I've been playing around with making some simple images with shading and whatnot, and I've come out with this. It's just a simple top hat with some very basic shading. Feedback is always appreciated!

I picked up some of the graphics advice from a link I was give by geneticfrog on the official forums.
Feel free to check it out.  

I like it not that hard to make though, try doing something harder next :3  

Pretty good. Maybe you could add a white strip just above the bottom ring of your hat and a rose near the side.

http://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/stress-balls/top-hat-stress-ball-extralarge.jpg (Unsupported image host)

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/59632/59632,1168775116,9/stock-photo-top-hat-gloves-red-rose-and-wedding-rings-ready-for-a-proposal-2482531.jpg (Unsupported image host)  

Posted by Maxy

I like it not that hard to make though, try doing something harder next :3

I was sat there for a good 20 minutes trying to get it to look decent haha. Thanks for the advice though. I'm just trying to play around with shading for the time being though. I've been trying to correctly shade spheres and cubes so I can get used to how shadows act when they hit different shapes.

Posted by TylerMysTe

Pretty good. Maybe you could add a white strip just above the bottom ring of your hat and a rose near the side.

I'll work on doing that. Thank you for the idea!

Like I said, I'm experimenting with shading shapes and objects to get used to how light hits them and how the shadows are formed. I've come up with this simple sphere shape like it suggested in the link I gave in the OP. You can see the palette I've used in the top-left hand corner.

Edit: I've updated the hat image and added a white ban like Tyler suggested. I tried to keep the white band shaded as much as I could. I don't quite know how I am going to add the rose to the image yet. I'm still thinking about it haha.  

Nice Emera, thats a good Hat (:

Suka  

Thank you!  

Anytime !  

Very nice hat, I would be proud to wear that!  

First thing you can probably do to help this a lot is to work on the outline and form. For example since you're working with a small size it's probably best not to use lines to portray volume(such as the hem of the hat) and instead use lighting. A sharp jump from light to dark will imply a corner or edge.

Second, don't use pure greys unless you know what you're doing. A grey with a very light touch of hue looks much more pleasing to the eye. Typically when you're working with darks a hint of purple suits this well. In this instance blue could probably work, too.



After you work on those two things you can start shading. Try to avoid typical gradients. Get a little creative with it. For example typically shiny stuff(like a nice, shiny expensive tophat) could use "streaks" of highlights to make things a little more interesting. Also don't be afraid to play with these things a bit. For example instead of making the highlight go straight down you can make it taper off and disappear. This implies a conic shape to the hat and works with its shape to make it look more interesting than a very stiff hat, even if the lines still imply its edges are straight.

Don't be afraid to break away from the norm or logic to get creative, especially since it's for Graal that implements a cartoony style. You can often break off and do things that wouldn't make sense logically and it still looks nice and fits.  

Emera that looks really nice!  

Nice  

+rep  

Posted by Dusty

First thing you can probably do to help this a lot is to work on the outline and form. For example since you're working with a small size it's probably best not to use lines to portray volume(such as the hem of the hat) and instead use lighting. A sharp jump from light to dark will imply a corner or edge.

Second, don't use pure greys unless you know what you're doing. A grey with a very light touch of hue looks much more pleasing to the eye. Typically when you're working with darks a hint of purple suits this well. In this instance blue could probably work, too.



After you work on those two things you can start shading. Try to avoid typical gradients. Get a little creative with it. For example typically shiny stuff(like a nice, shiny expensive tophat) could use "streaks" of highlights to make things a little more interesting. Also don't be afraid to play with these things a bit. For example instead of making the highlight go straight down you can make it taper off and disappear. This implies a conic shape to the hat and works with its shape to make it look more interesting than a very stiff hat, even if the lines still imply its edges are straight.

Don't be afraid to break away from the norm or logic to get creative, especially since it's for Graal that implements a cartoony style. You can often break off and do things that wouldn't make sense logically and it still looks nice and fits.

I'll have a play around with what you suggested. I think I get what you mean by using different colours like darker purples and blues when working with shading. Thanks for the advice dusty.