Draw the Candle Wax Inside the Candle Jar

In the two previous tutorials, we completed the candle jar in Illustrator^R. Now, we will add the wax candle inside the jar. Most of the steps we will do to create the candle will be a review of the techniques that we learned in the past two tutorials. But this time, we will use the Inner Glow Filter to add a waxy appearance to the shape that will become our candle. Then, working with a semi-transparent layer, you will learn a trick for choosing the correct color for our wax candle. Open your candle graphic into Illustrator again.

Before we start, we need to create a new layer to hold the wax. Let's call this layer "Wax" and drag this layer under the Jar layer.

We want to be able to see the wax candle through the jar. So we need to make the Jar semi-transparent. Draw a rectangular selection around the entire jar. With the entire jar selected, use the Opacity slider in the Options Bar to set the Jar's opacity to 50%. Now click on the Lock icon to lock this layer.

We are ready to draw the candle. As before, we are using a black stroke to help us draw the shape for the candle and we will remove the stroke when we are done. Choosing the Fill color for the candle is a bit tricky. The color you use will show through a semi-transparent layer and this will make the color appear to be much lighter than it really is. For example, I want my wax to be a light pink. In order to get this color, I need to start with a much darker color. By using a medium brown color (8a5d3d), I will get the pink color for my wax. This technique is used by traditional artists all the time. They start with a dark color and add white to that color until they get the lighter color they need. We can do the same thing by creating a gradient with the dark color at one end of the gradient and white at the other end. Because we are working with 50% opacity, the candle's color will be somewhere in the middle of the gradient. You may wish to experiment with different color gradients for your own wax candle. If you find a color that you want to use instead of the medium brown, change the Fill to that color.
Go back to the Wax layer and use the Pen tool (Fill 8a5d3d, Stroke black) to draw the same shape that we drew to create the jar. But this time, we only need to draw the sides and bottom. Also, we need to make the shape a little smaller to fit inside the jar.
Round the bottom corners of the wax candle as you did for the glass jar, using the Convert Anchor Points to Smooth feature.

The wax candle only has 4 anchor points. With the Direct Selection Tool, draw a selection around the top left anchor point. From the Control Panel, click on the Convert Selected Anchor Points to Smooth icon. Then, use the handle of the Direction Line to straighten the side of the candle. Repeat this for the top right anchor point. When working on the two bottom anchor points, create a curve for the bottom of the candle.
Now we need to cut out the top of the wax candle using the Ellipse tool. As before, match the width of the ellipse to the width of the candle and use the height of the ellipse to set perspective.