape and all of the form shadows and highlights grouped together. And this makes things just a
little bit easier to manage. Plus, if I need to
move the water drop, the layers will move as a group. I'll do the same thing here
with my case shadow layers. So this is really more about staying organized
than anything else. The more layers you
have, the harder it can be to find what
you're looking for. And when you have them grouped, then you can also move them
and transform them together. And now I have my main form
and my case shadows grouped, and you can see I can turn
them off independently. One last thing that would
really take this up a notch, but is totally optional is
to add in some texture. You can see here that there's
texture on this paper, and what would really
showcase that we have a transparent water
drop would be to see some of that texture
coming through the bottom, but we need to add an overall
texture to the background. I'd recommend creating
it by hand with a vector breast because if you
add a pixel texture layer, you'd have to use image trays in Adobe Illustrator to retain
it as a vector illustration. One way to do this
would be to add a layer and then adjust
my vector brush, maybe the size if I
needed to or the color. I could go a little lighter
to make it stand out. Actually, I'll choose
the background color, and I'll do something
with it later. Let me turn that off so you
can see what I'm doing here. So to create some texture, I would just draw some
irregular squiggly lines. I'm just keeping
it kind of loose. So long marks, some short
marks, nothing too fancy. To save myself
some time, I could create a little patch and
then duplicate the layer. Now I can move it and then rotate it and
create a little pattern, but I want to hide the
repeating elements. That way, I won't have
to cover the whole page with individual small marks. Once I duplicate it, I'd fill in the gaps and that would blend the
two pieces together. This will save me
a lot of time in creating this texture by hand. Once again, this is
completely optional, but I think it could
really enhance the dimensional form
of this water drop. Once I finish filling the
page with the texture, I could change the
blend mode to multiply, and this would make
it feel like it was a texture on the background. I'd also duplicate my layer and bring it into
the layer group. I'd clip it at the bottom
behind my shadow layers, and I'd have a texture on the outside and a
texture on the inside. So, for example, let's
duplicate this layer, and then we'll drag it into the layer group right
down to the bottom, and it will automatically
be clipped. Need to move this over
so you can see it. And I'm going to go back in and change the blend
mode to screen to lighten this up because you'll notice that the inside
is much lighter. So adding an overall texture could really reinforce
the fact that you're seeing through this
water drop right down to the texture
of the paper. And you can decide
if you want to take the extra time to
add in that element. In the next lesson,
we're going to talk about exporting our artwork.
12. Exporting Your Work: I have finished making
my adjustments, and I want to show
you some helpful tips before we export our work. The first thing you
may want to do is move and resize your water drop because if you follow
it along with me, then yours is going to be a little bit off
centered, as well. To do this, I'll select
my first layer group, and then I'll double
tap the touch shortcut so I can select the
second layer group, as well. I'll go to the Transform tools, and I have the
option to move it. And as long as all my
layer groups are selected, I can move it as one piece. I can also resize it if
I want it to be larger. And because we created
this in vectors, it'll rescale as much as
needed without losing quality. Exit the transform tools and I'll turn off
multi selection. I'll turn on my texture layer, and I created this the way I showed you in the last lesson, creating a small section and duplicating it and
filling in the gaps. I have it set to
multiply at 20%, so it adds a little
background texture. To finish this
off, I want to add the texture into the
water drop itself. So I'm going to duplicate this texture layer
and drag it up. I'll hold it until
it opens the group, and then I'll drag it at the bottom of the
clipped layers, and it automatically clips it. I'm going to change
the blend mode to screen because the interior
was a bit brighter. I'll also take the opacity up
just a little bit, as well. And that texture really helps sell the transparency
of the water drop. Now that I've finished
my illustration, I'm ready to export it. If I want to upload this
to the project page, all I need to do is go
up to the Share menu, go to Publish and Export, Export As, and I can select the format from
the drop down menu. To upload this, I would
choos either JPEG or PNG and tap Export to
save it to my files. Then I can upload it
to the project page. Let's say you want to bring
this into Adobe Illustrator, and you want to
ensure that these export as vector layers. There's a couple of things
that you need to do. First thing to do is release
all of your clipping masks. To do that, I'm going to simply tap and release
the clipping mask. You can see all of the extra
areas that were trimmed off by the clipping masks
are now visible again. So let me just unclip
everything first. This one and this
one. There we go. The next thing I want to do is select the base layer and go to the magic wand and tap the
negative space to select it, and then I'll tap each
clipped layer and choose eras to remove
all of the excess areas. I'm essentially trimming
all the shadows and highlights to the contours
of my main shape, and they will look just like they did when
it was clipped. So just be sure to select every single layer
and tap erase, and then you should be good. This last one, there we go. And then I'll tap deselect. And you can see that
they're unclipped, but everything is now trimmed perfectly to the
background shape. As I mentioned previously, I like to work with
clipping mask while I'm editing so I can
make adjustments. But once I know I'm finished, I'll go through this process to trim everything
down to my shape. The next step before
exporting is to turn off unwanted layers like
the reference image and ungroup everything. If I'm going to export this
to Illustrator as vectors, I want to ungroup
all the layers. I find when exporting
layer groups that contain blend modes, it's cleaner to ungroup
everything first. Now I'm ready to export by
going to the share menu, choosing open a copy, and selecting either the iPad or desktop version
of Illustrator. When it exports, you'll
see the import options and you want to choose
convert layers to objects. This will export your
layers as vectors, and they will retain the
blend mode qualities as well. For this class project, just
remember all you need to do is export a JPEG and upload
it to the project gallery. I hope you'll share your project so I can see the final result.
13. Class Outro: I hope you've enjoyed
this class and you feel ready to create more dynamic
vector illustrations. The principles you've learned can be applied to anything
you want to draw, so please keep
practicing your skills. You can always ask questions or share your thoughts in the discussion
section of the class. I would love for you
to leave a review so other students can discover the class and decide if
it's right for them. And don't forget to
upload your project to the class gallery page so I
can see what you've created. If you've enjoyed this class and you want to
learn more from me, you can check out my other
classes here on Skill Share. Click the Follow button
if you want to stay up to date and be the first to know
what I'm working on next. As always, it's been
an honor to teach you and I hope to see you
in my next class. But
