Drop shadow question.

SiRoxx

Party Boy UK Style
Staff member
Mod
Hey Everybody,
Drop shadows always seem to be a problem area for me. I was having a play with some classic automotive techniques today and it all went ok until the drop shadow. I don’t know what I’m not getting, so I took a picture and am asking for advice.
I made a couple errors on this, the biggest being that I carried a line showing the edge of a panel into the torn area. It shouldn’t be there or the tears should reflect being the flat edge of a panel.
So aside from that my main question is about the drop shadow.
Is it simply a case that I have made them too dark? I also know there are some shadows where there shouldn’t be any (mainly the top edges) but that was more about practicing them than anything.
Any ideas or critique is not only welcome, but requested lol.
Thanks.
19ea28e7a2f3a54a96f3cd80bc0dce08.jpg



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I think your issues would be solved if you'd set up the light source and if you'd go in light layers of the transparent paint (over reduced black). So "light " is the key, I think;) It concerns working in black and white.

Drop shadow in colour is smth a bit different. You need to keep in mind the colour wheel plus to said above.
 
these are a little crude, and I did it in like a minute and half - but should help? I started by drawing a shape sort of like the one you have -
DSC_4910.jpg
and cut two masks - one for the cut out, one for the entire shape
DSC_4911.jpg DSC_4912.jpg
I used the 1st one to paint in the hole shape -
DSC_4913.jpg
The laid the mask of the entire shape over the newly painted image, followed by the background piece it was originally cut from - offsetting one on top of the other. The shape is placed right on top of what you already painted...
Once you figure out where you want your light source to be, you offset the shadow part of the mask in the opposite direction, and paint through it.

DSC_4916.jpg

The result will be something similar to this -
DSC_4917.jpg

This should help get you into the ball park. If you look at some real shadows, you will see that they are generally darker the closer they are to the surface that created them, and lighter out near the points of where they trail off.
 

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a real easy way to get a good drop shadow it to actually cut out the shape that is causing the shadow stick it in the right angle to your painting and cast light over it trace the shadow you will see I hope this makes sense to you
That makes total sense Ron, thank you.


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I think your issues would be solved if you'd set up the light source and if you'd go in light layers of the transparent paint (over reduced black). So "light " is the key, I think;) It concerns working in black and white.

Drop shadow in colour is smth a bit different. You need to keep in mind the colour wheel plus to said above.
Thanks Vlad, I think the intensity on mine is too high.


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these are a little crude, and I did it in like a minute and half - but should help? I started by drawing a shape sort of like the one you have -
View attachment 57749
and cut two masks - one for the cut out, one for the entire shape
View attachment 57750 View attachment 57751
I used the 1st one to paint in the hole shape -
View attachment 57752
The laid the mask of the entire shape over the newly painted image, followed by the background piece it was originally cut from - offsetting one on top of the other. The shape is placed right on top of what you already painted...
Once you figure out where you want your light source to be, you offset the shadow part of the mask in the opposite direction, and paint through it.

View attachment 57754

The result will be something similar to this -
View attachment 57755

This should help get you into the ball park. If you look at some real shadows, you will see that they are generally darker the closer they are to the surface that created them, and lighter out near the points of where they trail off.
Much appreciated Dave, the method makes a lot of sense and I hadn’t considered the shadow being darker closer to whatever is casting it. That’s a good tip for sure.


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Remember Si "once you go black its hard to go back"
You know how to fix the lines and make them disappear, Dave is right with the shadows, but in reality you can do them as dark as you want as long as they look ok. Artistic licence :)

Lee
 
Remember Si "once you go black its hard to go back"
You know how to fix the lines and make them disappear, Dave is right with the shadows, but in reality you can do them as dark as you want as long as they look ok. Artistic licence :)

Lee
Haha, I will remember Matey thanks. I’m probably going to start over with this one. Or do some more tears on other areas. It’s only a practice panel, so the beauty is I can do it as many times as I need.


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Only advice I can give is that your shadows are a little dark and look more defined like a hard line rather than soft shading.
Other than the it all looks great.
 
Only advice I can give is that your shadows are a little dark and look more defined like a hard line rather than soft shading.
Other than the it all looks great.
You called it Buddy. I’m going to give it another crack tomorrow. Practice, practice, practice.


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Drop shadows are always consistent with direction of the light source. It will be opposite the light source. If you want the object to appear as though it were floating it would be more offset and fade on the edges of the shadow. Do this. Go outside at different points in a day and look at your shadow on the ground. The lower the sun the longer your shadow will be and the shadow closest to you will be the darkest and more defined. The higher the sun the shorter your shadow will be and the lighter the value. Hope this helps. One more thing is to imagine you were laying down and how that shadow would look. The further away from the ground the more offset and lighter the shadow will be because more light can pass under you.


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http://fredaw61.wixsite.com/the-artist
https://www.youtube.com/user/fredaw61
 
Reduce your paint more so that it's less intense, soften it a little, and pay attention to high and low points, which affect colour density.
 
Drop shadows are always consistent with direction of the light source. It will be opposite the light source. If you want the object to appear as though it were floating it would be more offset and fade on the edges of the shadow. Do this. Go outside at different points in a day and look at your shadow on the ground. The lower the sun the longer your shadow will be and the shadow closest to you will be the darkest and more defined. The higher the sun the shorter your shadow will be and the lighter the value. Hope this helps. One more thing is to imagine you were laying down and how that shadow would look. The further away from the ground the more offset and lighter the shadow will be because more light can pass under you.


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http://fredaw61.wixsite.com/the-artist
https://www.youtube.com/user/fredaw61
Thanks Fred, I will head our and probably take some reference photos too.


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Reduce your paint more so that it's less intense, soften it a little, and pay attention to high and low points, which affect colour density.
Thank you Squishy. I do have a bad habit of trying to paint shadows uniformly.


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I have this another go today as I had a little time to paint.
I think it’s an improvement on the last attempt, I’ve tried to take onboard the advice here, just need to practice it some more. Next go I’ll be trying the staggered stencil method next time.
Thanks for the help Guys and Girls.
25dea268047f1f17db108b51a145f98a.jpg



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