WIP - Freehand mountains

[Deadshade]

On the contrary - I find that the way you drew the fissures and irregularities was correct and appealing. Change nothing ! And I agree details are fun indeed.
The question is the amount of detail and there is no precise answer on it - it depends on style and taste.
Once you did correctly your valleys, ridges and peaks and connected them, you start shading and adding details.
Shading is easy.
Details are subjective.
Too little and your picture lacks life. Too many and your picture looks cluttered.

The way I do details is asking myself at every detail whether I add something valuable/significant to the overall look or not. Once I feel that the answer is not, I stop.
But this is only my way, others may have other ways. I do not think that it is very important anyway.

[Chick]

OK, I'm ready to show the full map, as far as the mountains and hills. I put ridges in the west and a large mountain expanse in the east, to try out a little of everything. I also drew the hills, mostly copying the old PS brushes I had used, but improvising some as well.

Please ignore the rivers, they are currently placeholders to be done properly later. I'm just interested in opinions and suggestions on the mountains and hills, especially the shading.

Freehand Mountains 07.jpg

I can't believe how fast I am learning this stuff, with all the helpful ideas and suggestions. It now seems like all this was there to see, I just needed someone to point it out, and I really appreciate the time people have spent doing so.

[Korash]

Well, Chick,
I gotta say Congrats on getting the shading Spot On on your first attempt. All your light looks to be from the same direction (East/North East I believe) and not over done. Both of which are not easy concepts when you start with shading. I like that you can see the mountains even on the thumbnail, or at least the ranges just by the shading alone. It helps draw the eyes to the various areas of the map quite nicely, without hitting the viewer over the head with them.

Nicely done, and have some rep for the progress you made in a very short time.

[Bogie]

I agree with Korash!

[Ilanthar]

Very nice! That's indeed an impressive and quick progression (I'm a bit jealous ).

[Deadshade]

Nothing much to add for the mountains.
The valleys are there, the ridges are OK even if the peaks could connect slightly better and the southern part of the eastern range looks a bit too busy to me. But these are really details.
The mountain shading has also the fundamental feature which is that light and shadow are strongest where the slope is steepest. This makes the mountains really stand out.
I can't comment on your hills, I do them always completely differently.

Now just put side by side your first attempt and the last and appreciate the huge progress you did

[Chick]

With how much I learned about drawing mountains, I decided to get really brave and try my hand at freehand forests. I never could quite get the pretty circular look to the edges that I see others do, but at least I made them look like forests, I think. It was all those tiny tree trunks that drove me crazy though.

Critiques and technique suggestions are most welcome.

Freehand Forests 01.jpg

[Azélor]

It's impressive to see the progress you made in a short amount of time

your still using a mouse ?

[Chick]

Thank you for the nice compliment, Azelor.

...your still using a mouse ?

I have a tablet, but I find it's just as easy to use a mouse for anything that doesn't need pressure control. I use a thumbball mouse and I have better control with it than with the tablet pen, mostly because my hand rests stationary on the mouse. With the pen, my hand is less stationary, and thus I get more unwanted jitter.

If you look closely at the rivers here, I used the pen to make the tapering ends of the rivers, although even there, PS fade with the mouse works about as well.

[Deadshade]

I would still get rid of those 4 lonely mountains in the upper left corner.
I am not sure that outlining the forests is good - it looks like if they were levitating with a cast shadow below them. But it is perhaps only me.
Forests at the scale you are using look just like green smudges that blend at edges with the plain.
Like the mountain ranges go up then down, the forest density decreases when you go from center to perimeter. At the edge it disolves in smaller copses and then just treeless plains.