Fenlon ridges in photoshop or gimp?

[evilref]

I was going to use CC3 for this map, as I have the software and the annual with the style pack, but it gets very repetitive and 'samey', particularly for the mountains. So I'm thinking of biting the bullet and using photoshop and/or gimp instead.

Pete Fenlon's maps for Merp were a huge inspiration for my love of maps in general and I wanted to recreate the style in a hand-drawn feeling map for my One Ring game. Obviously mountains are going to take forever, as there's no handy brush for his interlinked ridge-line mountains, but the general terrain contour and ridges he depicts are all over his eriador map in particular.

Here's an example:


This map here uses the same style:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...uann-final.jpg

Obviously I could hand do it all with a 2-3 point brush, but that's going to take a long, long time. Any suggestion on an easier way, particularly to get the tapering and angling?

[BraveSirKevin]

In photoshop, it's a matter of using a wedge-shaped brush with the appropriate settings. You'd want a fair bit of spacing, around 200 - 300%. You'd also want to set Angle Control to "Direction" and the Size control to "Pen Pressure". If you're using a Wacom tablet you should find it easy enough to draw them in freeform with this brush after a little practice, but the best way to get them in neatly is to draw a vector path with the Pen Tool and then right-click on the path in the Paths panel and select "Stroke path". That will stroke along the path with your brush and give you some neat results. See this thread for advice on getting it to look nice.

[Freodin]

I can't think of a really quick and easy way to do exactly this style.

Most of the existing methods to do this hachure type montain shading deliver only approximatly good looking results and have to be worked over by hand. But that Fenlon style uses also a kind of perspective... thus changing the length of the lines you have to draw. You cannot get that with the usual methods, like the one in the linked thread.

I am trying at the moment to work out a method drawing these lines not from one single curve, but between two curves. It still needs a lot of work, but it might yield fitting results. It might be to complicated to have a real advantage over drawing it by hand though.

[evilref]

In photoshop, it's a matter of using a wedge-shaped brush with the appropriate settings. You'd want a fair bit of spacing, around 200 - 300%. You'd also want to set Angle Control to "Direction" and the Size control to "Pen Pressure". If you're using a Wacom tablet you should find it easy enough to draw them in freeform with this brush after a little practice, but the best way to get them in neatly is to draw a vector path with the Pen Tool and then right-click on the path in the Paths panel and select "Stroke path". That will stroke along the path with your brush and give you some neat results. See this thread for advice on getting it to look nice.

Between the above and a caterpillar brush I found on here, that's working great. cheers!

[Wired]

Maybe this here is what you're looking for?