Pesky brushes!
Goodness, there is a lot to learn I don't really have the time for this steep learning curve but I'm finding hard to resist! I still toy with the idea of commissioning a more qualified person to produce a map for me. Will have to wait and see...

Anyway... here are the brushes I sketched out with ink and pen. I'm no great artist but I think they are ok. I plan to rotate, resize, distort and combine the images to produce a series of paint tubes for when I start to fill the map in properly.

Click image for larger version.  Name: Mountains1 reduced.jpg  Views: 443  Size: 978.4 KB  ID: 57078

Click image for larger version.  Name: Trees reduced.jpg  Views: 323  Size: 1,014.9 KB  ID: 57079

And here's how one of the mountains looks as a brush...

Click image for larger version.  Name: Mountain brush.jpg  Views: 370  Size: 158.2 KB  ID: 57080

*Problem*
I guess this is just a resolution problem but I struggled to get the brushes to look decent at the size I wanted them. My pooter is already struggling with the size of the file (I'm using Photoshop 7, which only allows me to use 1.7gb of Ram even though the comp has 8. Sigh... )

My best solution so far is to apply the brushes in a different file with just the land mass at a higher res, then copy the layer over and resize to fit. This produces better results than just using a smaller brush.

I'm also struggling with the transparency of the brush which makes it a pain when overlapping. If you know of any tutorials that might be suitable I'd love to know.

Ok... I'm off to skecth out some towns and cities although I should be writing! I'm never gonna get the book finished at this rate lol

Cya