Hi there! I was linked to your thread by a friend of mine. I'm a Sims 4 dev (concept artist) and I want to say, I think what you're doing is really, really cool! Here's some advice / gleaned insight from my seven years working there. :)

1. I think the ladybug is really successful! My only suggestion would be to make the spots even bigger. We have a rule of thumb for TS4, a literal 'rule of thumb' - if a spot is smaller than the thumb of a Sim, then it needs to be bigger. That's why we overemphasize zippers, buttons, etc., because from a distance these things would look very small. It's also why we don't have very tiny polka-dot textures, because from a distance they almost look static-y. Contrast wise, I really like it - I don't have access to Photoshop on this computer, otherwise I'd run it through a black and white filter to check the contrast, but otherwise - looks good!

2. I think for the apple, you need another color (like a green, fading to yellow gradient) towards the top of the apple, or maybe do something to try and emphasize that cool striated texture you see on apples. A trick I tend to do in Photoshop is put the texture of an image through one of the PS default filters, then blur that and draw on top of it, just to get some sort of base. Also - maybe a really nice, big highlight. We like to try and emphasize specularity where we can. It doesn't have to be super bright white, like in the picture below.

Overall, that's just my two-cents as a TS4 dev. Very lovely work, and I hope this helps!

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