


The key to creating realistic lighting is to make it realistic-which means you have to know where the light is coming from, even if it’s not in the picture. Determine your light sources and let them direct where you draw your highlights.Once you draw both layers, your Photoshop layers might look like this. Or, if it’s easier to visualize the final product by drawing them on at a lower percentage, you can try doing that too! To make your job easier, though, you can choose to draw the shadows and highlights at 100% opacity (completely black and white). To make the lighting subtle, we’ll be toning the opacity of these layers down to something lower in a later step. At any point, if you’d like to erase a line that you created, just use the eraser tool (with a matching hardness) to remove it. I like to use a medium-sized brush with low hardness (around 0%) since my drawing is not very precise and I like the lighting to look soft and natural. On the “highlights” layer, we will be drawing in white.

The order does not matter! On the “shadows” layer, we will be drawing in black. Create two layers, one for your shadows and one for your highlights.Look how much better an illustration looks with just simple shadows and highlights! Please note that this is not the only way, or the best way, to add shading to an illustration! It’s just a simple method that you might find helpful, especially if you’re just starting out in digital art.
Adobe dimension tutorial for beginners free#
It works best with black outlines, but feel free to experiment with all kinds of images. If you have an illustration that you’ve created with flat colors-which is to say you haven’t already added shading-import it into Adobe Photoshop and follow this tutorial to create some artistic dimension.

Even though it’s very basic, it actually makes a huge difference in the overall quality of the image and can make a quick outline sketch look less flat and more realistic! However, there is a quick and easy way to begin experimenting with shadows and highlights. Take your art to the next level by imagining a light source and creating some shading in Adobe Photoshop!Īs a beginning illustrator, it can be daunting to add dimension to your illustrations.
