(Scroll to bottom for image results on shadows)

I apologize for all of the invites, sorry if you didn’t want one.

But anyways, even tho its Sunday i’m going to post weekly guides on Stick Nodes art.

To start off with one, let’s start off talking about something that i’m going to be going over for a few weeks.

Lighting.

Lighting is the fundamental part of Stick Nodes art really, but it can be hard to replicate it with reality.

So, we are going to go simple for a start.
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Shadows (Shading an object, not casting shadows. I don’t really like to talk about this one since it’s complicated and heavily limited.)
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Shadows aren’t really complicated, they’re actually really easy. (Relatively)
In case if you don’t know, i’m going to show you how to create a basic shadow.

For this reference i’m going to use a ball.
How exactly do you shade this ball?
One method is to use an arc and put it on the side opposite to your light source. Blur it to an extent that doesn’t make it too pixely.
Depending on how dark of the surroundings you’re going for will determine the opacity. The lighter the background the lighter the shade. The darker the background the darker the shade. But under some circumstances you might want to have it oppose the shade of the background. (However, blurring this arc could cause errors. Be aware that your arc might also have to account for a little bit of background shadow, that is if you don’t mind the small amount of light sticking out at the end of the ball. Not necessarily the topic for today, but just a warning.)

Another method is to add a smaller ball on once again the side opposite of the light source. The same methods of filter properties apply. (Once again, might account for background shadow. This one is also heavily limited to a few variations of appearances, so i don’t recommend this in all honesty.)

That’s as far as it really goes if you want to stay clean.
But there is a complicated method that you should only really use for black backgrounds.
What you have to do is get a line, size it up to a scale that can cover most of the ball. Stretch it across the side opposite to the light source.
The same properties for filters could apply.
This method could open more dynamic possibilities when it comes to shading a shadow, but its limited to only black/dark backgrounds. That is unless you make the shadow the color of the background, but then it wouldn’t really be darker.

There are solutions such as creating figures designed for specific types of shadows (Which i’m going to get into later), but this seems to be as far as it goes without that idea.
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Results (in order)