@thomasrobertine Another tip is to make some UV islands smaller that don’t really need detail and save that space for other UV islands that need more detail.
I also don’t think that 1024 by 1024 is overly big for this kind of asset. I’d recommend increasing it to get a little more pixel density on your paint.
I probably wouldn’t be doing 2048 by 2048 images on everything for a mobile game but I don’t think it would hurt on some more important things that need the detail. Like @jlampel says, it is a balancing act.
Fake it where you know no one will care, and Make it great where it matters most.
