I'm creating a cartoon tileset for I dunno out of boredom I guess. Anyways, great way to start spriting. I'm going to basically recreate the grassland tileset in a cartoony crappy shaded tileset. The shading isn't great but the result looks fabulous.
Tileset
(http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv143/GameGuysProjects/cartoon_tileset-1.png)
Water Grass Autotile
(http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv143/GameGuysProjects/tiles.png)
Water Dirt Autotile
(http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv143/GameGuysProjects/dirt_water.png)
Example
(http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv143/GameGuysProjects/example-2.png)
Do note that the autotile has a grass tile in the tileset instead of the water tile. Deal with it.
It looks nice, but you need mario style characters for that tileset style. Other than that, very nice, I shall be watching this.
I'm looking forward to seeing it once you have some trees and stuff done.
I love the shading against the water. I guess this can be considered null since it's cartoony, but should there be some sort of cliff against the grass to the water to show a sense of height? It looks somewhat like puddles or small-dug shallow ditches...I'm not sure, but it's striking me as both strange and nice at the same time. By all means, I'm not suggesting you need to make the change or anything, but I'm throwing the idea out in case it should apply here.
So yeah, the result does look fabulous. :D
Hopefully your trees won't end up what I'm imagining them to be...xD