I’ve been creating elements for this autumn scene I’m doing. Here’s an element that’s pretty much finished, it’s a tree I decided to do with some extrusion modeling and a particle system for the leaves (which were ‘painted’ on);
It’s only for the background, what do you think?
Also I’ll post up more things of the project soon (like the landscape and the windmill)
Nice tree.
Why thankyou 
I just wish the colour variation would show up properly 
I think that’s my favorite tree I’ve ever seen in Blender. Cool. The foliage is so great. I’d like to know how you have done that exactly. Tut?
Yes, this is one of the cooler trees I’ve seen too, really nice. I also would like to know how you did it if you have the time. Autumn is such an excellent theme, it would be nice if we could see the whole scene sometime. Is the lighting AO?
Thanks alot I just modeled the trunk with a cylinder which I extruded out from the sides for the base, and I pretty much extruded up from there and off into the other branches, I also used a fractal subdivide to give the surface some nice variation. Then I setup a particle system to paint on the leaves individually. For optimization alot of branch pieces are separate. And as to how I did the particle system setup I pretty much just took notes from this tutorial I discovered a while back (link) with the use of a group of alpha leaves I made on a separate layer. The materials on the trunk are procedural, I just used a clouds texture and messed around with it until I got what I wanted.
Also there is some ambient occlusion (with a sun light and an area light), I find about 7 samples is usually good for soft shadows
EDIT: Windmill w.i.p;
Cool, thanks for the explanation and the link, very helpful. The windmill is looking good.
Glad I can help, and thanks 
Also I’ve updated the image above with a little bit more modeling with the wood panels (just need to add a broken look to them)
