OK, here is my first attempt at making ridges instead of lonely mountains. I just added on to what I already had, so the shading might be a little strange. Surprisingly, this wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but still not all that great, so all advice is most welcome.
Freehand Mountains 05.jpg
Nice! I don't know much about free-handing mountains myself, but those are looking quite good.
Didn't Max make this awesome diagram of how he makes his mountains a while back?
I did some searching, but I couldn't find the OP
(I have the file somewhere...)
These ridges look very nice. You're on the right way, go on!!
Found it! It's in this thread: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=27500Originally Posted by Corilliant
Nice! I don't know much about free-handing mountains myself, but those are looking quite good.
Didn't Max make this awesome diagram of how he makes his mountains a while back?
I did some searching, but I couldn't find the OP
(I have the file somewhere...)
Almost there chick
What you have in the upper half is almost perfect. Now just generalise the upper side everywhere and avoid single mountains.
As for the hand sketch, I start with the front ridge . Going from left to right and from down up. I "see" the ridge in my head .
Then I add the features going towards the viewer.
Last the ranges behind.
Normally next step would have been shading, snow, large boulders and some details but I wanted only to show that a range starts low and goes higher and higher.
You can give a rugged look with the tablet, it's just about the brush you pick to draw and its settings. Here's a couple of rugged looking mountains I've drawn with tablet :
Mountains.jpgMoutains 2.jpgMountains3.jpg
This is back to the eastern side of my map, where I started this thread. I completely started over from scratch, trying to use all the great advice I've gotten here. This is of course just the shapes -- shading is still a whole new topic of learning -- but I'd love comments before I start trying to do the shading.
It's sure a long ways from where I started a week ago..... and it's actually starting to be fun
Freehand Mountains 06.jpg
I do not think I have the expertise to give you advice, I can only tell you that your progress are huge and very evident!
You make huge progress Chick ! Congrats, this is almost perfect.
I would suggest a finishing touch - connecting valleys and ridges because it is the valleys and ridges which give to a mountain range this rugged fractal look.
I took a liberty to extract the central part of your last picture to show what I mean.
Connections1.jpg
This is how the valleys and ridges run in your picture. The fact that I was able to identify them easily shows that your range was almost perfect.
Connections2.jpg
And this is how it looks when I just attach correctly your ridges and valleys. Of course one would add now details and shading but the range is basically finished.
There are a bit too many lines (some of them not on a right place) but I wanted to show just the connection, not to modify your picture.
Last edited by Deadshade; 12-02-2014 at 11:38 AM.
Thank you, Deadshade, for taking the time to do this! I can certainly see how you have turned it from a lot of individual mountains into a mountain expanse, and I really appreciate all these insights and technique tips!
You said, "too many lines". When I was drawing all the fissure cracks, I kept adding and adding them, having too much fun I think. Even then, it occurred to me that I really didn't know when to stop
Do you think there are too many of those, or not drawn correctly to look reasonably realistic? Any suggestions on how to do them better?
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