Coloring attempt of town map

[sliceofmeat1]

Hey guys,

A while back I decided to practice my drawing skills by making a hand drawn map of a town. It took some time and some helpful advice from you, but in the end I was satisfied with the result. Now, a few months later, I want to expand upon that map by adding colors in GIMP. I tried using some of the default textures from GIMP and this is how it turned out. I'm not really happy with the grass and the water and I would love some pointers on how to improve them!

Cheers,
Sliceofmeat1

[Eri]

The quickest I can think is find a good paper texture (google) and put it in the top layer in overlay mode. You can duplicate it as well to get a greater change. Reduce opacity on the top layer till your happy. I like having one in overlay, a top in burn or multiply and lower that opacity a fair bit.

Start with those two things and work from there.

Also to ask, are you colours in different layers (grass, buildings, water)? Helps to have them different that way changing and adding layer effects is a lot easier.

Oh and with the water, maybe a darker blue in a top layer going down the centre, smudge it a whole, blur and work from there with opacity. Might help give it some depth.

Lastly, for adding paint dynamics for random colour when blocking grass.. Gives it some nice colour variations.

And lastly... Looks like a lovely little village!

[Greg]

Eri's got some really good pointers there! The only thing I can think to add is some more shadows. Choose a light direction (say top left or something), then go to a new layer with a low opacity brush and add in some shadows from the trees, and buildings on the ground. Play around a bit, trying building them up, try different layer styles (not sure what they're called in GIMP). I have found shading to be one of the things that can really bring a piece to life!

[Eri]

For me I love grain merge for shadows .. Pick a really dark blue. Otherwise hard or soft light can work nice too with the right opacity on it

[sliceofmeat1]

The quickest I can think is find a good paper texture (google) and put it in the top layer in overlay mode. You can duplicate it as well to get a greater change. Reduce opacity on the top layer till your happy. I like having one in overlay, a top in burn or multiply and lower that opacity a fair bit.

Start with those two things and work from there.

Also to ask, are you colours in different layers (grass, buildings, water)? Helps to have them different that way changing and adding layer effects is a lot easier.

Oh and with the water, maybe a darker blue in a top layer going down the centre, smudge it a whole, blur and work from there with opacity. Might help give it some depth.

Lastly, for adding paint dynamics for random colour when blocking grass.. Gives it some nice colour variations.

And lastly... Looks like a lovely little village!

Thank you so much for the helpful tips! I decided to try them out and they look really great. I think it makes the map look a lot more realistic!