Mountains for a black & white map ("Spiralia")

[silverhead]

Hi,

I'm new here. I've not posted my introduction, but will do soon. Meanwhile, I wanted to ask for a little help with a map that I'm using to practice a lot of things I learnt here. I have only little experience with "graphic affairs", so please bear with me if I say something stupid :-)

This is the map of "Spiralia" (called like that because it vaguely resembles a spiral). To make this map I followed Ascension's "Antique-style maps in Photoshop" tutorial. I've learnt a lot of things, even if I'm using Gimp and not PS; thanks Ascension for that. My map is far, far away from what should have been achieved following the tutorial, but I'm still working on it. Somehow I strayed from Ascension's guidance, and though I like the direction the map is taking, I'm a bit lost.

The original map is 2500x2500, but what I'm posting here is a smaller version (1280x1024, and jpg instead of png). I hope I'm following the proper procedure to present it here (attaching it). If not, please tell me what I should do the next time.

My main concern is the mountains. I don't like too much how they look in Ascension's work (with all due respect), but I don't know how else I could draw them. I like the black & white look of the map, and I would like to draw the mountains in a way that fit. Do you know of any examples that I could follow?

The land was generated using "planet", a tiny program that you can get from here. Everything else was done with Gimp.

Thanks in advance!

[ravells]

All I can suggest is that you look at the cartographers' choice section and find some mountain styles you like, and then we'll be able to tell you how to make them. It's really hard to try and guess what you're after.

That's a really nice start, btw and welcome to the guild.

[Ramah]

That landmass looks really good. Thanks for the link, I've downloaded that planet app and will have a play with it once I've finished the map I am working on.

As for the mountains, maybe take a look at the style used in Bohunk's latest map? It seems to have split opinions on them but I think they look really good.

[Ascension]

Looks pretty good to me. I don't like the mountains in that tutorial either, I was just going by what the old timers did 400 years ago. Are you looking for something more hand-drawn or more like a satellite image? I would probably go for the hand-drawn look, a good example of this is here:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4839

[silverhead]

Looks pretty good to me. I don't like the mountains in that tutorial either, I was just going by what the old timers did 400 years ago. Are you looking for something more hand-drawn or more like a satellite image? I would probably go for the hand-drawn look, a good example of this is here:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4839

Oh. My. God. I've seen both that map and the one by Bohum ("Ystraad") that ravells suggested, and they're impressive. Definitely the direction that I'd like to take (though I guess it's not only intention what it takes to make such maps).

Thanks for the hint. I'll look for any tutorials related to that technique first and then I'll try to copy what I can from Bohum's maps.