Basic Shapes - Shading help needed!

[Stardust]

I'm making a game with 100% custom graphics.  Those custom graphics are mostly going to be basic shapes because I can't make anything better than that.  Also, I think something simple will be cool, but I've never created anything custom before, so even the basic stuff is giving me trouble.  So, I need help, mostly with shading.

Cube
This one is the strangest.  The light source is on the top of the cube, and I've tried to shade it like that, but it just doesn't look right.
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/7679/blockwj6.png[/imgzoom]

Sphere
This is also shaded with the light source coming from above, and I think it came out decent.
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/9862/spherelh4.png[/imgzoom]

Diamond
Now, this one was horrible when I first tried it.  I went back and tried again, and now it looks better, but it still doesn't have the right shading.  It almost looks like it's clear on top and not on bottom.  I'd like it to be a solid, non-clear shape, but I really have no idea how to go about creating it.
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/6926/diamondca1.png[/imgzoom]

Palette
It's a very basic gray palette that I'm using for the base.  It'll later be changed to another palette if the player wishes, but the shading will stay the same, so it's kind of pointless to post the other palettes.  If I'm wrong and you need to see the other palettes, just ask.
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/407/graypaletteci9.png[/imgzoom]

 

[EmuMaster2002]

The light source is hitting the entire top of the cube, so the entire top should be that light colour. I would also suggest saving your darkest colour for only the parts farthest away from the light, and spreading the gradient a little more evenly across.

 

[Sonata]

The palette is horrible. Pick a colour and use that as your base tone. Emu already touched on the cube so I'll leave that alone. You should pick a light source that comes from an angle instead of directly down, go ahead and try the sphere again with that in mind. The diamond doesn't look like a diamond. It seems like you're trying to use too many colours, if I were to draw that diamond I'd only use four shades. Something like this.

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p117 ... damond.png[/IMGZOOM]

 

[Perihelion]

To add onto what the others said, your sphere needs bounce light. The darkest part of a sphere isn't the opposite edge, because light from the surface it's sitting on reflects onto it. It's an important thing to consider when you're trying to make stuff look round and/or shiny.

Edit:

Quick, sort of shitty example of what I mean:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/ ... sphere.png[/img]

Edit x2: Also, yeah, it's worth mentioning that the lighting isn't accurate here; the darkest part should be a lot narrower. I just used a couple shades to give you an idea of how bounce light works.

 

[Stardust]

OK, they're getting better with each attempt.  I've changed the source of light from above to the top left and have made quite a few other changes.  The block could still use some work, and the sphere isn't as good as I'd like, but the diamond looks much better and is much closer to what I was looking for.

Spoiler: Version 2

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/5623/blocktz7.png[/imgzoom]

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/6475/sphereqf3.png[/imgzoom]

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/2987/diamondvn1.png[/imgzoom]

I'll still use the gray palette because it makes it very easy to see the shadings.  I can change it if it becomes a problem, but I'm looking for correctness more than pretty right now.

 

[Perihelion]

You know, I'd recommend finding some real-life objects to study. Drawing and shading them by hand could help, too. And then once you understand how the light works, pixel them.

 

[Sonata]

The thing is the grey values in the palette make the objects seem flat. Your lighter shades should have more yellow and the darker shades should have more purple. I also didn't mention this before, but your two darkest shades are so similar you only need one of them. I'd be interested in seeing some of your other palettes.

The cube is better, but the sheen makes it look like metal, although that may have been on purpose. The sphere is also better but you can't see the bounce light because the shades are so similar. Same problem with the two darker shades in the diamond, throw away one of those tones.

 

[Tindy]

The biggie I'm noticing with your cube is the edge.  Whenever light hits on something with a hard edge, the edge always gets a very bright highlight (like the edge of a table, box, etc etc).  Your sphere could use some more highlighting shadow, the very darkest color actually doesn't occur very much. And if I were you I'd dither.

 

[Stardust]

OK, so here's what I've done.  I originally had 10 shades of each color, and I reduced it to 5.  I had to edit the cube a little.  I can't do dithering very effectively because, even though I've enlarged them, these are going to be character sets.  Now, I'm going to need some palette help, as well.  I've posted everything from the 10-palette and 5-palette series in the link below as well as provided the palettes.  I'm sorry I'm a little slow at learning this.  This is the first custom anything I've ever done, so it's taking a little longer than I was hoping for.  Thanks to everyone that's been helping me.

http://www.freewebs.com/guardian1239/apps/photos/

 

[Venetia]

I'm curious; you realize that your sphere isn't actually a sphere, right? it's kinda egg-shaped. Pudgy/flatish on the bottom.

Also using a black/grey array isn;t necessarily a bad thing on objects which all use an analogous palette array, so please stop crit'ing him on that. there is lots of very effective pixel art that only uses grey tones.

when you would AVOID greys and blacks and hard whites is when your other analogous palettes use desaturated colors and skin tones (skin tones almost always look terrible with greys). But these are just shapes. Granted they usually look more interesting with varied colors in the palette, but the other colors Guardian chose are NOT interesting palettes so guardian take it one step at a time. first learn shading or first learn palette development, don't do the learning process all at once because you'll get lost.

i'll crit the shading later.

 

[Stardust]

Thanks, Ven!  I had some issues with the sphere at one point, and it lost some of its circular-ness in the process.  I'll have to fix it.  I guess I'll work on the palettes later if I want to.  The shading is the main issue right now and I can always swap out colors later.