[Award Winner] Assorted tips and tricks

[torstan]

HowToDrawMountains.jpg

I’ve written up a couple of tutorials before on drawing isometric mountain ranges for fantasy maps – but never more than the pen and ink stage. I’ve had a few requests for how to take this to the next step and colour the mountain ranges.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of the four steps I take in my mountain ranges.

1. Illustrate the lines for the mountain range

First off – we always need some solid line art to underpin our mountain range. Here’s the tutorial on the steps I take when I draw up a new mountain range. Note that here I’m using a mid tone textured background. You can either create your own, or grab this one from here.

2. Block in the basic light and shade on an overlay layer

Here I’m taking light to be coming from the top left – so the right hand side of the mountain range is in shade. I add a new layer, and call it my light and shade layer. I pick a hard round brush, with opacity set to pressure (so when I press hard I get a dark line, but if I press softly I get a very light grey line). I use black as the colour, and I set the blend mode of the layer to Overlay. If you need a refresher – here’s a quick tutorial on blend modes in photoshop and gimp.

I block in the basic shadow with a large round brush. Then I go back, with successively smaller brushes, to build up deeper shadows. Note that there’s shadows on the mountains that face the light too. Also – the deepest shadows are nearest to the crest of the mountain ridge. Don’t be afraid of hard edges here – shadows on mountains have very hard edges (unlike hills). Here’s a good example, but google images is full of great reference images for mountain shade.

3. Add in detailed light and shade on another overlay layer

Our mountains still look a little flat, so I create a second overlay layer. Here I use a smaller brush with the same settings as before. I add more layers of shadow to the crevasses on the far side of the range. I also use a white brush to add highlights – both on the side facing the light, and along the crests in the shade. The sun will catch some peaks, edges and crests on the shaded side. This helps to pick out that detail, and avoids having just a boring black and white divide on either side of the range.

Again, the lightest points will be along the crest of the mountain range.

4. Add colour on a colour layer

Our mountain range is looking good, but it’s very yellow. Create a new layer, and set the blend mode to colour. Pick a very desaturated blue (a bluey-grey). I use my pressure sensitive hard round brush with low opacity again. Build up layers of colour to pull the mountains back from that yellow colour above. I add some more saturated blue into the shadows to make it a little more interesting.

And that’s it! Job done – we now have a fierce looking mountain range that can divide nations, hold dwarven tombs, or be the hunting ground of an infamous dragon.

Full version here: http://www.fantasticmaps.com/2015/01...ountain-range/

And a video of the full process from start to finish:

[Farland]

This thread is awesome. Thanks.

[Naret Maps]

There are no words to thank all the work of this thread. Thanks Torstan

[nzlemming]

Thanks for this awesome body of work. I was thinking "Torstan draws like that guy Jon, whose site I was pillaging last night" when I realised

I had tried to download the PDF from the Big List of Tutorials but it 404ed, so I trawled the thread copying and pasting the Tuts without the comments (I found Arsheesh's PDF in the subsequent pages so there may just be an issue from a site redesign? Dunno) and I'm glad I did because there were a fair number that are not included in that, and I present my result, herewith.

Very unnerving to hear your voice in the videos, though - you sound *exactly* like a guy I used to work with, even down to the timbre and pauses. Uncanny

Thanks again, from NZ.

Edit: I added the wrong PDF . Sorry. Removed it now, but I can't seem to upload the right one, probably due to it being 8.7MB (never mind the width - feel the quality!) I've put it on my Google Drive here and made it shareable. Let me know if you can't get at it.

[Korash]

I got it Thanks

Have some rep for doing that

[torstan]

NZLemming - I pulled that down, compressed the pdf, and attached it to the first post. Thanks! Do you mind taking down the Google drive version? I'd rather not have what's basically a book of mine living in an off-site Google Drive

[torstan]

HowToDrawAHouse.jpg

I’ve been asked a few times recently about how I draw isometric buildings. Here’s the run down.

1. Floorplan

Use some rectangles to get an interesting floor plan. Don’t go crazy, but don’t just do a single rectangle – that leads to dull uniform buildings.

2. Make it isometric

Spin the shape around by 45 degrees (or a random amount if you want less exactly isometric buildings). Then shrink vertically by 57.7%.

3. Create a wireframe

On a new layer, using your base as a starting point, ink in the outline. Begin with the vertical walls – remember holding shift in your program of choice will likely force the line to stay perfectly vertical (it does in photoshop and gimp). Outline some roof lines, and ink along the leading edge of the base (easy to forget). This step is key as it’ll determine whether the shape is believable or not. For diagonal lines, use the diagonals of the base as a reference. You want to follow that angle as closely as possible with your other diagonals or the shape will look wonky.

You can also use an isometric grid layer to guide you – here’s a handy grid you can import as a background layer.

4. Start detailing

Remove the base layer (the filled shape), and create a new layer. On this layer start adding details. Begin with the big pieces – doors and windows. If you have a repeated shape (multiple similar windows), draw it once, then copy and paste that element multiple times. They should be exactly the same, so make them exactly the same. For elements that are inset, make the line weight of the edge further away from you heavier. This make it look like you’re seeing the inset wall on the far side.

When adding features, add a few that break up the silhouette of the building. Here I’ve added some roof windows and some crenellations.

5. Finish detailing

Once you have the structural doors and windows, it’s down to textural detailing. I’ve added stones to the walls, and tiles to the roof. These will also follow diagonals – so they really help to sell the isometric perspective (but remember, you really need to follow the correct diagonal – it takes practice, but it’s worth it). I also added a flag to the tower, for fun, and as a place to add some un-expected colour. And some lines to indicate the surrounding terrain, including a couple of lines leading up to the door.

There you have it, a nice line art building. Zoom out to 1/3 the size, and it’ll look great!

This originally appeared here.

[Abu Lafia]

Thanks torstan, this looks very helpful, having a bunch of city-icons to make! Glad you continue this awesome series of mini-tuts.

[Meriba]

Thanks for sharing a little bit of your isometric wisdom Torstan!

[nzlemming]

Done. Sorry, I've been off doing non-mapping things