I would hate to think that I had set you off down a depressing road!!!
Is there no way that you can employ a texture of some kind to help you, so that you don't have to do ALL the drawing by hand.
(That's the CC3 user in me speaking - we use textures all the time, and some of us make them as well)
Having looked at it again I think you could help yourself a lot with that tighter pattern just by adding small splodges of very slightly different greens over the area before you even start to worry about doing a whole load of inking. The photo shows quite a lot of sharp variation in the greens. I expect you could do that with a couple of different brushes... or something?
(This is where my lack of understanding in PS terminology really isn't helping is it!!)
Well, it would give me something to do over the winter months that's for sure!I'm sure there is a way, that's what I was hoping to do with my attempts yesterday. I tried using a texture and a pattern overlay together. I tried them separately as well (didn't post those results). The pattern overlay route was just too "real" looking yet lacked any depth (if that makes sense). Hopefully a more knowledgeable PS user will chime in with some ideas!
More work on the jungle...
Not much of an update for today. Drew in a few more lines in the trees and played around with the texture. So so results, but it did give me some other ideas that I hope to play around with today. I think that I have too many tree outlines as it moves away from the shore and they're too dark. Not enough deep shadows in between them.
Current WIP
Hangman Harbor v2.0 092116.png
Last edited by ajrittler; 09-22-2016 at 09:09 AM.
Well, its an improvement on the last one, but do I detect a sense of "This just isn't working" coming from you?
Here is a suggestion that has more to do with the way a painter would deal with the jungle in your map...
Open a new much smaller file.
Splodge it all over with really dark colours, but NOT black - never-ever use black.
Find a nice irregular fluffy edged brush that is nonetheless roundish, or rounded angular, and start splodging different shades of jungle green around on top of that darkness, being careful not to completely obliterate your beautiful mud pie background, while allowing some of the green tree blobs to overlap.
Just give it a go, and see what you think - see if you could work it into something more satisfactory on your map
EDIT: Be careful to observe that very few of the trees in your original photographs are exactly the same kind of green. Some are yellow-green, some are orange-green... look closely at what they really are, and adjust your palette of greens to suit.
Last edited by Mouse; 09-22-2016 at 11:39 AM.
Actually, I had tried this. I created a custom grunge/rough brush, changed the settings. Gave me some really nice random tree shapes, sizes, colors however no shadow. I never thought of your suggestion - START with the shadow layer first and build the trees up after it. nice!Originally Posted by Mouse
Well, its an improvement on the last one, but do I detect a sense of "This just isn't working" coming from you?
Here is a suggestion that has more to do with the way a painter would deal with the jungle in your map...
Open a new much smaller file.
Splodge it all over with really dark colours, but NOT black - never-ever use black.
Find a nice irregular fluffy edged brush that is nonetheless roundish, or rounded angular, and start splodging different shades of jungle green around on top of that darkness, being careful not to completely obliterate your beautiful mud pie background, while allowing some of the green tree blobs to overlap.
Just give it a go, and see what you think - see if you could work it into something more satisfactory on your map
EDIT: Be careful to observe that very few of the trees in your original photographs are exactly the same kind of green. Some are yellow-green, some are orange-green... look closely at what they really are, and adjust your palette of greens to suit.
That being said - part of the problem is I am waffling on how I really want the trees to look.
I should have suggested it in the first place, but I just didn't think!
Make the shadow layer really dark. That way you won't need to do very much inking with the trees, if at all.
Hope it works for you
Really digging the attention to detail, just spotted you made the water look deeper / shallower by displacing the fish and ship shadows at different rate. Very clever.
The whole lot is coming along nicely, can't wait to see it finished!
Thanks Ish! Yeah, the sharks were fun...that's what I was trying to accomplish by putting them in there!
Update for today...Grunge brush trees and some noise
Once again I ran out of time so I wasn't able to get nearly as much done as I'd hoped. I created a shadow layer for the trees by using a 50% grey and added some mono-noise to it. Then, I took the grunge brush I created a couple days ago and started dropping trees. I have two versions. Still a bit flat, though it does kind of look like a forest. Not sure either one "works" but it's starting to give me more options...and learn a bit in the process!
Draft 1
Hangman Harbor v2.0 Jungle 092216.png
Draft 2
Hangman Harbor v2.0 Jungle 092216 b.png
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