Draaklanden

[ravells]

Thanks guys, really thanks.

This isn't false modesty, but I don't rate my mountains much at all. The only thought that went into them was the general light direction, lights, mids and darks. To me they look a bit like slightly melted ice-cream cones, because I use curvy 'flicks' to draw the lights and darks, which is easy because it follows the natural hand movement. Little or no thought goes into it. When I can make mountains like this guy (this was a very early map posted on the guild...I think about 8? years ago which I've kept in my inspiration folder and lusted after ever since I saw it), then I think I will have made it. Every shadow has a reason for being there, the mountain forms are crisp and they give the appearance of rising up off the paper...and it's in greyscale so there's no colour to hide behind. It's a thing of absolute beauty. I really want to make mountains like these. I'm training myself, but it's damn hard because you actually have to understand the underlying structure to know where the highlights and shadows go. I think it's going to take a few months (years? ever?) of practice before I can do this, but I hope I'll get there.