Need some art advice grounding obstacles with background

Calling artists and artsy types. Please can you give me some advice on how to ground my obstacles (the gears in the image below) with the background. They look like they’re floating on top. I tried to make them a bit blurry but that didn’t seem to help.

Thanks in advance.

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Comments

Skipi
17. Apr 2016 · 07:42 UTC
I won’t claim to be artsy, but I do know that bright colors tend to be perceived as closer objects whereas darker, duller, more muted colors tend to be perceived as more distant objects.
17. Apr 2016 · 07:44 UTC
What Skipi said. Have your gears darker and your moving characters brighter