I am trying to learn some better shading so I am practicing by making my own graphics.

the circle was tiny so I made it larger and it turned out looking really cool so yeah. The tree took like 10 minutes.

Nice work :)

u serious -,- ?

I'm a beginner. Just practicing

Toad-V he may have caught the blorbs. (bowsers inside story reference)

Pixel mario- shaded edition ;D

shaded link :D

Cup of joe.

Classic PC pointer, but shaded.

Nice graphics sir :3.

For - the - love - of - God
Please stop using the gradient tool, never use the gradient tool.

Once you stop using it, you will legitimately improve ten fold.

Stupid question here, I would like to improve, but what the heck is the gradient tool.....

Thanks :3

The gradient tool is a tool in many graphics applications that allows you to define 2 or more colours, it then creates a colour transition from that one colour, to the next and so on giving an effect which is what you seem to be using for your graphics.

How I shade: (I use paint.net)
1. create the object with no shading
2. Use the colour picker to get the colour i want to start with
3. Make it lighter by clicking window then colours.
4. click more
5. slide S or V to make it lighter
6. Apply to object closest to light source
7. Slide S or V to make it a couple shades darker
8. Apply beside the part closest to light source
9. Repeat 7 and 8 until it is completely shaded
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Goomba :D

even if you're not using gradient the way your shading it looks like it

shade it in a more natural way.
make shiny/darker spots, try "dithering" -google it.

transitioning light to dark isn't really shading

Couldn't have said it better myself. +rep(when I'm able to)

Thanks. I'm going to go try that now, Ill post once I have drawn something, I will probably just do a circle for now.
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Probably did it wrong, but please tell me how I can improve.

Pac man ghosts, not dithered cuz I dont really understand how to do that..

Most people are guilty of pillow shading.
However theres no tutorial out there for how not to "gradient shade".

So I'll just leave these here.
http://www.natomic.com/hosted/marks/mpat/shading.html

Here is some proper advice though, pick a palette to use.
Ie: only 5 HAVE SHADES at most per color. (if you're using 64+ shades per color, you deserve a smack.)

Highlight, Base Color, Shade, Darker Shade, Darkest/Outline

Also it is unnatural to have every color just immediately "gradient" into black, for most things theres light bouncing off of everything, so you're not going to end up with the "dark side of the moon" on everything unless theres no surroundings and they're under a direct spot light, if this actually was the case your shadows would be a lot more sharp and bold.

http://snigom.deviantart.com/art/Ada...iques-43158629

Right now you have everything shaded as if it was a flat image on a cylinder, with only 1 direct source of light and no environmental diffuse lighting.

Box, trying out new shading.
Thanks for the tutorials, it will take some time but ill practice.

For the future, try outlining your stuff in an almos black line. Makes it stand out. Like on your Goomba.

What do you mean?

I tried some dithering, If possible, would someone please save this file and shade it a different, better looking/ more robot like way? I would be very happy to see an example on one of my own graphics.

Seeing some good stuff here Kyro. Keep it up.

**** happens.

Cool story bro

BLUE SLIDE PARK :D

This took me like an hour. 8bit version of the lasers in jetpack joyride.

wtf 1. u used to many colors 2. u need texture, cuz if its just one smooth color then its gonna turn out to look like a fail cartoon object no offence

oh yeah and if u do just that smooth stuff u did with the tree people are going to think u suck, because all it is is making the color a bit lighter and again, no offense

its ok to do the smooth stuff for certain stuff but a tree, not gonna happen

I like it. Reminds me on a random old game (not sure maybe like bomberman or something like that)

That's the reason I made this thread.
I made it so I can show the terrible graphics I make now, and get some creative critisim so I can learn to be better and eventually start putting out some better graphics.

Some more stuff, dithering

I never use dithering. Personal preference

http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/foru...?TID=5692&PN=1

Ok, Heres how to shade.
Lets say we want to shade a round object, like this circle (O), realistically.
(My art teacher taught me this and I have improved incredibly)
First, find a spot the light is coming from. You don't want 2000 suns all coming from one direction. So lets say for the O, we want the sun to come in like this O<----o (o is sun)
Then, make a small round cut out in that side (C). Leave that part the lightest, that is where the sun is coming from.
Then, make the opposite end the darkest, and make it, from there, go from dark to light.

But keep in mind that the sun isn't the only light source! There may be lamps, or imperfections in the perfect spere. For lamps, just draw highlights of white in that direction. For indents, use a slightly darker shade randomly where the indent/imperfection is. :)

Remember, though, pillow shading is terrible. Never. Pillow. Shade. Ever.

You explained shading decently using O's. I applaud you.

Can I see an example? Im more of a visual learner. Also, could you show an example on an object or something so I can understand it not just on a circle?
maybe like a baseball cap or something.

Actually she told you the same as Dusty/Beoholder at page 2.

First, start out by drawing your outline of the cap.
http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...1at44832PM.png
Next, find your spot of light. In this case, the sun is coming in from the left.
http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...1at45030PM.png
NOTE: Do not add your highlights like this. It's called pillow shading and it looks TERRIBLE
http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...1at45144PM.png
THIS is correct. The highlights are where the sun is facing and bend with the hats curves
http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...1at45234PM.png
Next, you want to add your darker values at the other end of the hat. Since this is away from the light, it will be darker. Make sure to curve it WITH the bends in the hat.
http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...1at45534PM.png
For a more realistic finish, blend these highlights and darker spots in with lighter shades for the dark, and darker shades for the light.
http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...1at45753PM.png

THE END.
Sorry for the bad pics, my drawing program was spazzin

Looks like plastic more than realistic... No offence..

Some crosshatching and smoothing the highlight and a bit more variability of the color would lead to a more realistic look. It's cloth, not plastic, but still it's pretty good.

Yeah I know. As I said, my program was spazzing and I wasn't in the mood of going super detailed.
It was like freaking linking and disappearing when I moved the mouse, and it made it almost impossible to draw :3

Dithering is a great way to give a surface the feeling of texture or to make a larger surface feel less bland, but if you're trying to keep something smooth and using dithering primarily as shading... Then that is when things immediately start looking like arse.

Dithering is also a much harsher thing to look at in the day and age of LCD monitors that are crisp and clear. It was an amazing technique on CRT's, even using it to shade smooth objects as the pixels were blurred together, pretty much cheating color limitations and giving developers a way to pull off smooth gradients with only a handful of colors.

It's a sub-woofer, one has transparencies the other does not.

If anyone wants to use it, give me credit.

Creative criticism?

Its a plunger. Havent posted in a while, please tell me what to change.

You have to remember, things are never perfectly smooth and fine.
Things have little dents and imperfections, adding these in discretely help a lot :)