Adding a lighting highlight to a drawing

If you want to draw a picture of a shiny 3D object in most drawing programs you have to draw highlights as part of the object. Xara LX makes this much easier as you can draw a separate object for the highlight. Then you can use transparency to modify the colors of the dull object underneath.

To add a lighting highlight

1. Create your drawing without the highlights. (The drawing should look matt and dull.) Include enough shading and shadows so that the object looks three-dimensional.

2. Decide where a light source would bounce off the object into the viewer's eye and draw a shape over that area. Set the color of the object to the color of the light source (see Tips).

3. Using the Transparency Tool, apply a suitable transparency. See Applying transparency.

Tips

The most realistic highlights are achieved by either using linear fills and circular fills in the highlight object or drawing several highlight objects and blending them together (see Blending objects). You can alter the color of the light source producing the highlights by altering the fill color of the transparent highlight objects.

White highlight objects look as if the light source is white. Slightly yellow highlights look as if the light source is the sun. Orange highlights can make the object look as if it's being viewed at sunset.

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