Obese surgeon...

[Technocrat]

Trying to go with a "grotesque" theme for some aspects of what I'm doing, so I've opted for making this health professional ironically unhealthy, most evidently through his penchant for saturated fats, his triple chin, and ill-fitting surgical mask.

Something about the way I do shading makes it feel wrong, though. Like it's a sub-image within the picture sticking out by about an inch, with an otherwise flat surface.

[Arboris]

for some reason it reminds me of Dr Henry Killinger, and his Magic Murder Bag

[Victor6]

I think your light source is partly the problem. the highlights are very thin, so everything looks very flat in comparison.

A good way to add depth to the image is to use the shade rather than the light, Increasing the size of the gaps between the levels of shading to give an impression of depth. It's the same logic as using double-thick lines for the outline.

Somewhat hasty example:- (right side of the image)


Cloth ripples and flows, add a few extra curved lines of light \ shade to give a better illusion of a figure underneath. So for example the mask should have an impression of the lips if it's tight enough.

Additional :- Surgeons masks normally cover the nose and chin.

[Technocrat]

Aaahhh, ok, that makes sense - plus, I can now apply the technique to other things I've been doing that seem to have been suffering from the same "flatness" problem.

The reason I've gone for a small mask is to try and accentuate how comically large the character himself is - he'll be even larger than the other characters in game, too.

[Ryan Timothy B]

A good tutorial on shading, for this type of artwork, would be something like this: http://www.natomic.com/hosted/marks/mpat/shading.html

The original image has an almost... pillow shading look to it.  I think that's the main reason it looks so flat.  Even victor's edit could use a little darker shades, I believe.