If you are not familiar with it, I talk more about it in my hand lettering tutorial for beginners. I’ll draw it using the wooden board technique. Step 1 – draw the letter.įor this example, I’ll go with a basic sans serif block letter A.
#3d letters how to#
Once you’ve understood how to apply it properly on block letters, it will be much easier to create different lettering styles with a 3D effect.
I mportant note – For beginners, it’s best to start learning 3D on block letters. So I align my ruler with the bottom line of the square, and I slide it a bit lower like this.Īll that is left to do is deleting the lines that extend over our closed 3D shape.įollowing this technique we just saw on the simple square shape example, we can easily apply it to other objects (letters).Īfter all, what are letters if not more complex geometrical objects 😀 You can start either at the bottom or at the side. The first line that you draw will determine the depth and it will be the same everywhere else. The next step is to determine how deep our 3D goes, and again, it’s totally up to you. Just remember that if a 3D line goes “through” the letter (or object) you can skip it. If I decided to point the 3D in the bottom left side, then I wouldn’t have added a line on the top right corner. That is because that line would go “through” the square. Notice that I didn’t add a line on the top left corner. Once you are done you should have something that looks like this –
#3d letters free#
I’ll take my ruler, I’ll place it on the corner and I’ll draw my first line.Įvery other corner should have a line extending in the same direction.įeel free to make these lines a bit longer, and what doesn’t get used will be erased later on. It can come from any direction, and for this example, I’ll extend it to the bottom right side. Once you’ve done that, you need to determine the direction of the 3D. You probably remember this from your geometry class.ĭraw a simple square on a piece of paper using a pencil (it can also be a rectangle, it doesn’t matter). The equal distance method is fairly simple.īefore I start showing you how to apply this effect to letters and words, let’s take a step back and try with a simpler shape – a square. I call it this way because well, the 3D extends equally everywhere. I’m not sure if this method has a particular name to it, but I call it – the equal distance 3D method. How to draw 3D letters – A step by step process We can also apply various shading to our 3D letters to make them look even better.īut more on that later on in this tutorial. On the other hand, the shaded letters are not connected and thus give the impression of them being cast behind the letter. If you look at it closely, you’ll see that all the corners completely connect a 3D letter. We have a shaded letter and a 3D letter next to each other.
Here is one good tip on how to recognize a 3D letter from a shaded letter. I think that these two terms get confused and used interchangeably because they seem similar at first. In short, shadows are a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface. I often see that people refer to 3D as shadows or shading. We are basically adding an extra dimension to the flat 2D letterforms we usually create. Without getting all scientific in this artsy lettering tutorial, here is a very basic and boiled down definition of what 3D is –ģD is an object with height, width, and depth (or length). I believe it will provide you with a strong foundation, and all the practice you’ll do later on will be much more effective. Instead of just giving you a premade template for you to copy from, I think it’s crucial to have a basic understanding of what 3D letters are. Ok, with that in mind, let’s proceed to the next section of this tutorial.
If you wish to add colors to your 3D letters you can also use these other tools – A ruler (I use the rolling ruler – super helpful!).
These are the tools that I’m using (links to Amazon) – For this tutorial, you’ll need just a few basic lettering tools.
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