ID:1933780
 
Hey guys I am making a game in which it has a city in it. I am getting better with actual towns, but they were mostly based on stone buildings and rpg based. I want to make a more modern city that is based on something on the lines of Japan. I know that I would probably need alot of buildings and also have streets. What else would I need exactly? And how would I not make it look like a hot mess.
Get reference.

Use reference.

Have a decent set of colors to use, I hear dawnbringers color palette, 16 or 32, is pretty good.

:P
Dawnbringers palette won't work well with a Tokyo theme since it uses a lot of neon lights u'll need to create ur own palette.

Get a few references take ur favorite parts and put it together book... U got ur own style of buildings.
As a game designer, when you're designing huge cities with multiple areas to explore, definitely use references of different areas, especially the high-end and slums. You want slightly different tile sets for different classed areas. Nice, shiny cityscape for main areas and the further off the beated track you get, things get dirtier, look more worn out and it really settles the atmosphere that you're in a less privileged part of the city.
Another fun thing you can always try is finding a suitable image of a building style you want, scaling it down to an appropriate size, making modifications and adjusting it to an icon to be used in your game! I did this for the Pine Trees that are no longer in use in my game (which can be seen in the screenshots).