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Yes, and gradually shade it darker towards the peaks, just make sure all you're lines are the same colour, the skinnier black lines are different then the original bluish ones.
Did you do this with a mouse?!
Thanks Pixie, that has cleared up some confusion - so the ppi will not let me have skinnier brushes.
It seems my brushes and pen nib '1' is anywhere between 2 x 2 and 3 x 3 pixels wide so I think the correct thing to do is go large and then scale it down. Sort of like drawing with a marker pen / sharpie and then reducing it down so it looks like a filigree.
kasey, this type of shading?
section.png
Yes, and gradually shade it darker towards the peaks, just make sure all you're lines are the same colour, the skinnier black lines are different then the original bluish ones.
Did you do this with a mouse?!
Ah! I think the two different line widths were my idea - major and minor ridges! Sorry Straf - my bad!
Well nice hill shading
That had me flummoxed for a while but I now know where I've gone wrong.
There are so many things to remember to do when working with layers - like switching between them and the tools. The blend mode [jargon
And yes kasey I'm doing this with a mouse.
Well I'm around halfway through first pass of shading at the top of the map but I think I'll take a bit of a break. Everytime I close my eyes I see line drawn mountains waiting to be shaded! Is this normal? Do you start seeing different mapping elements in other things?
For example I have a potted basil plant on the windowsill and during a very brief appearance by the sun I saw the pattern of the leaves and the veins in the leaves. The way some of the leaves curved suggested to me it wouldn't be an altogether bad template for streams draining into a main river as it cuts its way towards the sea.
Hey Straf
I repped you earlier for the sheer hard work and progress you've been making, but that's no excuse to go and over do it! Take a break? Yes. Try to force the map to go faster than you feel comfortable with going? No - absolutely not!
The pattern of veins in a leaf, and the patterns made by tree branches and roots are loosely termed 'dendritic', which is also applied to the pattern formed by natural river drainage. so yes - you would be right about it being a suitable starting pattern. Note, however, the word 'starting', since nice smooth and evenly sloping plains over which a perfect dendritic pattern may form are really quite rare. Even if you start with that kind of uniform landmass to erode with your nice perfectly dendritic river, there will be differences in geology - harder and softer bands of rock, or porous ones where the river soaks away into underground caves down swallow holes.
But if you're feeling tired and can't stop thinking of map things - I'd best leave your poor brain alone now so you can get some sleep!
I find it quite calming and relaxing. There's something fundamentally satisfying about applying little touches of shade here and there then zooming out to see what it looks like.
Here's a small section where I've started to experiment with some highlights too. What do you think?
detail2.png
Well, I'm definitely impressed. You have obviously paid close attention to all the helpful advice that Kacey was giving you earlier
It might be worth mentioning here that although I don't own or use PS/GIMP I've been watching the processes used by those who do for just about long enough to know that normal practice seems to be to do the 'inking' first, then the shading, then the colour.
Obviously there's not a rule about it having to be that way, but I'm sure there must be a reason why most PS/GIMP maps are done like that. How about finishing a bit more of the line work on the rest of the map before you get too carried away with the mountain shading - if you aren't nearly sliding off your seat with exhaustion that is
Simple reason - I don't want to spend a whole load of time doing something that isn't going to work well, so I'll do a sample, get opinions and then go ahead with the rest of it. I do want to get my mountains and hills sorted before the rivers go in though. I'm not altogether happy with my uplands so I think a lot of this is still subject to change. I'll just blame those pesky tectonics again. They're always moving things around when I'm asleep
To be honest with you Mouse I'm having a lot of fun and learning a lot. I'm not trying to produce a commercial product, just something I can reference when I am writing (like the Impeira map) but once I peeled back the first layers and saw what these packages are capable of in the right hands I decided to try and see what I could do. I could have just sketched out a map on a sheet of paper, which I did at first, but I'm crap at drawing and things got too cluttered too quickly so I tried the digital approach where I could easily delete parts without having to start all over again. People here are great with the advice, willing to help out. The quality of some of the works here is outstanding and I don't even aspire to that because these are proper artisans. But it's nice to find a place where I can see them at work and also have a pop myself for my own satisfaction. I'm learning to use new tools and seeing things in a different way, discovering the boundaries in belief suspensions, all manner of things.
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