Beginner's "Shading Sheesh"

I love the movies, but something just hasn't sunk in.

I have a bitmap filled shape with no outline. I want to color on top of that bitmap with black or brown so as to make it look as if it is curled. I want to shade with precision in whatever area I want to perhaps give a folded look or a different curl orientation, whatever. The idea is to add 3D depth to it with light and shadow so it looks like slightly curled or folded paper.

The question is: Whatever black fill I put on over the bitmap just obscures the bitmap completely (and applying a transparent gradation of black just makes the bitmap transparent as well); so how do I do the most basic and most used (for realistic) illustration technique of adding subtle area shading over what's beneath? For me, demonstrating a little section of the cool microscope illustration would have been way better than the desert bitmap example in the "Create an Illustration" disc movie.

I love the movies, but something just hasn't sunk in.

I have a bitmap filled shape with no outline. I want to color on top of that bitmap with black or brown so as to make it look as if it is curled. I want to shade with precision in whatever area I want to perhaps give a folded look or a different curl orientation, whatever. The idea is to add 3D depth to it with light and shadow so it looks like slightly curled or folded paper.

The question is: Whatever black fill I put on over the bitmap just obscures the bitmap completely (and applying a transparent gradation of black just makes the bitmap transparent as well); so how do I do the most basic and most used (for realistic) illustration technique of adding subtle area shading over what's beneath? For me, demonstrating a little section of the cool microscope illustration would have been way better than the desert bitmap example in the "Create an Illustration" disc movie.

Now to try and attach the jpeg.

still trying to attach something

To create this I had to laboriously Freehand draw the two halves on either side of the crease, tracing along the crease and the outer outline for both. You can see where I didn't adjust with Shape Editor along lower left corner so you can see the lighter original bitmap underneath a little. Gotta be an easier way.

Not sure if I understand how you did the above. But, if you draw an object and copy it (ctrl-C), apply your bitmap fill to the original object, then paste (Ctrl-Shift-V) you will paste a copy exactly over the top of your bitmap filled object. Then give the pasted object a dark fill and a linear, elliptical, or whatever transparency.

If you need more subtle shading repeat the Ctrl-Shift-V process but slightly alter the transparency attributes and position. You may have to Repeat the Ctrl-Shift-V process a few more times to get the right effect.

This is one approach. Make sense?

If I understand the question.

Though the underlying shape is a solid color, it should work the same way over a bit map fill. The watch band was shaded and given shape by cloning, filling with white or black, and then applying elliptical transparency.

Hi Shokan,

Your question is a very interesting one. I've tried to get an effect of a partially crumpled piece of paper with a down turned corner.

I started with a rectangle filled with the Paper 7 fill from the fills gallery. I used the Mould Tool to get the general effect of one corner being turned down. I cloned the rectangle and filled the clone with the Folds fill and gave it a flat contract transparency. I drew a freehand line to slice the transparency and then gave the right hand part a linear fill using white and black. I applied a Stained-Glass transparency.

If this would help you to explore the effect your are wanting, I can post the .xar file.

Soquili