HERE’S ANOTHER VARIATION on cell style shading in Flash. This technique involves the Rectangle tool and allows for more complex shading. This may be preferable if your shapes require more complex shadows.
1 Using the Rectangle tool 
, draw a box inside your shape that contains a darker fill color (no outline).
2 Use the Selection tool 
to pull the corners until they snap to the edges of the shape (make sure the Snap feature is turned on).
3 Fill the gap area created after snapping the corners to the edge of the shape.
4 Use the Selection tool to bend the edge of the darker fill color so that its arc reflects the shape of the oval. Having used the Rectangle tool, you have an extra corner to play around with. This can be useful for creating more complex shading such as with the ear shape.
5 Let’s take this technique one step further by adding more shading for a more realistic effect. Repeat the above procedure using an even darker color inside the shaded area.
6 Use the Selection tool to pull the corners until they snap to the edges of the shaded shape.
7 Fill the gap area created after snapping the corners to the edge of the shape.
8 Use the Selection tool to bend the edge of the darker fill color so that its arc reflects the contour of the shape.
9 You can repeat this procedure as many times as you like. The more color values you add, the more realistic the image will be.
Hot Tip
If you would like a cool and easy way to create various hues based on your original color, give Adobe’s Kuler tool a try (kuler.adobe.com). You can mix shades of color very easily and then save and download them as ASE (Adobe Swatch Exchange file). Open the downloaded ASE file(s) in Illustrator and then save your new swatch panel as an AI file and import it into Flash. An easier way would be to manually copy the HEX value from the Kuler site and paste it into the Flash Color Mixer panel.
