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So, what I'm drawing now is just a basic circle and this is about as two dimensional as it
gets. So, it's kind of good when you're drawing shadows to imagine where the light is
coming from, because that is going to determine where the shadows fall.
So, let's just imagine we have a little, we have a ball sitting on the table here, and
there's a lamp somewhere up here. This is gonna be our
lamp. Shining light on this ball, I like to, sort
of, rough things out with the side of my pencil. But I'm just gonna really, roughly sketch
an indication where the shadows might be, and
already this is looking a little more three dimensional. I, sort of, try to make the lines
wrap around the object because not only does that show us where the light shadow is, it
also helps sell the idea of the roundness of the
object.
There's not only going to be a light on the ball, but the ball is going to create a shadow
on what ever surface it's sitting on, so, we
can also draw something under it that gives the
impression of that. So, the more I sort of continue this, the more three dimensional
that ball is gonna start to look. And I can even
continue these shadows around. I can just keep
adding finer and finer lines that help give a feeling of roundness to this shape. And
this is very crude, but, hopefully, it gives you an
idea of how to create a sense of three dimensionality.
And this can be applied to just about anything else. And now, we'll try a different shape.
Say we're gonna draw a cube, as opposed to a sphere.
Just gonna start out drawing the basic lines, and let's put our lamp where it was
last time. This site here, would be farthest away
from the light, so I'm gong to darken that. But unlike the sphere, I'm gonna try to make
my shadows a lot more evenly covering, these,
the shapes. Because it's got flat shapes, so the,
the shadows are gonna be pretty even across each side. They're not gonna radiate the way
they would on a, on a round surface.
A shadow is one of the most important tools that you have to make your object or character
appear three dimensional . And sometimes when I'm drawing characters, I'll put shadows in
that might not even be there, or I'll put shading lines in that aren't necessarily there
on the model I'm working from, because it helps sell
the idea of dimensionality. And you want to use
every tool that you can to make your characters look real in three dimensional.