My attempt at the kingdom key from the game kindgom hearts. It turned out a little bit flat looking and just off but im to much of a scrub to work out quite what needs fixing so feedback would be a huge plus.
Discussion
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If you draw an object from an angle where we only see one side of it, it's hard to avoid it looking flat.
One way to help, though, is to use a light source other than "from the front". On the black handle and the blue bit, you have shadows on both sides, which is pretty boring. Try putting all the shadows on one side. Doing so consistently gives objects a bit more volume. In addition, the grey shaft of the key is also round, so it should have shadows similar to the black part of the handle.
Here's an edit that adds consistent shadows to the ground parts. Your original at the top, edit with shadows in the middle. At the bottom, I also added some indication of thickness for the key teeth and handguard, essentially making this not such a front-on view. Notice that I didn't add this "thickness" to the chain, which is too small/flat to have much thickness, and to the round parts, which are round so they look the same from every angle. I did not adjust your highlights to suit the new light source better.
You may also notice I got rid of a few of your colours, and increased the contrast on the key part and the handle. The smaller your sprite, the more contrast colours need to stand out well from each other. It's easy to forget that when you're working zoomed in, so remember to zoom out regularly, or have a 1x preview open.
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If you draw an object from an angle where we only see one side of it, it's hard to avoid it looking flat.
One way to help, though, is to use a light source other than "from the front". On the black handle and the blue bit, you have shadows on both sides, which is pretty boring. Try putting all the shadows on one side. Doing so consistently gives objects a bit more volume. In addition, the grey shaft of the key is also round, so it should have shadows similar to the black part of the handle.
Here's an edit that adds consistent shadows to the ground parts. Your original at the top, edit with shadows in the middle. At the bottom, I also added some indication of thickness for the key teeth and handguard, essentially making this not such a front-on view. Notice that I didn't add this "thickness" to the chain, which is too small/flat to have much thickness, and to the round parts, which are round so they look the same from every angle. I did not adjust your highlights to suit the new light source better.
You may also notice I got rid of a few of your colours, and increased the contrast on the key part and the handle. The smaller your sprite, the more contrast colours need to stand out well from each other. It's easy to forget that when you're working zoomed in, so remember to zoom out regularly, or have a 1x preview open.