Making water drops in illustrator isn't as hard as one might think. To start you can either try to make the stereotypical water drop or you can make a more irregular water drop. If you are new to the pen tool you should opt for the stereotypical water drop. Take your ellipse tool, draw out circle (hold shift option while dragging). With your direct selection tool (a) select the top anchor point and move it up. For those that are more familiar with the pen tool draw out a more irregular shape as you can see below to represent your water drop.



You want to fill this shape in with a radial gradient with the center containing white or a very light color of your background. The outer color should be only slightly different than your background. I would opt for a lighter color than your background but only slightly. See above.

Next we need to put the base shadow in. This can be done by copying your water drop (CMD c) and pasting in front (CMD f). Fill this shape with a radial gradient as well like below (the color stop representing the center of the circle should have an opacity of zero).








Now we just need to add a bit of highlight and you’re all set. Take your pen tool and draw out a highlight shape like I have shown below. Fill with a white linear gradient like the panel above shows. The bottom color stop should be set with an opacity of zero. I set the opacity of this layer to 70%.

Posted by: --gpowell