Elvrae

[dmjohn235]

Alright guys, thanks for the input! I've spent quite a bit of time working with it today. I'm not quite done with the mountains yet, but I thought I'd see what you guys thought of them so far. Also, what do you think of the border?
Elvrae WIP #2.png

[Raptori]

I think they look good, but could do with some more offshoots like the one 1/3 of the way from the bottom. At the moment it's just one ridge - if that's all you want then that's cool, but I just think it'd look better with some more

[Caenwyr]

This is coming along nicely! The shaded mountains look good to me, but be careful not to draw the shading past the outer lines.

The shading should be darkest close to the top of the mountain and the shadow-light rim, and fade away to nothing before it actually touches the flatlands. It takes a lot of time to get it right, but working on the details will make the difference between "yeah this is kinda shaded, I guess" and "good heavens, those mountains seem to be poking out of the screen! Argh, it's like teeth, waiting to shred me to bits! Run away!!"

Details. It's aaaaall about the details

[dmjohn235]

Oddly enough, it seems the more free time people think I have, the less I actually do.

Anyway, I've been working on the mountains, mainly shading, though I've also added a few more lines off the mountains as well (I think that's what you were meaning by "offshoots," Raptori.). What do you guys think?
Elvrae Map v5 bw.png
I need all the critique/ideas I can get, so please post whatever comes to mind! It really does help.

[fabio p]

I think you did a good job on the mountains, congrats.
Now maybe you could add a title and a legend, so that it becomes clear e.g. if the oval dots are minor cities and the dots with the star major cities or capitals.

[jkat718]

I think that the mountain "ridge" looks okay, but could use some more variation. If the ridge curved more, I think this would be okay, but a mountain range this straight looks to monotone as it exists. Maybe add a larger (visual, not actual) gap where the road crosses the ridge, just to break it up? Other than that, congratulations on how your other geographical features interact with the mountains. Very realistic!

[dmjohn235]

Okay, I've tried to clean up the shading on the mountains a bit (Does it look better?) and widened the pass just a little (I just scooted the top part up a few pixels; I'm afraid of widening it too much).
I've also added a key a la fabio's suggestion. Something about it seems a little off to me though, but I can't put my finger on what it is. Any ideas?
Elvrae Map v5 bw.png

Just a side note, I've noticed if I spend too long working on a post, the site logs me out for some reason. I get that it's probably for security, but honestly getting logged off every five minutes is quite frustrating. Would anyone happen to know how I could up the time limit or something?

[gtwucla]

I think both mountains look good, too. That example you gave from fantasticmaps.com, I noticed that that little range slightly juts upwards at each point. That certainly gives it the feel of having higher elevation. The impression I get from your mountains is that they are not epically tall. Is that what you were going for?