There was a thread recently (in the last month or 6 weeks?) that had some hints on making hand-drawn mountains like this look more 'rooted'. The gist was to *not* saw off your symbols flatbottomed, but include some ridgelines stretching toward the viewer, meaning they'll extend below the left and/or right edges. Does that make sense?

The ragged edge could be sharper, somehow. The way you have the shadow works if it's being cast on a layer of clouds, but not on a table. Or on a sheep - that's it; are you saying the world rides on the back of a giant sheep? That's genius! The parchment texture isn't working for me - looks a bit more like veins on a slab of marble. Which would be a very interesting substrate for a map, but again, the ragged edge would kinda clash. On the other hand that would make the compass rose work better - kind of 'shiny' it is...

Go ahead and try some rivers 'n vegetation 'n human-features 'n labels 'n stuff.


Uhhh, you do realize that ostriching one's head constitutes waving another part of one's anatomy high, right? :-) Which would be a far more tempting "kick me" target, IF we of the Guild rolled that way. But no, we are a classy bunch, never taking cheap shots, always trying to be supportive. I'm with the others - fine start, just keep going. Tackle some of the Gimp tutorials - even if they don't lead to styles exactly like you want, the techniques they show you are multipurpose.

<goes off mumbling to self: the world is a slab of marble on a universe-sheep, why didn't I think of that??? >