WIP - Freehand mountains

[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.

[Chick]

I would still get rid of those 4 lonely mountains in the upper left corner.

OK, you talked me into it. They didn't have any particular purpose, just filling space, and the forests can do that job just as well.

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.

Most of that is the drop shadow, and the rest is the tree trunks, neither of which I really liked. On the other hand, eliminating them left too little contrast between the brown parchment background and the trees at the edges, so I had to seriously darken the forests to be able to see the edges clearly. Do you like this better?

Freehand Forests 02.jpg

[Ascension]

The linear mountains kinda need a linear forest - black lines. And I liked the trunks, gives character, but not too heavy on the shadow because the trunks will lend themselves to a shading effect. The map doesn't have to be accurate to within an inch, this is representational... just keep your styles consistent.

[Deadshade]

Personnally I like the second forest better.
At this scale you wouldn't see the trunks anyway.

As for the contrast, a wild forest doesn't have one - it blends gradually in the plain (e.g the trees disappear gradually and not brutally on spot).
But there is indeed a consistence question - because your style is more symbolical than realistic, you can afford symbolical forests (like tree brushes).

You could perhaps play with colors so that the forest slowly blends in the yellow of the background (like a circular gradient in Gimp). Once you get colors that you like, you can always add some more symbolical highlighting like small circles here and there. Unfortunately as my style is much more realistic than symbolical I won't be big help there.

[Chick]

I started this map as a way to practice a new style, still just trying to learn how to do a lot of variations of fantasy world maps. The map was originally inspired by Max's Western Lands map.

It turned into a major lesson on mountain-making, shape, placement, and coloring, and a bit on forest-making, and I want to acknowledge all the people who contributed their ideas and critiques.

To that end, some of the place names in the map reflect the people who helped me with this. A minor apology to those where I modified the name slightly to make more sense on the map itself, but I think you'll recognize yourself when you see it.

This was a lot of fun and a great learning experience, one that I cannot imagine getting anywhere other than the Guild. A great community of people!

Cheers,
Cornelia

Freehand Style Practice Map.jpg

[xpian]

Very cute, thank you. And good work. Swift progress.

[Deadshade]

Hehe a very good map and a nice initiative
What is the font you used ?

[Chick]

What is the font you used ?

http://www.dafont.com/freebooter-script.font

[hermes418]

yeah a very nice sketch