My attempts for my own style.

[Developer]

This is my second attempt to my a sierra-like background. Please dont be too harsh. 

[Nacho]

Wow, that's actually a cool background! And were you looking for artists? If you were named after as a "non-talented", I must say that that's not true. The only things that "annoy" me? The bush of the second tree is too small if compared with the trunk. The leaves seem to follow a too noticieable pattern. The perspective seems to bee a little bit off, too many horizon can bee seen. I'd put shadows too below the clouds, as something tells me (I may be wrong) that the sun is in a 45º in the sky.

And if you want to forger Sierra style, redouce it to low res!

[Developer]

I made the clouds more flufy and the tree to the right is more in perspective.  8)

[Blade]

The clouds really look better now. Please do something about the leaves, my eyes get hurt looking at them, they seem a litle blurry to me and it's obvious their pattern is too simple. Also I would advise you to put a branch on the right tree, it looks too straight up to me.

[Developer]

Blurry one? you mean the bush to the bottum centre? And I'll work on a small branch for the one on the right.  8)

[Blade]

I mean rather the ones in the middle tree. They are not bad, but when I look at them my eyes slip. 

[Darth Mandarb]

I think, artistically, it's a nice enough looking background.

I question the function of it in a game.

The tree smack in the center of the foreground covers 50% of the screen.Ã,  Unless this is just a turn around screen (meaning you do nothing here other than walk to another screen) it seems like it would be hard to have anything happen while in this 'room' which wouldn't be covered up by the tree.

And a walk behind would be tough to create on something so anti-aliased as that tree.

I might suggest (if you've doen this all on layers) moving the tree to the top of the path (maybe shortening the trunk to keep the pretty leaves in the picture).Ã,  This way the tree doesn't consume the foreground so much.

This is, of course, just my opinion on the background

[Blade]

But Darth, maybe the character could climb the tree? Of course that might require some changes in the trunk.

[Developer]

Actually theres plenty you can do. Sierra always amazed me with the perspective they used in backgrounds, so I choose somehting unusual (sp). Theres going to be an owls hole in the tree, I've also finished a sprite for the tree. Im also going to draw the background in 3 different enviroments, basically getting my skill levels up by making a small portfolio.  8)

I'll be done with the changes soon.

[InCreator]

hm.
Many things remind me my own style, and I like it.
Here's little review, which I hope you will find useful:

good:
* colorful
* beautiful (in artistic way)
* technique is lovely (if it were less blurry)
* attractive (make me want to wander around in a world like this)

not so good:
* blurry!
* as darth already mentioned - not usable or at least comfortable to use for a GAME
* colors are bit out of the place (sky! clouds) - too dark and weird.

suggestions:
* Tree...
- left branch needs more these massive (big) leaf groups located at right branch
- right branch needs more these small leaf groups around the big one which are at the left branch right now.
Leaves just don't grow on big branches, they come from many little sub-branches.

You have to mix big and small leaf groups and make leafy are of right branch alot longer. You need more sub-branches, becoming smaller and smaller to aquire more realistic look and your style makes it pretty easy!

I MSPainted a picture fast to give you at least some idea what I just said



See, even if you're not drawing leaves one by one and making whole leaf groups, the way you did them still gives a feeling that tree structure looks like on the picture part I labeled "wrong".
The blue circles mark these leaf groups, you should get some idea how to position them and with what size.

Tree could also use more and more densely this cool scratch-like texturing you used at some places on tree, it doesn't have to look that polished at all.

* Sky - reduce change of tone in the gradient, it goes from dark to light too rapidly. Also, consider using even lighter tones of blue

* Clouds - now this is where blur needs to be. Make clouds more transparent, longer, with smoother and alot more fluffy edges, and definetly lose or at least reduce this dark blue from clouds. I make my clouds with pure white only, with more or less transparent brushes, it works pretty well.

* Make grassy area becoming lighter as distance from player (monitor) grows... (grass getting nearer to the horizon), you should reach a look like land fading into light fog at far distance. This gives a bit more of 3D-ey look and makes whole room less flat.

* Overall - this is pretty detailed and good-looking technique. I just don't understand why are you lowering detail level with this ultrablurry & antialiased stuff. This is like a big waste of artistic skills of yours.
Just try toÃ,  make whole thing without any antialiasing, at least on outline areas, I understand that smooth textures need to be antialiased. But that doesn't stop you from keeping main shapes simple and picture details well recognizable. I hope you do understand what I just said.

good luck!

[Developer]

Thanks, I'll be sure to re-vamp it all soon.  8)