any input would be super

[artgrrl]

[Adrian]

It looks really good. I think it looks kind of funny where the trunk goes into leaves though.

[Ryona]

Wow! That's an awesome-looking tree. I love the texture, and the shape is very life-like. Me likes very much. 

[2dgamers]

For a small scale tree, that does look very well done. The detail is amazing! You did well on the colors and shade as well... where's the scene you're going to put it in? 

[artgrrl]

Thanks all who looked, Adrian, what part do you think is wrong? Do you think it needs more leaves in front?

[baccaman21]

Hi there...

It's not too bad. but the thing with trees is (and a lot of other stuff) is not what you think you see but what you don't see is very important for building up a sense of relief and or form...

Looking at trees in reality they will allways have areas on them that you can SEE through... it's very rare that you'll find a tree that you can't see THROUGH... with that in mind you should build in holes into the leaf section...

See here>>>

Now, the other thing with trees... is that they're not Green and Brown... ? Well, they are... but they're not too... don't fall into the trap that "leaves are green and bark is brown" - they're not... LOOK at a tree... they're green, and brown, and black, and grey, and a whole heap of colors - so reflect this in your representation... unless of course you're going for that comic stylised look (which is fair enough) but even then - bear it in mind.

Regardless of what colors you choose, you should try and use the bark color and the leaf colors and try and homogenise them and use them together so that you don't get that Brown bark and leaf green standing out in relief from one another... (which is what I believe adrian is referring to) ....perhaps someone else can describe this better than me?

Finally... you need to think of the tree in layers... so you begin with the trunk and build the general branch structure, and then working from the back (with a dark tone) line in you general shape, fill it, then move up a tone and work forwards until you have you overall forms... I've supplied an rough example below showing this in action... it's by no means complete in terms of final rendered quality but it illustrates my point. At each step you can work it up to a more or less better quality - but don't go mad... all you're trying to acheive is the understanding that there's something BEHIND the stuff in front... as you get further forward in the layering that's when you spend more time on each layer until the final layer when you can go mad and complete it in detail. But, don't forget those holes, that punch through the layers revealing the darker sections underneath, or, indeed the sky (or background)



Good luck - and keep on pushin!

[Hase]

The overall shape is a bit boring, also the trunk:crown ration doesnīt really work (a tree with that kind of trunk would probably support more branches on top). Apart from what bacccaman said Iīd focus on working on getting a shape thatīs a bit more interesting. Your tree doesnīt really have a personality..
You could also use the shading to give it a bit more depth (i.e. roundness to the crown).

[Joseph]

something you guys should know quick about her...this is maybe her 3rd pixel work ever so.

[Tremulant]

something you guys should know quick about her...this is maybe her 3rd pixel work ever so.

so... the crits should be extra helpful?

Other's have probably already mentioned it, but actually studying trees, or at least pics of tress, would probably be a big help. This honestly looks pretty nice, especially considering it's an early work, but nevertheless, treetops are (at least in my limited experience) rarely so close to being perfectly spherical. Bacca's edit is really solid, so I'd take it to heart. That said, the best way to learn is from directly observing life. That way you don't end up just interpreting an interpretation... or so they tell me.

All that said, nice start! This is good and, if you put the crits to good use, could become exceptional.

[terminal_arcade]

....perhaps someone else can describe this better than me?

If I look out my window, almost all the trees on my entire street, back yard, neighbours' back yards... their trunks are black and grey. A few fruit trees and smaller trees have purple trunks with very dark markings on them. Only a few have brown, and they're desaturated and darker.

Play around with the HSL colour sliders in some graphics program, looking for different browns. Then look at the RGB values for that colour. You'll notice there's very little blue at all. Your brown shades have Blue values of 5, 1, 0, 5, and 37 (out of 255), following this 'low-blue' trend.

Try being more daring with blue in making your trunks' colours. Baccaman (in his second pic, not the edit) used browns with much more blue, proportionally, than your colours. In fact, despite brown being made up of mostly red, he rejected this for some of his tree trunk colours and even made the red value as low as 7 (out of 255) for one. This emphasized the shadow the trunk is in. He barely used brown at all. It was hinted at, though, with just enough red to get the message across, while still having a unified palette. This is key to any piece. The colours shouldn't be disagreeing. (unless of course that's the point. XP )