WIP - Avearia - Looking for feedback

[kacey]

Here's a closer look at some of the little detail lines I've been adding since my last update.

I'm wondering if I should darken some of those lines so they stand out more, or if I should just use them as a guide for my shading and keep them subtle ???

I'm gonna be copy and pasting my mountains from now on. I have another chain to add detail to still, so there are several to copy from, I hope that will work out because I just don't have the time to do them all by hand, tho I'd like to. I can really only spend time on it in the middle of the night because my days are so busy right now.

WIP close up mts.png

[kacey]

Now see, I really like those mountains! Even just as outlines, they work. Also, I think I forgot to mention that I like what you did with the free-hand coastal rings. Nice.

Thanx Diamond, it took several tries doing them over, and deleting them before I could get the hang of drawing those peaks, these aren't shapes I'm used to drawing. My first attempts a few days ago were laughable, but I think I've progressed since then, or so I hope, because I spent every spare minute not being puked on by a ten month old trying to figure out how to do them.

I'm also quite pleased at how the water lines turned out, as simple as they look they sure did take allot of time.

[kacey]

Update... Almost finished the line work on my second set of mountains.

Avearia WIP second set.png

[Deadshade]

I can't believe you could do those mountains in half an hour, that's amazing, you're very talented.

Sorry it was a joke Yes of course you are right, it took me more than 30 minutes. But I was talking about you, not me - and why wouldn't you do Something like that in 30 minutes ? Or 1 hour

OK, I understand what you want to do - some call it stamping.
Each mountain has a very similar shape (but not identical) and different sizes (from small to big) and you draw them by hand one behind the other starting with the small ones in front then increasing the size and then going again down like if you were "stamping".
Some people even create brushes with different mountain shapes and then literally stamp them.
Once the stamping done you do just some postprocessing (add shadows, enhance some details and eventually color the thing). The key is to use relatively few lines for the "stamps" so that drawing them becomes a routine.

The advantage of this method is that it is very fast and can be standardised. As you will use at maximum a dozen of different shapes (very simple for small mountains at the edges of the range and more elaborated for bigger mountains in the middle) , once you did this kind of mountains 5 or 6 times, it will become an automatism.
Disadvantage is that even if the individual shapes will vary, your mountain ranges will look basically the same on every map.

Perhaps for training the stamping method is good - it's your choice and your map.

[kacey]

I added some more mountain, and ridge outlines. If any one has any feedback, or ideas about the mountain placement I would love to hear them, I'm feeling unsure about the placement, and would really like to know you're thoughts on it before I move forward.

Avearia mountain merge.png

[kacey]

Sorry it was a joke Yes of course you are right, it took me more than 30 minutes. But I was talking about you, not me - and why wouldn't you do Something like that in 30 minutes ? Or 1 hour

OK, I understand what you want to do - some call it stamping.
Each mountain has a very similar shape (but not identical) and different sizes (from small to big) and you draw them by hand one behind the other starting with the small ones in front then increasing the size and then going again down like if you were "stamping".
Some people even create brushes with different mountain shapes and then literally stamp them.
Once the stamping done you do just some postprocessing (add shadows, enhance some details and eventually color the thing). The key is to use relatively few lines for the "stamps" so that drawing them becomes a routine.

The advantage of this method is that it is very fast and can be standardised. As you will use at maximum a dozen of different shapes (very simple for small mountains at the edges of the range and more elaborated for bigger mountains in the middle) , once you did this kind of mountains 5 or 6 times, it will become an automatism.
Disadvantage is that even if the individual shapes will vary, your mountain ranges will look basically the same on every map.

Perhaps for training the stamping method is good - it's your choice and your map.

30 min's or an hour LMAO, it just took me about 5 hours to draw a bunch of upside down V's with squiggly lines inside them, anything as detailed as what you do would surely take me a month.

I thought about making some brushes, but I just don't know how. I drew allot of tiny mountains before I started copying them, but you're right, during the process it did become sort of automated.

[Barek333]

For a first map (and in general actually) the mountains look great and they are uniform throughout the map which is hard to achieve in the beginning especially with bigger maps. Great work so far!

[Deadshade]

I think that you know now enough so that you can go on without farther advice. Just continue and you'll see what it gives. Then do a second map etc.
For the mountains think that often less is more - the ranges look quite OK now (with some hills that make the transition from the edges of the range towards the plains).

Perhaps one last remark.
Without intending it you just did a great river. Take the cliff in the lower right corner, remove the vertical lines, color it in desaturated light blue, add a few tributaries in the same style, connect the lower end to the low right fjord and you have a perfect river even if it doesn't taper much.

[igoroh]

Awesome mountains and I agree with Deadshade on the river. The only thing I didn't notice was that they are fjords and thought are merely rivers (with sort of bad sources). That may be just because I have this picture of fjords that where they happen they're a lot of them and there are a lot of lakes as well (which your map lacks). So maybe doing two or three very small fjords and a few lakes wouldn't hurt, but even without them you're map looks great!

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[kacey]

I think that you know now enough so that you can go on without farther advice. Just continue and you'll see what it gives. Then do a second map etc.
For the mountains think that often less is more - the ranges look quite OK now (with some hills that make the transition from the edges of the range towards the plains).

Perhaps one last remark.
Without intending it you just did a great river. Take the cliff in the lower right corner, remove the vertical lines, color it in desaturated light blue, add a few tributaries in the same style, connect the lower end to the low right fjord and you have a perfect river even if it doesn't taper much.

Thanks Deadshade, I always appreciate you're honest opinions. I'm hoping I see some improvement in the appearance of the mountains when I shade them in. I'm going to be adding hills to transition them like you suggested.

I hadn't even noticed the thing you mentioned about the river, I'll give that some consideration, was thinking of maybe redoing the cliffs anyway.