for the love of god someone help me please.. lol
i started out making my circles with the circle tool in graphics gale, as i read somewhere that a good way to make a tree was to view it as a bunch of circles. so i did. but i dont know what to do. for some reason i cant come up with a good f**king tree palette rgkjjgfjkgjkgjkng
the trunk is coming out ok but it doesnt really look right either. c+c please... tear the sh*t out of this thing.

The leafy part is too shiny. :/

that would be bubbles/spheres not circles and you are basically doing it right , but you need to keep most of the shading to one side/cluster of spheres and most of the lighting the other insteead of shading each bubble evenly.  also, you should try to imitate leaves some more with atleast some dithering, to roughen up the texture.



that's because the highlight is on the wrong side



that's because you keep to the same green too much. now i'm no saint in this, i do it too much aswell. but it's not agood thing to do, it's pretty much explained in this tutoial: http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/sywtbapa_de-mystifying_greats_1.php aswell as the whole "A tree is just ab bunch of  spheres" thing





you're welcome, good luck.

Those look more like broccoli than trees, IQ. ; ~;

Looks much, much, much better! I love it!

*high-fives*

hey manupix!

hows this? fixed up the shape and tried to make it less flat. still painting atm but i want to get the shape right before i do any detail work..

Getting very convincing! The top is just plain good, imo.
The bottom right corner remains flat, because of these two large patches of color.
I don't know how you see it, but one nice thing with this tree is that the blue parts look inside, all the others are in front of it, more or less transparent, this gives it a lot of life and volume. Except in that corner where the flat green patch breaks the effect.

Now, you still have work on the trunk / branches. Mostly, the width of the branches is erratic and downright ugly in places.

Edit: crossposting! Well, I didn't mind the blue, because of the above, but it might work too with a greyer tone. Worth trying anyway!



Edited by Manupix - 16 August 2009 at 12:13pm

im home! small update:

fixed up the blue for hatch, and worked on defining the brances more.. added two more colors for the brown on the branch and defined more leaves and the tree bushiness.. what do you guys think, better?

I'd say you're there, or very near.
I have to agree the blue looks far better like this!
Now for the forest!

Form is good, the tree overall looks fantastic, but you gotta eaaaase up on that saturation.




Edited by ThereIsNoCure - 17 August 2009 at 12:52pm

It gives it brilliance, but an unnatural brilliance. The palette seems more "treefrog" than "tree" to me right now.

I think a middle ground between the two current trees might work best.

Look again at the original tree photo... there's not as much of a value separation (moving from light to dark) in the photo as there is in your version. Otherwise, looking good!

heeellllooooooo

tried to clean up the dithering and make it more leaf cluster-y like. also trunk!! what do you guys think?

Quick anatomy edit:



Yes, even trees have anatomy. A healthy tree /typically/ has a ratio of 60% canopy to 40% trunk.

/nature nut


Edited by Pragz - 22 August 2009 at 12:02am

A tree anatomy depends on the lightsource. Does this 60/40 rule apply to a tree alone in the desert, or a tree in a forest ?
In a forest the trees mus be more vertical to get some light, so I guess the ratio will change. And I find the original one better :)

frost thank you!!! i am taking that advice and its coming out great... but i wont post it until i get farther haha
and also pragz you are right, somewhat; ive accounted for how short the tree trunk looks at the moment and ive lengthened it.. however, please note that im heavily relying on the source and though a 60/40 ratio is a good rule of thumb, im not sure if it applies to the tree picture. if it does, which is more than likely, you would have to account for the whole trunk; in your edit you only go from where the leaves stop... if you look at the picture the trunk goes further up.. and in my sprite the trunk goes up about 1/4 into the leaves.
forgive me if all that seems a bit rude; it is 4:30 AM after all!!

this is shaping up wonderfully

ahaaaa ok... good idea. i will try that... though i might need some help as i dont really have any references of the same tree at a top view :P