Sorry for being off-topic. I recently discovered GraphicsGale had the custom brush feature (alas). For anyone in doubt or frustration, I quote directly from the help file:

Reload Pen/Tile
Reloads pens and tiles user made.
Pens and tiles must be BMP file, and must be placed in the folder named "pen" in the following folder.
WindowsXP: C:\Documents and Settings\(Windows user name)\Application Data\Humanbalance\GraphicsGale
WindowsVista: Desktop->(Windows user name)->AppData->Roaming->Humanbalance->GraphicsGale
Windows98: C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Humanbalance\GraphicsGale
Besides, the BMP must be a monochrome(1bit), the size of a pen must be 32x32, and the size of a tile must be 16x16.
In a pen, white area will put a color in the canvas. In a tile, white area will be replaced with the first color, and black area will be replaced with the second color.

Hey =)
I've never been an active member here, so I expect nobody to remember me. I've been doing games for like 11 years, now. I'm currently developing this one. I'm a member--if it still exists--of Natomic. (What else?)
I do computer games for a hobby--I'm a scriptwriter and a director in cinematography. So, I'll leave it at that x)

(After she stating that it was inspired on LOZ, and truly, doing such a comparison so rudely stated deserves no applause. They're not rips, although they bear similarity. But please, the similarity--the grass--is almost a green square. I've sprited many green squares in my life, so witchhunt me, too.)

I, for one, like the trees. Although they look a bit too organic (which isn't really a bad thing at all!--But in this particular style, it should matter.), they could still pass off as cute trees if you lighten up the shades that define the square-shaped bushes. The problem with doing something that's not truly symmetric is that you'll have to do other trees with different "tumour" (bush) arrangements to grant its style verosimilitude. Other than that, the roots are the only thing that bothers me. Maybe, should you make the trunk-length bigger (and thus letting us see further trunk), it'll do it more justice. Otherwise, you could just as well remove half their presence and shade them with dark brown and we wouldn't notice them as much. If the latter appeals you, perhaps, too, add small roots coming out and in again from the ground, farther away from the tree.

Alonso, at least on my system that image isn't popping up unless i dig out the URL from your post, and having done so, the water is definitely not sufficiently similar to warrant a post that is otherwise lacking critique or advice.

Frankie - if you can be bothered to find the image that Alonso tried to link, you'l see one thing they did that your image is moving TOWARD but has not yet achieved - which is water is one constantly distorting surface, rather than a flat surface with a variety of distortions popping out of it here and there.  I'd continue working on eradicating those flat sections while you polish the tiling!

I wasn't trying to push too hard, but if it looked otherwise than what was mentioned, I wouldn't have said a word. Apparently, I'm the only one who notes rescemblance, after asking a couple of friends, so be that my interpretation. Regardless, I'd try to add frames to the entire animation (particularly because there's a couple of waves that leap just too much). Animating sea is worthy of being an ordeal, I've known, so I hope you reach a result you like. I'd also change the colour-tone of the waves to something more, well, saturated (albeit the suggestion be with mslug's sea in mind).

Should I embellish further, AdamAtomic?

I won't be of much help here, as usual, but why do people feel uncomfortable with characters that don't have a dark outline? In some point and click games (like MI, MI2, Indy, Pop1 and 2, etc), I actually liked it that there were no yoshi island-ish black outlines around them. The bg's were, at times, very detailed--sometimes, even more than the sprites themselves. To me, since the characters will be moving anyway, they won't really merge into the background. Besides, looking at it realistically, we don't have black outlines around us X).