Exercise: How to Add Realistic Lighting to Your Illustrations

Learn how to add realism and volume to your illustrations with this simple exercise by Óscar Lloréns

Light is, without a doubt, one of the most essential elements of any illustration. Understanding how it behaves in nature will make your creations look more realistic and professional.

Illustrator Óscar Lloréns (@ollorens) shares some tips that you can use to play with the different light sources in your illustrations, so you can give the desired volume and depth to the objects you draw.

Learn how light behaves

For this exercise, Oscar has chosen to create a simple scene in Procreate, where he will use a single light source. That way, it will be easy to observe light's behavior. He is also using a sphere, which is the ideal geometric shape, to demonstrate these concepts.

1 - Take the direction into account

Light travels in a straight line, and always in the same direction. Therefore, if the light source is in the upper right relative to the sphere, the sphere's upper right side will need to be illuminated.

2 - Shadows of the object

This means the least illuminated part of the sphere will be the lower left, which is the part furthest from the light source. Practice with different brush intensities and layers so that you don't apply too much of a shadow, overdoing the effect.

3 - Projected shadows

The shadow cast by the object itself will help you locate it on a plane. Otherwise, it will appear as if it were floating. Here, you can also experiment with the strokes' blurring and intensity to achieve a better finish.

Remember that as the shadow moves away from the object, it will start to fade, so adjust the blur effect and intensity as needed.

4 - Reflective and bounce light

As we mentioned before, light always travels in a straight line. Therefore, when it reaches the plane (the ground), it will bounce and will be reflected towards our object. That is why a little bounce light needs to be added. Do it subtly to get the best results.

5 - Add new details to your drawing

In this example, Oscar added an additional circumference to the sphere and reversibly applied light and shadow to create an embossed effect. By thinking about how light would behave in this scenario, you will understand how light works.

Add additional details, playing with concave and convex surfaces. You'll be amazed by the level of realism you can achieve!

If you want to learn more from Oscar, sign up for his Domestika course, Illustration Techniques and Styles with Procreate, and learn how to tackle an illustration project with different techniques and find your drawing style.

English version by @angeljimenez.

You may also like:

- How to Create an Illustration with Parallax Effect
- How to Create a Portrait in Photoshop in 8 Easy Steps
- Tutorial Illustration: How to Use Shapes to Create Vector Drawings