Tile painting. Help?

I suppose I could start off editing the RTP tiles. However I'm not too sure.

I keep trying to make grass tiles and for the life of me I can't do it. At all. As I do not have any previous art experience, well except an art class in high school, which TBH was a joke. The problem is... I have no idea where to start, or even why I should start there. Should I start off editing the RTP? Should I start off drawing my own? Keep in mind I'm painting these tiles and not "pixeling" them. I tried looking at the grass tiles for the RTP to see how it was done, but the pixels look a little random to me, so I can't tell where it was started/or done. Or perhaps it is easy to tell to a artists eyes.

I read the full tutorials that were posted on the websites blog itself. It was very helpful, but it doesn't give a tutorial on how or where to start really. Other then practice line work and stuff like that.

Nothing at all? I know how to pick out my palette, it is just  the painting part I'm having trouble with.

Bloodmorphed, please avoid double posting, as it is against the forum rules. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.


Please allow people some time to answer, the community isn't big enough to have thousands of people only everytime...


We usually ask people to wait 72 hour before bumping.

Oh I thought it was 48 hours, although I don't think I waited that long. Sorry!

Well, here's the list of links I give people when they ask about this.

http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/tips-and-tricks/creating-tilesets/
http://starwisps.blogspot.com/2014/05/things-to-keep-in-mind-when-making.html
http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/tutorials/creating-tiles-part-1/
http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/tutorials/creating-tiles-part-2/
http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/tutorials/creating-tiles-part-3/
http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/tutorials/creating-tiles-part-4/

The trickiest part of painting tiles instead of pixeling them is making the tiles seamless.  There are a few ways to do this but the easiest is to get a program that supports wrap around edges.  Krita does it, Painter does it, but I don't know how to get any other non-pixel program to do it.  If you look up tutorials for making seamless textures you'll find a lot of other ways to do it.  I happen to know that Celianna uses the offset method where you paint the middle of the tile, move the pieces around so that the middles are the edges and then paint the middle again. (I'm oversimplifying but there are loads of tutorials out there).

As for where to start, I think making things that match an existing style is the way to go.  That way if you only get a few tiles made before getting overwhelmed by it you'll at least have tiles that can be used.  If you're absolutely certain you can handle all the work that goes into a full set then I'd say start with concept art or a mock up.  Get a sense of what you really want the tiles to look like before locking yourself into creating in such a structured style.