@tim
Ahh, those are all such good points. I hadn't even thought of how upward movement was going to be a problem with those trees. I suppose I'll have to be careful with that when designing different screens, but I think I can handle it by either covering up sections or terminate the trees into stumps.
You're right on the dead leaves, they're going on the two fix list. (and gosh, such a list it is)

So I tried to make some bushes. These were a no, but I'm showing them for the sake of process.


And then, I really like the texture on these, but somehow they ended up so flat looking. Only a couple or so seem to have volume, and I'm still trying to figure out how to fix it will still keeping it tileable.

So I gave up and kind of used them as a flat texture on here. My ultimate goal is to make some bushes run along the top to indicate that area is impassible.

mo trees.

Then I got tired of all that and went back to making this snake temple. Still needs x10 more snakes, but I was really trying to get the overall structure down first.
This are some thoughts for myself, but I may be reaching a point where I need to plan a little bit more.
Since besides more trees, vegetation, and ground cover, things that need to be made now will more likely rely more on the needs of the game itself.
It'll also help me decide which objects should ultimately be tile-able (more usability, less uniqueness), and which ones should be just be giant objects.
and then I have no idea how layers work in a game that pulls all the stops, but some of the trees might be annoying to layer since the sprite is taller than the tile. The sprite needs to walk in front of, and then behind some individual tiles depending on how high or low the sprite is on the screen.
But yeah, I really don't know all that much about how tiles work, all said.