Hey!

You can, actually, apply the same principles of a tree with small leaves to a tree with big leaves. It's gonna be a bit easier since you fewer pieces to work with. 

The first thing I see with your tree is that it's flat, like every piece is tacked to the wall. Try to think more about the 3D space you're working with instead of what a tree should look like in your mind. Trees' leaves are usually thin and grow in layers, one on top of the other. They'll cast shadows on each other, and understanding where those shadows will fall will help a ton with shading your tree's leaves. It's really really good to get references, even if it's not exactly what you want, to work from, just to get a better understanding of what's going on. I usually get my eureka moments from noticing something in a reference that I never saw before.

I'll be using this reference:
http://www.ct.gov/dph/lib/dph/hems/tobacco/images/tree_and_clouds.jpg

Here's a paint over:

It's super rough, just to give you an idea of how I'd go about starting the leaves if this was my tree. Also, start with bigger brushes before going into pixel level detail. it'll keep you from getting overwhelmed with all the little details, and give you a better idea of what you're drawing before you spend a zillion hours on it and realize something is the wrong scale or whatever.

I didn't start with a reference right away, and I realized I wasn't following my own advice, so to illustrate how much a reference can help, here's me moving on without one:


I shaded the leaves a bit more, and used a bit of the trunk's color to add more contrast. I added a little leaf to create visual interest, and simplified the bark. The reason I did that was because there was too much detail for the amount of shading you did. In the art world, shading > color > detail.

And with a refence:


I looked at the reference, and realized that one little branch half way down the tree doesn't really happen on trees, and is just a symbol really. I took it out, but noticed that you can usually see a little bit of the tree's leaf underbelly. I moved the two bottom most leaves behind the tree, and slimmed the trunk down because it was way too thick for such a small canopy. If you look at the reference, or any reference for that matter, you'll notice the trunk is teeny tiny compared to the canopy in almost all cases. The last thing I did was try to let some of the back of the tree show through since leave's don't make an impenetrable wall. It's always good to be aware of the sides of the image you can't see.

Also:

This is what I had in my mind at the very beginning. Clumps of leaves are usually a bit spherical, so a good way to start blocking things in is to start with spheres. That's also why I isolated some of the darker shades to the bottom of the canopy, and the lighter shades to the top of the canopy.

Here's an update! I started on some more stuff in the background, and added more pipes (they make no sense right now, but I'll be working on that), tweaked the colors to fit the environment better. I'm thinking about adding ladders to bridge the different levels of the building. Am I on the right track? Should I try adding in more doodads and stuff?

Will there be sloped platforms?
Planning on going inside any of the structures?
Will we be going underground?

No, there will not be sloped platforms.
We won't be going into these specific buildings, but there will be interior tilesets.
Possibly, I'm not sure about that.

I can't help wondering why the place is abandoned. Was there some disaster? Some mystery your small team was sent to investigate?

Here's the story so far. TLDR; some hotshot tarraformers try to make this planet hospitable, but they're careless and their equipment breaks. Everyone abandons the planet, and Mr. Hero gets to go fix the tarraformer.

I don't know if this would change your advice Pype, but I think it's actually a buncha containers. A container city

That's exactly what it is! I'll probably add some more variety though, since I can see where Decroded and Pypebros are coming from.

Haha, well I guess my timid attempt at enlargement wasn't as obvious as I thought!



I'm not sure if I overshot it, but it would definitely be more playable. My plan isn't to turn this into an actual game, but I'm trying to design everything as though it was for one.

Pixelation, meet Franko.

Still

Punch
    (v2.)
Run


I'm relatively satisfied with the running animation. I'm sure there's a lot of room for improvement. The punch animation, however, still feels very wrong; and after tweaking the motion into the wee hours of the night, I'll present it to you guys.

I'm in!

I like pastel colors, swooshy hair, majestic skylines, spaceships, cool outfits, lady hips, sunsets, bright afternoons, acrobatics, the TV show Castle, also the Stargate series.

I dislike pineapple.