Making Hand-drawn Style Rivers in GIMP

[Cirias]

Hi everyone,

River tutorials for Tolkien-style/hand-drawn maps seem to be a rarity around these parts (and the internet in general). A lot of the tutorials cover the more realistic styles where you cut the rivers out of the terrain, but what if your river is just a simple black line? How do you make it look nice? How do you give it natural curves and bends?

Hopefully, you'll agree that an answer lies within...

Making Hand-drawn Style Rivers in GIMP.pdf

Please let me know your thoughts and, most of all, please share the effects you manage to achieve!

~ Cirias

[Raptori]

I'm fairly certain this technique would transfer well to Photoshop as well. Very nice tutorial.

[Cirias]

I'm fairly certain this technique would transfer well to Photoshop as well. Very nice tutorial.

Most likely, I know I've adapted PS tutorials on here before so that I could use them in GIMP. I would put up a PS version too, but I don't use Photoshop myself.

[arsheesh]

Interesting method. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Gamerprinter]

I recently did a map with black line rivers, of course I just draw them with a mouse, but since I use a vector application instead of an image editor (like GIMP, PS), I don't need to use an Eraser to taper the source of the river - most vector apps allow for shaped lines, that is I draw a line of a specific point size and the taper appears automatically, as the line diminishes in width over the length. Your technique certainly accomplishes the same thing, but with far more steps to accomplish the same thing in vector. Good tutorial, though.