Compulsory Tree Tile

[SwapBrain]

I started this as a way to work out some of my ideas about how to help people who post "Here is my tree - help!"

Understand that this has no context, no characters, no other tiles, and frankly I would not want to play a game with this tile, since there is soooooo much space obscured by it.

I tried to keep the color count down in the beginning, but got less concerned with that as time went on.  There are some AA/banding horrors and the contrast is regrettable.

All that said, this is still WIP, C&C welcome, edits even more so.

I am including wip stages so you can get a feel for its development. I have to say that while I miss some of the gestural qualities in the earlier picture, when I got down into the nuts and bolts of rendering I had a blast.

[adcrusher524]

Nice shading on the foliage, but it needs more contrast. You have to stay consistent with your hue shifting, the lightest shade is yellow, then it starts to get closer to blue. But the darkest shade is getting closer to yellow again. I think that one should shift even further to blue. Also, the trunk of the tree has many scattered pixels that don't show volume very well. (I think it's called noise, but im not sure )
I made you an edit to show you what i mean.

[Cilein]

I agree with adcrusher524 on the hue bit, shifting back to the yellow bands it, however I dont think his edit is an improvement for the bark especially - your own version has a beautiful texture. The palette is a little too pastel-pale, a little more saturation and contrast would liven it up. The shape of the tree, and especially the trunk is fantastic, excellent!

[SwapBrain]

Thank you adcrusher and Cilein for your input. Adcrusher, your edit intrigues me because you managed to make the trunk look like it is behind a piece of glass or underwater, which would be a cool effect to reproduce later.



I tried to shift the shadow more toward the blue, added another green because I think i had at lest one to few, and tried to de-noise the trunk a bit. Let me know if you think the edit was a step in the right direction.

I think i will work on upping the contrast next.

EDIT:



Figured I was being too precious with the original and so went for a major re-work. Check check it.

[heyy13]

I think the rework is a huge huge improvement. Can't wait to see it cleaned up more.