Strange shadows on the knight, good idea overall.

A very interesting idea, there are a few things that would help your image. Firstly the perspective of your chess pieces is not the same as the chess board, now I don't do 3D, but I imagine that if you made the board and positioned your chess pieces within your 3D program, then adjusted the angle you would have the same perspective on both board and pieces. Secondly, rendered clouds never do an image justice, there are plenty of wonderful stock pictures of clouds that would improve your entry. Good luck

Akassa and madamemonty, thanks for the input. You ladies are/were right. I really was not too happy with the original upload either. I made a major edit... for those of you who have voted already I thank you. Please see my SBS.

much better! like the changes!

Well done author, that is so much better

Image improved a lot author good job

I do indeed appreciate the flowers, thanks for the positive feedback. my 1st edition was just me being lazy...

Looks good now, author, nice scene.

High res is pretty freaky, great job.

freaky? :P

Author, you've got the reflections wrong. They should be coming directly towards the viewer. Consider a tall tree on the edge of a lake with you on the lake. No matter where you are on the lake, the tree's reflection will be coming towards you. Light refraction and all that nonsense.

ahh .. i was waiting to be corrected on this. I should have looked it up. Hope its better now.

Agrees with Idt8r.

You're almost there. You've picked a hard one to do. Round can be...aggravating. I would like to suggest you find something at home that's round and has stripes on it, a glass maybe or a candle holder. Set it on a mirror and study it. You'll see that the stripes are exactly opposite in the reflection. If you don't want to mess with it anymore, you could always put your pawns on a textured cloth with shadows. But, if you're willing to try and you have a lot of swear words in your vocabulary, I say go for it! GL

Im pretty sure that I finally understand this haha but I cannot find a single tutorial on it (with a similar round object). All reflection tutorials seem to be on flat based objects. It is driving me insane but I haven't sworn- and I wont! Im actually dying to know how to do this now its 1am and im not really getting anywhere

Yes, it's very, VERY complicated to make reflections from this point of view...

I honestly thought I was imagining it all. I thought someone was going to point out some really easy technique tht id forgotten about. Not sure whether to even put my new version up... i think its worse.

No, I don't think its worse. I think you've got it. I don't believe that at this angle, the tops of the pawns would be showing, just the bottom part, like you've got. I'm trying to decide if the bottom ring would be showing. Maybe add it, but keep the fade, like you've got now. KWIM? Of course, if that doesn't look right to you, don't post it. What you have now is a really good improvement.

Thank you, I guess this has been a huge learning curve for me. I need to do my research!! And i also know nothing about photoshop haha. I messed about with the band last night i cudn't get the hang of it and I think it was a bit too much tbh.

simple thoug very effectice!! So very good work ! Good luck author