[AndyT]

Help! I don't know how to construct the shadow of a sphere!
What am I missing?
_________________
http://www.conceptworld.org

[Raji]

find some already drawn reference of a sphere and copy an example you like. I read in one of your other threads that you have the "drawing on the right side of the brain" book? I thought there was a pencil shaded sphere in there. If not, find one you like online.

i got this from a google search:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~p.wilkinson/BlendShade.htm

try not to complicate your art with things like the diagram you showed... i honestly can't make anything out of that diagram... maybe it's just me though.

Raji

[AndyT]

Thanks for your reply. But I need to know it for the basic shapes exercise.
Everything should be as accurate as possible. So I need to know how to construct it.
The best thing I found was something by:

Loomis

But I don't know how to get there.
Your link is good btw. I bookmarked it.
_________________
http://www.conceptworld.org

[Sumaleth]

I may be wrong, but I suspect the only way to do it properly is to initially create the sphere as a -cube- which is aligned with the direction of the lightsource.

You would probably need to do this at the over-head view stage. then project down the cube, construct a rectangular shadow, and then put the curves in based on that framework.

Knowing the centers of the cube faces and the very center of the cube/sphere would come in useful too, but they're easy to get just by connecting corners.

Or something.
_________________
Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[cheney]

The sphere shadow is always going to be mostly circular. Its variability is based upon the light source and distance from the source. An intense undistorted light source of direct angle will create a sphere shadow that is round with sharp edges. The shadow will always be in alignment with the light source, so it can appear misaligned based upon the view angle. If the light source is distorted the shadow will be less intense and will have blurry edges. If the light source hits the sphere at a hard angle to the shadow's surface the shape of the shadow will be an elipse distorted a bit for perspective.
_________________
http://prettydiff.com/

[AndyT]

Thanks Sumaleth and cheney. Sounds dire .

I'll think about it some more and try the "aligned-cube-thing".
_________________
http://www.conceptworld.org