How to express the tree ?

[abcnocturn]

Hey everyone,
I'm not sure where to start/end at this one :/

Currently I'm trying to get the tree into a nice shape or design, but since I only used 3 colors ( normal,shade,light ) it seems impossible make something beatiful. Do I need more colors to bring the tree to life ?

[Rydin]

To help optimize your colors you might want to make the brighter color even more brighter. It blends in with the middle tone right now and didn't even notice it until zooming in.

You want to capture the over all clumps of spheres with lighting, then suggest the more detailed leaves.

[abcnocturn]

Thanks for the hints!
The color is really better now, but I'm confused by the shapes :/
Maybe I'm painting it in way too less details ?
Should I start with a smaller tree/picture :/ ?

[Xenon02]

When I were you I would start with tree (only tree) giving some details and other stuffs. I prefer you to go check some other Tree pixel art and analize them to make your tree get some better shapes. I'm not good at pixel art to but with tree I can give you some examples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_ZwiVb2LY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgLG84RiHb0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_NNLmRuFYY

Of course here is a site were you can learn something about lighting (I'm still lame at this (heh started doing pixel "arts" 10 days) but you know more practise !) https://opengameart.org/content/les-forges-pixel-art-course