First update and first screenshots. 
As expected the RTP tilesets were not enough versatile to my taste for making the maps as I wanted.

I am thus hugely indebted to whtdragon for the town Christmas decorations, and especially to Avery for the Ice cave tiles, which I used for the Ice Palace where a part of the story will take place.
Edit: the village winter tiles are from whtdragon, but the decorations are from pandamaru whom I also deeply thank. The roofs are also from Avery.

I am also pixelating the characters a bit with a plugin, to mitigate the smooth MZ effect which makes the sprite a bit too "plastic-y". Finally, the characters are going to step this time, both PC and NPCs: it just feels more natural this way.