Check Out NMA    Learn More About our Partnership
Close and Enjoy Drawabox Ad-free

How to draw a cast shadow for transparent things like water droplets

3:53 PM, Monday July 20th 2020

Hi friends, im on lesson 3! and for my plants homework, im looking to draw this mushroom:

https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/4190/mesmerising-mushrooms

however i realised that it would be really hard to add texture for the liquid bubbles. Esp if we were to apply the required technique of only drawing cast shadows. Does anyone have tips as to how to go about doing this. I guess this applies for all transparent objects. how do u draw a cast shadow for that. i would be really grateful. thanks :DD

Report
0 users agree
7:58 AM, Thursday July 23rd 2020

Im not as advanced as you in the lessons and my response is mostly based on physics, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Transparent objects distort the light thus causing less light to reach the surface across said transparent material, so the cast shadow should be relative to how transparent the object is, although water lets through a reasonable amount of light, it still blocks part of it, so I would make the cast shadow considerably lighter than a normal objects cast shadow. I hope my response helps you and that it answers your question.

2:50 PM, Thursday July 23rd 2020

hey thanks for the thoughtful response! yea i think that might be tricky cause we only have two values that being black and white, but hmmm i will see if there are ways to work around this :)))

0 users agree
3:17 PM, Thursday July 23rd 2020

Hi,

Since you only have full black and white, I'd not draw them, or maybe just a weighted line at the bottom of the droplet, nothing more.

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Cottonwood Arts Sketchbooks

Cottonwood Arts Sketchbooks

These are my favourite sketchbooks, hands down. Move aside Moleskine, you overpriced gimmick. These sketchbooks are made by entertainment industry professionals down in Los Angeles, with concept artists in mind. They have a wide variety of sketchbooks, such as toned sketchbooks that let you work both towards light and towards dark values, as well as books where every second sheet is a semitransparent vellum.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.