I’m trying to make the fruits and acorns actually look like they’re IN the tree, as opposed to looking like they’re ON it. To me, it looks like someone had a sticker set of pixel art fruits and what not and just slapped them on here. Technically, I kinda did that, but still. I want it to look a bit nicer than this.
The picture below is what I tried to do, but it kinda looks a bit off in some areas.
I think the fruit could be a little larger and of fewer colors. It kind of looks like an Xmas tree. I don’t know if the fruit needs stems but if you want stems you could have the stems pointing towards the center meaning straight up in the center and bent inwards towards the edges. You could also make the fruit near the edges slightly smaller since they’d be further away than the fruit in the center/front.
I tried to find a good image that had fruit covered by leaves. This was my favorite. I realize it doesn’t have as many leaves but it demonstrates covering the fruit with leaves. The fruits on this tree seem a little too large but close.
Good question, I had a look at some fruit tree pics too and most made no attempt to have the fruit actually attached to the tree. These three looked okay to me but it means having visible branches.
The picture you sent as an example makes sense, but I have literally no idea where to start making some branches on my tree, to try to make it look a bit similar to that.
I see why you think this is looking cluttered and I will try to help you…
Less is more sometimes: Try only 3-5 units of type of fruit (maybe only one color for a tree). Tree1 has three to five red apples, tree2 has yellow apples, tree3 has green apples and so on…
At this small canvas size: it does not matter if the fruit is actually bigger than the depicted swing.
Split apple trees with oak (acorn) trees (except you have a magic fantasy tree, because of story or sth.).
For each tree variant you could change slightly the contrast/saturation of the tree’s foliage for more variation/natural look.
Pixel perfect: Pixelsize(apple) = Pixelsize(tree). Don’t change the pixel size within a pixelart to get a harmonic look.
