The Island Kives - From Hand-drawn to GIMP

[Niall Mackay]

Hi,
so since this is my first bigger project in a longer time and the first one in GIMP (aside from the one following RobAs tutorial), i thought i'd post it here and maybe get some comments, critic and tips. Especially for the mountains, they are driving me nuts at the moment...

So, first step: My old hand drawn map.


Again I followed the tutorial for the sea, grass and dirt layers. Then i jumped to the other mountain tutorial, i think the look better for a map with a smaller scale. But these mountains seem to do what they want...
First try: Looks like someone trodd on the mountains and stamped them into the ground. Not so good. And the rim is nearly as high as the peak...


Unfortunaltely i already deleted the layers from the second and third try. They look a bit like the first one, and were awful.
Fourth try: I downloded that Felimage-Plugin and tried it with that. Turned out a bit better, but i still don't like it. The mountains are too big. And are cut through by the fjords.


Fifth Try: Now i cut out the fjords from the selection before, and took a smaller noise. Worked best so far, i'm quite pleased how it works with the shoreline, but the landside edge is still not very nice to look at...


And a complete map of the island so far:



Now i'm off for a weekend of real-life mountain studies... perhaps that'll help.

Thanks for any comments and tips on my mountain problem...
Have a nice weekend!