caterpillar ridges feedback please!

[vorropohaiah]

Hi there, I'm back after a long absence, asking for feedback. Those who remember me might know I was looking for brushes for representing mountains in what we affectionately call marching ants or caterpillar style over here, though I was never happy with what I saw (though J Edward, in this thread made a damn good set of brishes or them!). I finally tried doing them by hand (ie each stroke one-by-one) and thought I'd share the results to see what you all think

i still want to do a bit of subtle highlighting/shading, though i think the effect is quite good. Please let me know what you think, thanks

12036499_525557314267898_6334507070975623753_n.jpg

[Eilathen]

Hey Vorro, good to have you back! I really hope we will see more of you and your work again in the coming months?!

As to the question at hand: I was never a big fan of the caterpillar mountains, so i don't think i can really be of help here. I still give it a try () : As far as the look goes, i think those caterpillars look at least as good as those i have seen so far.
I do hope though that your Elyden map will continue to use your awesome "real" mountains

[vorropohaiah]

thanks, depends on the map, to be honest. sine the world has evolved into an industrialised world, those artistic maps don't really fit in, so ill probably be going for more of the marching caterpillar style, though if i'm making an 'antique' map, so to speak, ill certainly make some new custom mountains

[Pixie]

The caterpillars look nice.. actually, they look great! They do fit the style perfectly.

But... it seemed to me that something wasn't right and I stared at your map for a while. And here's what I think it is: the way you are using them and the scale of the map don't match, stacked rows would be much more common on a map covering smaller areas. Caterpillar rows represent a sudden change in altitude (a slope) and they don't necessarily match lines connecting points of equal altitude. Your handwork (which I assume was enormous!) seems a lot like contour lines, but because it is done with this style it hints weird staircase shaped landforms to the reader (that's the best I can explain it...)

I would limit the number of lines stacking, either keep the inner ones in the case of a ridge, or the outer ones in case of a plateau.

[vorropohaiah]

Thanks for the feedback! It didnt take that long to be honest (it took longer establishing the style i was after and getting used to the actions than drawing them).

How would you imagine a map on this scale to show mountains/contours? And for an idea of the scale the extent of land W - E in that part of the map is around 1400 miles

[Pixie]

How would you imagine a map on this scale to show mountains/contours?

The way you are writing your question shows you might still be mixing the two ways of reporting orography. "Caterpillars" do not follow contour lines, they show slope..

The Iberian Peninsula is 1000 km wide (roughly half the size of your map), which makes it a good area for comparisons.
Have a look at this map and then this map... Do you see that "mountains" as marked with the caterpillars don't match "highlands" as colored in modern relief... I hope I helped.
Also, the first map has a great solution for the large/steep slopes, which is to use a double line of "caterpillar marks".

[vorropohaiah]

cool, that 1st map is similar to what I was aiming for to be honest.... though its a bit 'boring'. so to speak. maybe i should look for another style, that i can easily replicate. thanks for the feedback, much appreciated

[J.Edward]

Here's a newer example someone did for the Dinotopia map.
I was trying to find some other maps I'm sure I have as examples but wasn't able to find them.
Antique+Map.vsm.jpg Lettering+Detail.lorez.jpg
I can not recall where I saved them from or I would have just linked to them.

[Diamond]

Honestly, Vorro, with the amount of text you cram into your maps (which IMO makes them awesome), the caterpillars on that first Spain map Pixie posted would look great.

[vorropohaiah]

Here's a newer example someone did for the Dinotopia map.
I was trying to find some other maps I'm sure I have as examples but wasn't able to find them.
Antique+Map.vsm.jpg Lettering+Detail.lorez.jpg
I can not recall where I saved them from or I would have just linked to them.

Actually that's one of the maps I had for reference. I'd have to try them out, but I dont know how to differentiate between large and small mountains this way (make the stroke longer?)

Honestly, Vorro, with the amount of text you cram into your maps (which IMO makes them awesome), the caterpillars on that first Spain map Pixie posted would look great.

haha! actully this map probably wont have that much more labels, though the inset i posted is of a desert region so is sparser than most other areas.