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Digital illustration is awesome if for no other reason than you can create your own reality. Perspective doesn’t exist, and true to life shading and lighting isn’t limited to mere physics as it is for those who exist outside of the 2D universe.

Some illustration styles are flat, with minimal to no shading or lighting what so ever. But most illustration regardless of style depends on good shading and lighting to bring it to life, add necessary depth, and drama to the overall artwork.

This tutorial goes over the elementary fundamentals when it comes to shading and lighting within a digital illustration. For seasoned pros this will be a big “Duh!” but for those new to the game, or who struggle with knowing how or where to add shading and lighting it’ll at least point you in the right direction and give you a foundation to grow from.

Source files are provided with this download.

(Tutorial Includes Notes in both ‘English’ and ‘Español’.)

Keywords: Shading, Lighting, Newbert, 101

File Size: 3.1 MB

1. krauser wrote: March 1, 2009 at 5:07 pm

   Thanks for sharing, just looking at the small image in the post I can see so much attention to detail. Nice work!

2. Illustrator Tutorial: Basic Shading and Lighting - Web Design Blog wrote: March 2, 2009 at 9:07 am

   [...] From the author’s website: [...]

3. g_robb53 wrote: March 2, 2009 at 3:56 pm

   Enjoyed your tutorial – thank you!

4. Illustrator Tutorial: Basic Shading and Lighting | ClickLogin Web Design wrote: March 2, 2009 at 9:38 pm

   [...] [...]

5. Jermaine wrote: March 5, 2009 at 8:06 am

   Thanks, great tutorial. I suck at shading in AI. I really need to go through this tutorial about 100 times. lol

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11. InToGraphics wrote: April 20, 2009 at 3:34 am

    Hi Von,

    Thanks for all the great tutorials and free stuff.
    Would you be willing to expand this one in a future tutorial to comic book style colouring with Illustrator ?

    If you don’t know what I’m rambling on about, there is a commercial Photoshop video tutorial over at digitalarttutorials.com about what I mean : http://www.digitalarttutorials.com/tutorial_detail.php?id=8

    I (vectorX) also suggested you as a tutor for a Illustrator version of this video tutorial : http://www.digitalarttutorials.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=371

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