[Award Winner] Painting maps in Painter

[Sirith]

STEP 4: Painting

Now that the base is done, now it's time to refine it. Using my sketch (which I still have on a layer for reference underneath it all, remember that I didn't ink my rivers ) I start to add some more colours to the lands, to deepen the area around the mountains and lighten the plains and coastal areas.
I like to keep my palette simple, by the way. I might add in a colour to spice it up, but I'm not comfortable with colour theory (how one colour behaves next to another, for example) enough to apply all kinds of subtle colours.

Now it's finally time to paint the mountains, which is often my favourite part of doing maps =).
I have a progress shot uploaded, starting from the left:
- put in the base colour for the mountains, a dark grey in my case
- determine where the light comes from, paint that side of the mountain a slightly lighter grey
- paint the area around the mountains darkgreen (I like to imagine valleys and the like)
- blend it a bit
- highlight the mountains with an even lighter grey, then go around that with a little darker grey (my highlights are usually really big, so I have to contain a little)
- blend it a bit again
After that I refined the mountains a bit more, and painted over some of the green parts around the mountains (I thought it was a bit too much).
You don't have to blend to the point where there are no hard transitions between colours, a little roughness often looks better than perfectly smooth areas.

So yes, that's the basis of how I paint these maps really: pick some colours (lighter and darker), paint, blend, repeat. It takes time, but because it's so easy, it's also quite relaxing (to me anyway )

Next time, I'll refine it more, add the details (lava, towns, rivers, etc)

[ravells]

Hi Sirith, what do you mean when you say 'blend it a bit'? Do you mean using a smudge or similar or using a blend layer? Not sure I follow.

Thanks

Ravs

[RobA]

Hi Sirith, what do you mean when you say 'blend it a bit'? Do you mean using a smudge or similar or using a blend layer? Not sure I follow.

Thats the same question I had! What would the equivalent to this mysterious painter blending be in other programs?

-Rob A>

[Yandor]

to be honest this has been a style that has always escaped my "understanding" I think its just due to the fact that I don't have the patience like most actual painters to blend in the colors (assuming thats how you did it, have the 2 colors and keep going back and forth with a low opacity(PS) or a low pen pressure, until the colors blend instead of smudge blurring it, or using layers where one has the base and a slight increase of color on another layer...) These are just 3 techinques I've actually seen used not only in maps, but in a lot of paintings, especially digital art... I could be wrong but I hope thats what you mean by blend

[Sirith]

Woops, kind of assumed it would be clear

What I mean by blending, is taking a blender-brush in Painter, or another smudge tool, and lightly going over the edges of the colours so that edge fades and a somewhat smooth transition is made.

In Painter this specific tool mostly fades the edge between two colours. In PSP or Photoshop the smudge tool really pulls the colours when you use it (or at least that's been my experience), so you have to work a bit harder to get a smoother transition.
I think at least Photoshop gives the option to use a brush kind of like a smudge tool. Perhaps it's what Yandor mentioned. My experience with the program is quite limited, so I wouldn't know for sure, sorry :/

[Badger]

I was just messing around trying to get my mountain skills down and used your tutorial to create some... I was just pleased I actually completed something (well.. the mountain part anyway) ... if you knew me better, you would know this was quite a feat in and of itself. Anyway... thought I'd show ya'll my mountains

It isn't anywhere near the level Sirith is at, but I was happy with it for a first time... thanx Sirith

Del

[nijineko]

i enjoyed your tutorial very much. you have provided some very useful tips. thought i'd show a zoomed out version of a top-down map i've been working on. just to clarify, this map was also done in painter using a tablet and pen. as you can see, it's still very much in progress. to give you an idea of scale, this is a major portion of a continent. the small color swatches you see up in the corner are on a separate layer... that's my color palate. i mixed the colors there till i got them pretty much where i wanted them, and then i keep them there so that i can eyedropper them and have a consistent color scheme for this continent.