you made a typical beginner's mistake: using dark outlines everywhere. but don't worry, it is very easy to fix.BadMrBox wrote:
the trick is to draw the outlines that are away from the lightsource in a dark shade and the outlines that are in the direction of the light source in a brighter shade. I applied this to the right of your gravestones:
Doesn't it look much less amateurish and much more three dimensional that way? try applying it to the other one. It is really easy.
another improvement would be to apply some dithering on the large one colored surfaces to give it a structure. just scater some random pixels with a brighter and a darker shade over them. You can also do the same with the outlines. The result will be that it looks less like a plastic brick and more like a rough and withered stone surface:
About using the woodland grass: in my opinion it was the right decision to do so. Using parts of other tilesets helps to keep the general style consistent. But feel free to adjust the colors to fit the ambiente of your tileset. The old snes games do so all the time.