Wow. Thanx for the advice.
It's nice to find advice from someone who has a decent portfolio on the web.
When you are learning it is often best to work on smaller pieces. The larger a piece is the more work an edit will take to complete....
In the case of your piece here it would likely be best to focus on a portion of it (top half/head/torso/maybe all three at once) for a while until you make some solid progress on the basics.
That is exactly what I did.
I made the arms first, then the torso, and then the legs. I admit, I should have done the torso first. But, I felt compelled to follow a vision I had in my mind of the arms at that moment.
Some portions of your machine are rounded with shading while others are very flat in appearance because there is no shading at all.
With the legs, I haven't done any light at all. And I know that. It is intentional.
I am going to change their design.
You don't have a clearly defined light source.
And as far as light and shading goes...none of the lighting and shading that has been done is going stay as they are. I did the shading on the torso as is, for the sake of measure. It's easier for me to assess depth with a gradient than with a single flat color.
Actually, I do all my shading and lighting last. I find that when I do lighting and shading on each part separately the lighting and shading comes out off balanced.
I do things in a assembly line fashion.
I design each part. Then I shade it one piece at a time, as a group and not as individual pieces with no reference to how the others are deigned or colored.
If you read back to my earlier post I discussed how I will be doing the lighting/shading with a metallic finish after the fact. Stick around. You'll see what I am talking about when it is finished.
Thanx again, for the advice. It's nice to know that everyone has a different approach to art.