so I've been making a lot of tiles lately for a yume nikki type game I want to make but idk it might be an rpg if I make it a vidgam. I already have a story in mind kind of, but whatever here's what I got!!
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 
 
 
 

 
yeah a lot of it all is WIP like those pixelly big trees up there I've been working on but...... I'm getting pretty methodical about my tiles, like discovering how to make modular trees:

*first attempt- didn't have a good idea of what I was doing...
 

*second attempt... still didn't know what I was doing but began to think about modular tree branches and leafs.
 

*this was my fourth attempt I think? but this time I put holes in the leafs, to give the tree more depth so you can see the branches.
 

*latest tree. I'm getting better, but... I hope to perfect the modular tree with this iteration. to be made small, medium or BIIG.
 
 
 
so yeah it's been awhile! this is what I've been up to... what do you guys think? I've kind of got making trees down to a science(uhhhh how modest of me to say -_-) so if anyone has a special tree request lemme know. ya know, for that special some one. *raises one eye brow with a knowing grin*

love these... the trees are so good of course but also the tall grass and little cliffs and ripples in the sand...

Very nice. It reminds me of a possible contemporary society within a fantasy type world sort of thing. I remember struggling a lot with trying to fit the origanic objects into pixel squares and from what I can tell you're successful.

Yo thanks everyone! I hope to start them tree requests soon, I've just been mindlessly chipping away at cliff tiles using the same colors as the red tree type scene thingy I did...
 

 
cant wait to get to the tree requests it took porbably like... a month to get decent at trees? and a random tree gen would be good to have, it'd be interesting to see a 2-d game with a random tree generator. each new game the trees are created, but every time it's unique.
 
and ratsect the story im thinking of would be kind of like that. 10,000 years after an apocalyptic nuclear war, the Earth was ravaged but has begun to repair itself and the remaining humans rebuilt civilization. however, before the war happened, technocrats researched and built a super computer on the moon that houses a digital universe in which humans before the war that were rich/important enough became digitized and would "sleep" until the earth was ready. but some had the option to wake up whenever they want(politicians) thus some people have awakened already, gone back to Earth, blended in the new world and trying to get a head start on world domination. augh I gotta go to work but it's just jrpg type story Idea... there would be three factions- the new world, "conservatives", and "liberals"

How long did it take for you to go from attempt #1 to attempt #4? Or just a rough timeline for all of those. Glitchy-looking unfinished bits aside, everything looks pretty great! Are you putting references to past projects in the decor? That wall doodle (?) resembles a certain laid-back carrot.
 
tree requests:
-dawn redwood
-incense cedar
-banyan
-rainbow eucalyptus
-dove tree

 
so this was an interesting challenge, that you for requestin ;D im about to put the finishing touches on the trees trunks, but this is the first type of rainbow euc(did two, since theres some really blue looking rainbow eucs on google, what a cool tree)
 

 
the trunk I did yesterday and the leafs I did today, this is how I go about tackling tree leafs-

 
when i first started doing foliage, it took me forever to think of it this way, but after spending hours looking at trees in both real life and the way the old masters did it on the SNES, it's good to think of it in layers and clusters. first the form of the leafs must be establish, sometimes you can go bigger or small depending, but first I establish a general form. the next step is to create a cluster of leaves, the darkest layer which get the least amount of light. just copied and pasted, flipped, shrunk down, scaled up to a decent amount. the next step adds another color, same thing, and the next, and the next. eventually the blob in the beginning is covered with leafs. sometimes I'll do more than 1 cluster type to add variety, but that's all there is to it.
 
to be perfectly honest, and I'll probably upset pixel art fundamentalists by saying this, but when it comes to things like leafs it's a waste of time to sprite out the entire thing by hand. you'll end up spriting the same pixel pattern multiple times anyway. realistically, mother nature reuses the same assets to create her trees, a lot of minor variations on them of course, but she's working at a much larger resolution. no one will notice at 320x240!
 
edit:

 
just about done here... the other tree reqs are going to be fun though, especially the banyan!

lovely. i saw this on TIGs the other day and it jumped out at me. looking forward to it.

thanks omg those trees..... so beautiful! ;_; im going to draw some...I was actually thinking about doing something like picking a location and replicating it's foliage to the best of my ability with tiles, because you're right- no one does that! :P unfortunately guys I haven't made any tiles in a while but I've been working on my magnum opus and making some good progress! ​ since this is p much a tree topic here's a raster graphic tree:
 

 
you're advice is good, I've actually learned a lot about trees by breaking them down into pixel form, it's helped with drawing actual trees so much. one thing I've noticed is exactly what you're saying, trees have no definitive top to them, and I think that's a common misconception when it comes to foliage in general. bushes, trees, vines, ect are all similar in that they have "bones" and "flesh." the bones being the wood/stem part and the flesh being the leafs. much like human beings! well that sounds a little weird. anyway thank you everyone, and esiann next game will probably use tiles in some manner(prob a lot of these tiles!) and that's something i'm going to work on is having more convincing, sparser looking canopies to the trees.