Shadows: Rule 6 - Hue-Shift Separation

“When light fails, use the Color Wheel.”

On deep, dark backgrounds (Value < 15%), standard shadows are swallowed by the darkness.

Bypass the luminance entirely by using Chroma Separation. Use a shadow color from the opposite side of the color wheel. This creates a visual “spark” that defines the object's edge where “light” no longer can be seen. This is demonstrated in the wiki's How To Create a Shadow on a Dark Background.

Sample of a Rule 6 Hue-Shift for a shadow on a dark background 👉