How can I improve my battleship?

[guadalcanal]

I drew this ship, and I plan to draw a lot of ships similar to it for a naval warfare game I am programming. Unfortunately, I don't think the ship looks very professional. What are some techniques I should be using to make it look more realistic and interesting?

Thank you!

[Joe]

Hm is it scaled at all? There are pieces at double size, you can definitely fix that.
You don't need any techniques to make it more realistic, just simple things. Techniques are for polishing.
Are you using a reference? If not, find one and please link to it.
Contrast can be used to an extent, and level of detail, to separate the layers (lowest have low detail and low contrast, perhaps even hueshifted towards blue)
Simple assessment of what you're trying to portray. Working off your ref, think logically: what does this section of pixels represent? Could it be done better or differently? Does it add information (good) or does it only add noise (bad)?

[Seiseki]

Sorry, but that doesn't really look like anything, only the shape makes it look like a ship.
 You're not using enough contrast so it looks very flat. The contrast is so low that you can barely make out the different parts.
And there is something strange going on with the scale.

You need a reference and you need get better at conveying the depth.
Battleships are also pretty crazy complicated with all their layers of structure, armaments etc.

If you use a wooden deck you get a much better contrast and you'll have to consider the context. i.e. the sea background.

[guadalcanal]

Thank you guys for the advice. I think that modeling my drawing after a picture of another ship really helped a lot. I used this as my reference:
(the bottom one)
Spoiler

and this was the result without turrets:


And here it is in the game (obviously all the other graphics in the game are unimproved)


I still think it's pretty noob-ish. I'm definitely more of a programmer than an artist. Thanks for the advice so far. Unfortunately a wooden deck wouldn't really work for most ships since the timeframe for my game will be WWII era.

I tried to add contrast this time, am I doing it right? Thanks again for the help! None of this "art" stuff comes naturally to me at all

[lachrymose]

If you look at steel, you'll find that it is very rarely flat grey. Increase your contrast more and add some blue into  your colors.
Think of the ship in layers, from an overhead view like that, the highest points of the ship are going to be lighter then the lower points. This is the easiest way to show depth.

Also don't be afraid to exaggerate certain details to really draw attention.
You can follow some of the posts in this thread: http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=17737.10 to get ideas. Just ignore all the rhetoric. There are some good edits that can be applied here as well.

[Seiseki]

I was under the impression that most larger ships during WW2 used wooden decks..
Here is another reference of the Richelieu and Alsace with wooden decks.

Spoiler

This new ship is already 10 times better!
You should try using a shaded reference as well as line drawings though, to get the best of both worlds.
The reference you're using now is more of a technical drawing.

If you want to make it easy to find references, you should pick ships from the game World of Warships, you can play the game for free and take screenshots from a top down perspective.

[guadalcanal]

If you look at steel, you'll find that it is very rarely flat grey. Increase your contrast more and add some blue into  your colors.

I added some blue, and I think it does look better. Thanks!

I was under the impression that most larger ships during WW2 used wooden decks..
Here is another reference of the Richelieu and Alsace with wooden decks.

Haha so they were I replaced several areas of gray with wood. It does make it stand out much more, but is it too distracting?

If you want to make it easy to find references, you should pick ships from the game World of Warships, you can play the game for free and take screenshots from a top down perspective.

That's a good idea. I already have the game, so that will make things even easier.

This new ship is already 10 times better!

Thank you! Maybe I'll be able to make a half decent-looking game for once.

Here it is with the wooden deck and hueshifted a little bit towards blue:


And here's what it looks like with the turrets:


Thanks again for the help!