in today's a graphic design illustrator tutorial I'm gonna show you guys how to
make some realistic shadows within adobe illustrator. now for today's tutorial
I found it really neat PNG of an iPhone on Google and you can find this file
link down below for you to download if you want to use it for yourself to
practice the techniques that we're going to go through right now so in today's
video is gonna be really really helpful to use and utilize the layers window and
you will see just why as we get on with the video
but yeah next we're going to make a background and you've seen me do this
many many times on my channel so just press M for the rectangle tool and cover
the entire artboard with a rectangle it might be a good idea to make the
background color a sample from the image itself so in this case the iPhone and
just use the eyedropper tool to navigate around the iPhone picking off different
colors and seeing what's gonna work best for your background design so once you
finally land on the color that you want to use we can lock the background layer
in the layers window by just clicking next to the eye icon I'm gonna bring
down a guide from the rulers that's gonna act as a kind of fictitious or a
imaginary ground level and this will help me build up the shadow as I move
along the design this isn't necessary but I just find it helps quite a lot
we're making shadows you can also right-click or control-click the
background to lock the guides down in place if you don't want them moving
around or being in the way so now it's finally time to make the first shadow so
press M for the rectangle tool and then generate a rectangle like so and add a
gradient fill now in the gradient window apply black to both sides of the
gradient
but then lower the opacity down to 0% on one of the ends of the gradient and this
will help blend in the shadow to the background as you will soon see in the
layers window make sure to bring the iPhone to the front of all layers and
actually we can lock this down as well which will be very handy when building
up the shadows in our design so going back to the rectangle here and we can
use the live corners in illustrator CC - rounded off like so but if you don't
have illustrator CC just head up to effect and then round corners another
really useful tip here is to press the G which will access the gradient tool and
here we can actually dictate the direction of the gradient and also the
slider which will help blend in the shadow to the background as far as you
can see this is already looking pretty needs but I've got some more techniques
that are really gonna help build up your realistic shadows for your graphic
designs in Illustrator
Sonax come up to effect and then blur and Gaussian blur we're going to apply a
Gaussian blur to the shadow now how much you apply is completely up to you and
also your design but after you've applied it I do suggest that you come up
to the document or raster effect settings and increase this value here as
it's going to help all of the blends and the blurs look that much more smooth so
that's looking pretty neat already I'm imagining a light source coming from the
kind of top left direction coming down so the rest of the shadow is going to be
behind the iPhone itself kind of and I would suggest that my light source is
kind of more vertically speaking than far out to the left
so my shadows not going to be too long and elongated so when you're ready press
a P for the pen tool and still with the same gradient selected in the color
palette we're going to draw a shape that will dictate the shadow
I remember this doesn't have to be too perfect right now because we can adjust
it later and also the Gaussian blur effect means that we didn't have to be
neat with our pencil paths if you've been drawing the path of just a stroke
only press shift annex to flick the stroke over to a field or gradient and
then move the iPhone layer back up to the top of the layers and this is why we
use the layers panel because even though the iPhone is locked we can still move
around the positioning of the layers now again press G for the gradient tool and
adjust the gradient until you're happy with the final outcome of this part of
the shadow now again go ahead and add a Gaussian blur effect to the shadow and I
really do love this gradient because it blends so well into the background and
that is one of the most you know crucial techniques for this kind of design but
yeah I suggest that you add a few more shadows closer to the bottom of the
iPhone to make it darker in that area and this will add more emphasis and
again some more realism to the shadows on your graphic design but I was today's
video on making shadows in Adobe Illustrator that adds some realism to
your graphic designs I hope you learned something today and if you want to keep
learning essential skills as a graphic designer
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until next time design your future today peace
you