Unnamed WIP

[Chris Lewis]

Thanks Chris, I've never felt I was at a level where I could make a tutorial as I'm still following other peoples tutorials myself. The water was kind of an accident at first, and theres no shading or anything involved, coyote max's beautiful texture is doing all the work there. It's actually just a bucket fill of a very light blue colour set to linear burn for the blend mode in PhotoShop with the opacity turned down. You can see what colour I used for the water in the bottom left corner, actually those little dots are the only colours I've used so far. For the shaded part of the mountains I just picked a light colour from the background, and set the blend mode to multiply, and for the highlights I used that same colour set to screen, it's really very simple, just time consuming, and I always use a soft round 7 pixel brush set to pressure for opacity for my shading... And the shading's not done yet btw I still have to do a couple more passes I just want to get my hills in first.

Wow! Thank you for taking your time to explain the way you achieved that look. I'm going to play around with your method and see if I can achieve the same look and feel. Also, for wave lines off the coast, I can't seem to get them to draw in GIMP - when I use the pen tool they aren't visible. I wanted to draw them in on the same layer as the ocean. Is that something I have to add a mask for or should I put them on another layer? Maybe I have the wrong blend mode selected, I don't know. I tried to troubleshoot it but can't figure it out for the life of me.

For the mountains, do you shade on multiple layers?

Thank you again for explaining all this to me. I appreciate it, my friend.

[kacey]

When you say wave lines do you mean lighter lines around the coast? I don't have any on this version yet, but I will, and it's most definitely best to put them on a new layer above the water.

I've used paths to make ocean rings before like in my Ehren map, by selecting the land area, and then grow selection, then click on the new layer, and stroke it, but I prefer to do them by hand with a hard round pressure set to size 2 or three pixel brush, this is my go to brush for most line work.

You'll have to play around with the blend modes, and see what looks good with you're colour scheme. Just make sure you use a different layer for the wave lines because then you can experiment with different blend modes, and opacity...I personally like to use screen for anything light, but overlay, and soft light give good results too, and sometimes depending on the colour underneath or the style you're after just a normal blend mode works too, and you can turn the opacity up or down on you're wave layer and see what looks best.

Another thing you might find handy... If you're doing multiple rings of wave lines around you're coast is to do each ring on a separate layer. I like to have 3 layers of waves with each ring going further into the ocean getting gradually more faded... So do the first ring on one layer, then make a second layer for the next ring, and turn the opacity of that layer down a bit, then make a third layer to do the outer ring, and turn the opacity of that layer down even more, this way it will look like there gradually fading into the ocean.

I hope that helps.

Edit...I almost forgot, right now there's only one layer for shadows, and another layer for highlights. You can overlap you're strokes where you want them to appear a bit darker. Up until now on this map it's one layer of shadows with a few passes and a light hand. My next step for the shading is to make a new layer, probably multiply again tho that could change, and using a darker brown colour to give definition to the peaks.

I'll probably turn the opacity down a bit on those highlights as well, and do another highlight layer above to add more detailed lighting... Sorry I didn't mean to write a book this after noon, I could go on but I'll let you ingest that first.

[Chris Lewis]

When you say wave lines do you mean lighter lines around the coast? I don't have any on this version yet, but I will, and it's most definitely best to put them on a new layer above the water.

I've used paths to make ocean rings before like in my Ehren map, by selecting the land area, and then grow selection, then click on the new layer, and stroke it, but I prefer to do them by hand with a hard round pressure set to size 2 or three pixel brush, this is my go to brush for most line work.

You'll have to play around with the blend modes, and see what looks good with you're colour scheme. Just make sure you use a different layer for the wave lines because then you can experiment with different blend modes, and opacity...I personally like to use screen for anything light, but overlay, and soft light give good results too, and sometimes depending on the colour underneath or the style you're after just a normal blend mode works too, and you can turn the opacity up or down on you're wave layer and see what looks best.

Another thing you might find handy... If you're doing multiple rings of wave lines around you're coast is to do each ring on a separate layer. I like to have 3 layers of waves with each ring going further into the ocean getting gradually more faded... So do the first ring on one layer, then make a second layer for the next ring, and turn the opacity of that layer down a bit, then make a third layer to do the outer ring, and turn the opacity of that layer down even more, this way it will look like there gradually fading into the ocean.

I hope that helps.

Edit...I almost forgot, right now there's only one layer for shadows, and another layer for highlights. You can overlap you're strokes where you want them to appear a bit darker. Up until now on this map it's one layer of shadows with a few passes and a light hand. My next step for the shading is to make a new layer, probably multiply again tho that could change, and using a darker brown colour to give definition to the peaks.

I'll probably turn the opacity down a bit on those highlights as well, and do another highlight layer above to add more detailed lighting... Sorry I didn't mean to write a book this after noon, I could go on but I'll let you ingest that first.

Yes I meant the lighter lines around the coast. Thank you again for taking your time to provide me with some excellent basic design principles I can learn to work into my maps. I appreciate it!

[kacey]

No problem Chris, can't wait to see what you come up with.

[Chris Lewis]

No problem Chris, can't wait to see what you come up with.

It may be a while before I post something digital since I'm having such a learning curve with GIMP I am trying to build on my WIPs with the suggestions kind folks such as yourself have given. It is humbling to receive such detailed advice and instruction from folks like you who put out such magnificent works. Thank you again, kacey