Rate my ... plate?

[Mihail121]

Good day, community! An incredibly art-ungifted programmer here. Because in the last 2 decades I got sick of all my projects going down due to the lack of art, yesterday I downloaded ASEPRITE in the hope of getting stuff done myself this time. It's for a project I created to inspire my girlfriend to draw. Here's the first result of my drawing, it's a simple plate I'll need for a virtual kitchen:

(dead link)

Well, I would love comments, ideas for improvements etc. A very relevant thing here is that it has to stay as light neutral as possible, because of the nature of the game I'm writing. I know it's probably utter trash from the perspective of an experienced designer, but I'm proud I got even that far.

And here is what I used as a sample:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/13798573/sample.png

Thank you!

[coffee]

Hi there! always glad to help a lost programmer (:,

Some tips to start out with that hopefully can make things easier when your a beginner.

Porcelain is probably not the easiest thing to start of with and i'm deffinatly not a pro at its texture.
First of I think it will help a lot if you had a more angled perspective, especially when it comes to a plate. It's hard not making it look flat. Since you've put a dark line up top I take it as its a small angle to it. Next thing is I would never use dithering on porcelain, it's a glossy surface and the dithering just makes it look matte.

I also think you've missed a pixel on the right side but that's a minor.

//coffee

[Mihail121]

Hi there! always glad to help a lost programmer (:,

Well not lost, but we all have to learn something every day, otherwise it's a useless life Thanks for the structured feedback and let me provide some more info.

Porcelain is probably not the easiest thing to start of with and i'm deffinatly not a pro at its texture.
First of I think it will help a lot if you had a more angled perspective, especially when it comes to a plate. It's hard not making it look flat. Since you've put a dark line up top I take it as its a small angle to it.

The idea of my whole project (it's a scrolling platformer) is that everything is nearly fully perspective free, except for small hints like the black line you spotted correctly, it's supposed to indicate of the plate's interior, I could make it slightly stronger if that would help. I want to make some sample kitchen items to see if this whole perspective-free idea will look good in practice.

Next thing is I would never use dithering on porcelain, it's a glossy surface and the dithering just makes it look matte.

I completely ignored the material properties when I was doing it, will correct it in a sec, you are indeed correct. Let me try to get it to look better. I also want slightly more curvy edges.

[Ymedron]

Note in the original image there are a lot of reflected colors - on the left its slightly blue, on the right there's some hints of red from the fingers+a light shape from some other light on the far right. You probably don't have to replicate the colors themselves, but hinting at all the changes in light would probably make it more fun.


The borders of the cup themselves are kinda angular - there isn't the same kind of nice angular (edit: Rounded. sorry.) quality as in the cup itself. Lenghtening the steps on the lower parts of the cup will make the angle more rounded. (An outline might also help, because then you can do some antialias on that)

[Mihail121]

OK, following all suggestions I redid quite a number of things and this is the current result:

(dead link)

1. Rounded the outer edges.
2. Made inner edges more pronounced.
3. Removed dithering, now using pure banding.
4. Fixed missing pixels.
5. Assuming a light directly infront of the plate.

I think it became quite good.

[coffee]

Hey again!

Sorry for my ignorace, didn't realise it was for a gameproject!

ok, this is what I would do.



I see you have made some kind of reflection above the floralpattern thing. I would say wait with w/e it will reflect until you know what kind of tile it will stand on. If it's a wooden table for instant you can have some brownish backlight to it ect. Getting rid of the dithering is the way to go in this case as you did, still it looks kind of flat. I suppose it could have something to do with the way you have shaded, it's a bit pointy and doesn't have a flow to it.

meaning this:



To the non angular things. If you do intend to not have an angle, which is just fine. I would take away any kind of hints of perspective, the interior of the plate will be kind of unnessecary.

[Mihail121]

Gee, this is absolutely amazing, thanks so much. I'm going to try to put all these things to a practice right away. Thanks for taking the time to teach me some tricks!

[Mihail121]

Hi, it's me again, I made another revision and would like your opinion on it

(dead link)

I am now aware of 2 additional things: anti-aliasing and flow calculations

[coffee]

Hey

This looks a lot  better! Very nice glow in the texture and good work on the AA and colours aswell.

Still some edgy pixels on the sides and I don't really get the red outline on the left side, but overall, well done!



Keep going!

//coffee

[Mihail121]

Thanks, the red edge was just a test layer I forgot to remove before saving. Thanks for the constructive suggestions, I am sure it can be improved more, but for now it's okay, I need to prototype in the first place, anyhow I will post more items when I have a humble collection Thanks for the patience, it's a great help.