Using a very simple colour palette for the environment except for the trees was key to keeping a coherent visual style while making it look minimalist and simple to create. Painting the bushes turned out to be a beautifully simple yet effective method of drawing out green clouds, letting the hand twitch and jerk randomly to form unique shapes. Then adding highlights to the top edges and within the cloud, following the rough shape of the bottom. Adding the shaded tone is as simple as looking for the innermost areas within the cloud and adding shade next to highlighted parts within the bush.
Job done.
It was just a case of doing this a whole lot. Providing a lot of opportunities to be mindful during the process.
The majority of the trees in the game are trees that are amongst the forest and in close proximity to the player and pathways. Research shows us that trees within the forest tend not to have greenery growing on lower branches as they need all their energy used where the sun is most potent, at the top of the canopy. So to make the forest feel full and aged, the tree trunks are made by creating tall, thin rectangles. Erasing small chunks on either side at intervals and drawing out small, dead branches in random directions and angles. Using a similar technique with the bushes, only 3 tones of colour are used to create texture and details. With these variations, trunks are duplicated and an array of colours are applied to supply the environment with a variety of different trees.
