Not that I'm the wisest one here, but given you're working on a simpler look it actually all looks absolutely fine to me. Very cutesie. I see no obvious hurtful-on-the-eyes tiling.

Perhaps once you've added more objects to the tileset it'll be easier to tell what does and doesn't work.

If you're using a program like RPG Maker XP with 'autotiles', you may want to incorporate your darker green path tiles into it. It'll give you more room on your tileset, and will push you a little in order to make the autotile work right in all possible combinations. Plus you can then have autotiles that gradiate (if that's the right word) or merge into each other.

The other thing you could possibly do is have a small round shadow built into your sprite sheet, under the jelly.

My crash was courtesy of Spybot S&D's Teatimer eating my monitor calibration software. Fortunately it was only bad blotting that I lost.

Thanks St0ven! What you've provided there is plenty helpful, and should help me start off on the right foot when it comes to shading. And it'd save me time on trying to erase the darkest layer over the brances later on when looking to expose a little trunk. Eesh. I can also see now that my bonsai is horribly off balance at the front. Hard to draw foreshortened branches to look at the right angle, especially as just silhouettes! Have to rework the trunk.

I don't know about videos. I'm still a big fan of a collection of saved WIPs (as is probably obvious!). I'm especially curious about painting in clusters with appropriate lighting and the detailing stage.

I'll be making a slightly larger version of the trunk next to the flat tree later on - I thought I'd thrown off the perspective on the branches and thought I'd try for simpler trees first. Had a reference x4 the size from a Secret of Mana tileset. Buried somewhere on my laptop, must find.

EDIT: Awesome, St0ven. Given how long it takes me to get as far as you did so quickly, there's probably a lot to be learnt if you do manage to get video recording to work on your PC.

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I wonder how much harder - or easier - I'm making it by drawing as large as I am. It's difficult to work out the lighting on something like a tree - especially this upper top left angle traditional to games. Most of the light visible on the tree would probably be reflected light, then. To get the hang of lighting, I figure maybe I should go draw a giant cone, then explode it from within. Maybe that'll help?

Last night, my partner helped me with some advice I'd never heard before - squint when you're shading something. Somehow it seems to make it easier to see whether something 'looks right'. It worked with some sketches I had (balls and cones, yippee) so hoping it'll help with this bonsai attempt too.

Must resist... urge to squeal... like schoolkid... with autograph... squee?

Ahh, the one by Ensemble w/ Opacus in the Keen Minds thread. Took a while to figure out it wasn't in this thread XD

I'm rather fond of Graphics Gale, but there are quirks I get frustrated by. Any non-rectangular selection once pasted comes with white filling in the gap to make it a perfect rectangle, resulting in unnecessary clicking. Hopefully I'll get some time to devote to photoshop tutorials tomorrow.

Stemixing - ya. It's quick. It's easy. It's cute in its own way, but it's certainly not pixel art, and I haven't tried it. I'd like to create plants with a better sense of form/depth, and I like the crisp appearance of pixel art.

JJ - I like what you did, and what you say makes sense. It does look more natural than mine, though perhaps I'd adjust the trunk to allow for something a little more cone shape. Thanks!

I had this image in my head that somehow I'd wind up with a whole bunch of smaller tree tops and no central mass if I used that trunk pointed out, so just used Zyndicate's tree as reference and tried to imitate structure. As mentioned above, my intent to use a better palette screwed up when I tried to 'cheat' my 3 colors + dark transparent color + palette adjustment. As is colours would definitely need more contrast. Also it turns out my monitor needs calibrating throughout the day - I was definitely lacking contrast to begin with! o_O

I've started a proper attempt at that bonsai tree you linked, and will hopefully be properly demonstrating step 4 as you suggested. Even as crude colour blobs it is looking a lot better.

Thanks, that was handy. Nice to have a more technical term than just 3/4s view. ^_^