Any advice on mountains?

[CaptainJohnHawk]

Greetings All!

I have been reading several tutorials on this website, that have helped me a lot.
I am starting to get a land map I am really happy with, but I have run into a road block....mountains.

I have searched the tutorial section and the map guides, all though super helpful in general, do not match the style of my map.
I was wondering if anyone could provide some comments or help.
If you would have the time to show me some mountains that might work, I would be very grateful. I will also appreciate a simple push in the right direction.

Please feel free to comment on my style and map layout as well. I am very new to this all, but I take criticism well. I am sure the river police will find something wrong with it!

1szk90.jpg

Cheers!
Capt. JH

[CaptainJohnHawk]

Alright so I decided to just give something a try. I would appreciate any feedback, please.
s4onl1.jpg

[Seleucus I]

Those mountains in the second post look pretty good; I like the way they blend into the surrounding landscape.
As for your rivers, you are correct in that they certainly need work. Rivers basically start in one place, and then stay together as one body of water until they terminate into either an ocean or another river as a tributary. Just before entering the ocean, large rivers may fan out a bit in a delta, but this is the only exception. Portions do not branch off and then rejoin the main body of water downstream. Similarly, they do not break into multiple smaller rivers. You have these problems on both continents, although it seems more pronounced in the SE one than in the "mainland."
One more thing to think about: you should probably break your forests up a little. As is, they are too continuous and seem like blobs of paint. Eat into them some with the erase tool to break them up.

That said, I think you're off to a promising start; this a good first map!

-Seleucus

[Ghostman]

Here's a quick checklist you can use to inspect your rivers for serious problems:
- Any length of river that is flowing to two directions
- Water flowing from the ocean up to land
- Any fork on a river where more than one branch flows away from the junction
- Any fork on a river where none of the branches flow away from the junction
- Any source of a river (endpoints over dry land) where the water is flowing toward it

It can be helpful to draw little arrows along your rivers to indicate the direction the water is flowing.

As for your mountains, they look better than any other part of the map, so I think you've found a good technique!