Non-Pillowing

[official-neosoft]

Most of the critics I get is about pillow-shading. I'm currently trying to remove the pillow-shading from my drawings. I started out on a simple sphere, with 2 light sources.



Is the pillow-shading gone? Or is it still there? What should I change? ( It's not about if it's a beautiful piece, it's about the shading )

If it's almost good now I'll perfect it ( try to ).

Greets.

[Corinthian Baby]

Basically man, you're shading in big gradients, with the lightest color in the middle. That's bascially what pillow-shading is. It's fine to start off, but more realsitic 3d objects dont always have perfectly striped transitional colors like that. It's hard to explain how to do it without showing an example so look at this as ref:

I know you dont care about the ball but you can practice the shading like this like what you said.

Look dude this marble has the darkest shade in the center also shaped like a circle. There's mid value along the edges, with one stream of light on one side,and a little bit of reflected light on the other side. Thats how to do it in this case, but it's not just a way of shading, it also depends on the 3d shape of what you're shading, cuz the volumes are diff.

[Jad]

Wow, that marble is a good example of lighting circumstances that you'd almost never come across in real life. Actually, now that I've google image:d it, I see that marble balls actually have a lot of weird stuff going on, so ok, perhaps not O:



I'd say you're on the right track, but if the ball is hit by the light from somewhere more close to the viewer, the highlight would end up more like these tennis balls. The highlight will be circular (although tilted, of course) and if you shade with the kind if gradient that you have used, it will diminish in ripples emanating from that circle.

Wow, I should really make an easy edit instead of trying to explain it like this.

Anyways, you're not really pillow-shading here, but rather heading into another better area of shading philosophy! Great. Now continue onwards! : D

[dock]

I think you'd have a better time if you stuck to using less colours, really. If you were to shade that ball with four colours only it would come across better, and give you more scope for being deliberate with your use of colours. Good luck!

[Draco9898]

how the h3ll do we keep everything pixel-perfectly sphereical...it's like almost impossible

[I Am Uh]

Wow, I should really make an easy edit instead of trying to explain it like this.

More on that subject.
If you are trying to make a sphere take a look at this.

From what I'm Seeing right now, it seems like you're trying to make a saucer. There's two kinds of pillow shading, Bad, and Okay. Bad would be pillowing out from a center point like a lot of new pixel artists do. Okay would be what I've demonstrated, while it still is a form of pillow shading. (Just a cleaner more professional way.) Draco made a good edit on how you might go about making a sphere without using the dreaded pillow shading. Or of course you could incorporate dithering as well, but that's a whole other subject.

[Conzeit]

You are generalizing too much I Am Uh.....the way you suggest IS prettier and more functional, but it is not imposible that your X picture happened, balls can sometimes be lit like that.

[I Am Uh]

Yeah I might be generalizing a bit, I just think the light source should be a bit more defined to suggest that it's a sphere rather than a disc or saucer. Neo I'm not telling you not to stick with your current light source, just to define it a bit more so it's an easy tell. (There are unnecessary gaps between shades.)

[Willows]

Whut!

To my eyes, I Am Uh, your X'd image seems much more spherical/volumetric than your checkmarked one, mostly because the light seems to stretch nonsensically across the ball to places where the light wouldn't naturally reach.

Annnn I think the definition of "pillow shading" becomes more and more ambiguous each day. We almost need a written definition that's clear as day, 'cause I've heard so many different definitions of pillow shading myself, I'm not sure who to believe anymore. Far as I understand it, pillow shading is shading something as if there were BEAMS OF LIGHT SHOOTING OUT OF YOUR EYEBALLS, and all is lit and terribly gradiented from there.

BRUCE. BRUCE LEE. WE NEED YOUR GUIDANCE.

[Kazuya Mochu]

I am Uh, your right and wrong images arent really right or wrong. they are just two different light situations. both are valid and can happen.

Neosoft, I dont think thats pillow shaded. I think you are in the right direction. you just need to pay atention to how big your color areas are. right now they are so simmilar that it sugestes the same tecnique used in pillow shading.