I thought I would try making some delicious food:
Please critique.
The main problems I see with it is the lighting set up and the glass?
Does any one know how to improve them?
Thanks
hello
I think it’s really nice image.
My comments would be:
I think the biggest problem is that the gingerbread men are too diffuse. In real life they tend to have a sheen from the cooking process, sugar or fat, whatever. Eitherway I think they need some spec/glossy value.
I’m not certain how you have done the broken arm, but it looks more like flaky chocolate to me.
The light seems a little hot in the bottom right and falls off quite quickly, almost as if someone is shining a desklamp at them. Maybe a larger source, but that would make it less dramatic. Or play with fill lights.
The glass doesn’t seen to have any contact shadow with the table, I don’t know how to fix it, but that seems to be the problem to me.
There appears to be some faceting on the candy canes?
Also I think the texture / cracks in the ginger bread should be sharper and deeper. Maybe increase the contrast on the map thats generating the texture, because all that detail is getting washed out of the guy with the missing head in the bottom right, due to bright light and shallow DOF.
Buttons are good
Icing is good.
Just my thoughts, hope it helps
toodle
Thanks for your critique Kettleish.
I’ve tried to make the alteration suggested, but the results have not turned out good:
I’ll try again and hopefully, they will turn out better this time.
Great job! The only thing that I would point out would be the cracks in the gingerbread man. They look to smooth/soft. Overall great work.
I see you used m&m’s instead of gumdrops, nice choice. 
I’m a blender and CG layman but I would suggest making the cookies look more baked. When I see gingerbread cookies, they’re usually browned more on the bottom and are lighter on the inside where they aren’t directly exposed to the heat.
I think your cookie texture was better the first time around. The second render makes them look… pruney.
Last, someone else mentioned that your glass isn’t generating a shadow, but neither are the candy canes. That whole piece looks fine stand-alone but isn’t integrated with the scene, it almost looks like the glass is right in front of the camera and floating in the air instead of sitting behind the cookies.