I posted this in skype but I'll post it here too.
If you look at
>>17370807, you'll see it only uses the detailing in spots in order to supplement the basic linework and structure of the entire mass of leaves.
Compared to the new tree tiles we have, which have a lot of hard detail all over the place. Here's something from a guide I found online for making tree tiles.
If you look, he starts out with just the linework, which has no hard details. Look at the second to last picture on here. If he were to make the linework not pure black, that by itself would suffice as a "finished" tree, more or less. The shadows and details he adds after that point are there to enhance the existing structure.
You don't want all the detailing to be nessicariy on the tree tile for it to look nice, you want to be able to take that detail off and still have a identifiable structure underneath it. It should be there to enhance the structure, the detail itself shouldn't be the structure.
