[Thread is referring to the original version of the orb, which has since been updated. :) ]

So the new species is going to revolve a great deal around it's orb. The female adult example of which we are told is finalized, and extremely flat looking. (Also bares little resemblance to the baby's orbs, which look significantly better because particle effects are helping to make it look more 3D).



I've done a very quick version of how this can be fixed. Not having the lighting of the orb come from the floor would certainly help. Not using straight up white highlighting would also help, since that severely cartoonizes the appearance. Not having a white outline around the orb would solve a good 75% of its problems or more because the second you remove that outline it starts to look significantly less flat.

Feel free to chime in, if you agree.

i agree! it looks much better without the line.

I agree that the orb looks very, very flat. It looks liek a sticker that was placed on imo. There isnt anything around the orb indicating that it exists (looking at the shading of the pet's fur on the tail) and the orb itself just doesnt match with the rest of the pet. It doesn't seem to have a defined light source and that lgihtsource must not be the same as the pet itself. If the orb were its own lightsource, we would see some form of glow on the rest of the pet.

It just doesn't look like the orb and the pet itself are two coherent beings.

I agree! It looks like a big shiny sticker, a disc that has just been stuck on the tail. The light source makes me sense, nothing else is lit from that angle. It definitely needs a lot of help in the shading area.
Thanks for making this post!

It at the very least deserves some kind of shadowing somewhere. The tail doesn't even look like it's actually holding it in any way, but yeah. It needs some help to look less like a Frisbee the poor thing happened to catch while it was posing for a picture.

I agree that the orbs as is do look too two dimensional. I like how with just a bit different shading and highlighting like the example they look much more natural. More like actual orbs.

I agree! Just a little touching up and *poof* 100% amazing!

Edit: A little glowing to the eyes would look cool

I agree that the orb, while pretty, does look flat.

Seems like an easy thing to fix, though.

I agree also

I like what you did also. I liked the orb before but it looked like it was pasted on and seemed more than a bit off despite being so pretty. The fixed version fits in so much better.