Forest BG Help

[Revan]

This is the Island with the style of art I want in my game:



But I am unsure what to do with this BG to get it in the same style:



any paint overs gladly welcome... Thanks. 

[cat]

Use some shadings for the trees like you did for the mountains and some texture for the grass.

[cobra79]

It is the first time I tried a forest up close and it was harder than I would have imagined.
I don't know if this fits your style because from the distance I can't even make out what kind of trees you have on that island. Thinking about it now these are probably palm trees...
Since it did not matter to me when I started, the trees are now oaks or something similar.
I hope that it could be helpful anyway so here is an animated gif of the process.



The lighter shades of green suggest you wanted a way or a glade there so I very roughly drew a way.
In the next step I added some tree outlines which I filled with color. Afterwards I added some basic shading and took a leaf brush again to add the leafs. That was difficult because you don't want to completely block the sky but nevertheless the perspective suggests that we mostly see the underside of the treetops.
I used some green gradients to darken everything a little bit, but the left foreground.
The ground is made up of random strokes in different brown tones because the green was too light and I think there is not much grass in a forest. It is still to bright I guess. The light beams are just a little gimmick(white brush with reduced opacity).

Here is the final picture again.


One could make it a lot better with patience and dedication, but I have neither...
Good Luck!

[Revan]

Hi Thanks for the help. I started a fresh one y'day and only used my origional as a guideline... I got alot of help from actual pictures of forest from the internet, but I thinbk this style fits well... What do you think..?

[cobra79]

It is much better, in fact it represents such a leap in quality that I wonder why you asked for paintovers in the first place although you were clearly able to do it yourself. 

[Recluse]

That's VERY nice... with art like that you could easily win.

This is going to be an interesting MAGS.

[InCreator]

I suggest visible trunk texture on frontmost tree. It's so close that we should see more details on it. Maybe also add tiny crippled branches or something.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/1/1a/Olive-tree-trunk-0.jpg

[Hudders]

Add a polar bear.