Okay, so today I tried to do something totally new – I wanted to draw the number 80, but like, make it look really cool and 3D. It sounded easy in my head, but boy, was I wrong!
Getting Started
First, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. Nothing fancy, just regular stuff I found lying around. I started by lightly sketching out a basic “8” and “0”. My handwriting is usually terrible, so I was trying extra hard to make these look decent.
It took a few tries. The “8” kept looking wonky, either too fat or too skinny. The “0” was easier, but it still needed some work to make it look, well, round-ish. Seriously, who knew drawing numbers could be this hard?
Adding Some Depth
After I finally got the basic shapes down, I started thinking about how to make them pop. I remembered seeing some tutorials online about adding shadows and highlights, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
- I picked a direction for my “light source” – I imagined it was coming from the top left.
- Then, I started adding darker shading to the opposite side of each number, the bottom right. I used the side of my pencil to get a softer, blended look.
- For highlights, I lightly erased some areas on the top left of the numbers, where the “light” would hit.
This was probably the trickiest part. I kept smudging the shading with my hand, and the eraser sometimes made things look worse instead of better. I had to redo a few parts, and let me tell you, my patience was wearing thin!
Finishing Touches
Once I was kinda happy with the shading, I went over the outlines of the numbers with a darker pencil, to make them stand out more. I also added a bit more detail to the shadows, trying to make them look more realistic.
In the end, it didn’t look exactly like I imagined, but it was definitely better than my first attempt! It’s not perfect, it may look a bit rough, but it’s my own messy creation, and I learned something new. I might try this again with different numbers, maybe even letters. Who knows, maybe I’ll get good at this eventually!
