Hi guys.

I'm one of those programmers who know little to nothing about making art so right now I'm struggling with painting this piece of block for my tile-based 2d game. Since I'm pretty new to everything, I'm using inkscape to create and paint. Theres some issue with register in the inkscape forum so I'm coming here for help.

I'm using PopTag! as my reference, and this is as close as I can get for the top. So could you take a look and let me know how I could fix the lower half of the block? I was trying to use gradient starting from down left to add some shadow, but still the transition/boundary between top and bottom half is really weird.

Also is the proportion correct? Light source is supposed to be coming from top right.

.svg: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7ivkzmtkfbu6q2/blocks_1.svg?dl=0

they look cute, though the tops of the arches look a little odd. maybe more shadow around the edges or make them not fill the whole block?

Hello,

I painted in a block using proper lighting. Your main issue is the way the light hits the surfaces of the block. Hope this helps

The CGCookie channel on DeviantArt has some posts on the process of shading and rendering:
http://cgcookie.deviantart.com/gallery/45976575/EXERCISES

Thank you all so much!!!! I'm looking at your suggestions and working on fixing the issue. I'll be needing these a lot for the upcoming final project at school

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I played around with what @AnthonyPismarov said and this is what I got. For the side, I was not sure if using gradient from bottom left to top right or simply bottom up is better, in this case.

For this, the shadow on the left is darker to contrast with the starting gradient from bottom left. I use 4 stops for this gradient.

For this, the shadow on the left is a lil lighter to avoid too much contrast with the side. I use 3 stops for this gradient, starting from bottom up. Issue is Idk how to reduce contrast on the right...