This giraffe is just using shapes and adjusting them. You should add a body and combine it with the neck shape.
without a body
no filters/gradients
without a body
filters & gradients
with body
no filters/gradients
with body, combined
filters, no gradients
with body
filters & gradients
Make your Canvas Size 600 x 600.
All shapes have stroke 1-pixel soft, black. Fill can be any color.
You'll have something like this...
You should have something like this...
Set the Fill for the body parts to a radial gradient - one shade lighter than the main color so it looks like the light is hitting it from above)
Add FILTERS (such as Inner Shadow/Glows to the edges or center of the parts.
For example, select the body shape, add Inner Shadow filter. Change the direction of the shadow so it's at the bottom right, and change the color to a darker shade of what we already have, and make it wider.
Hide the original photo you used to trace and finish colors.
You can set the shadow to have some softness or only 1.
To maintain a black outline/stroke, copy & paste the outline shape, remove the effects and fill.