First, create a circle. Then add a smaller, lighter circle on top of it. Place it a little below the center.

Click the blend tool and click on the top of both circles to blend them.

Now create a new oval, and fill it with a black/white gradient with white on top. Make sure the black is a little more strong than the white. On the transparency panel, set the mode to “Screen”.

Now create another circle, give it a radial gradient. Center is black outwards to white.

Go to the transparency panel and change the blend mode from Normal to Multiply. Right click on your shadow and go to Arange>Send to Back. Now you can place it below your glass ball.

You’re done! Glass balls or Glass marbles look great on layouts and headers. It’s faster to make them in Illustrator and they are scalable because they are fully vector. Have fun!

Keywords: Adobe Illustrator, orbs, shiny, glass balls, glass buttons, 3D ball, marble, button, vector.