[Award Winner] Tutorial & Guide for Hand Drawn Maps (Pen & Ink w/ Photoshop)

[Badger]

Part 2.
Coniferous and Jungle forest.
Wasn't really happy about this ... episode I guess you would call it. Both sets of jungle aren't my strongest suite's.

Here I show the lighter shading of the simple drawing we did before.


Here's a note on mixing your conifer and deciduous (which I spelled wrong, unfortunately photoshop doesn't have a word check )
Start with your conifer trees first, just draw your triangular tops, and scatter them throughout the area you plan to forest. Then go in and outline with your other forest and fill it in. It should look a bit more natural this way.


Unless anyone want's specific terrains... I believe we'll go for rivers and coastlines next.

I never really use the conifer type of tree in my maps, mainly because I'm not too great with them. But I tried my best, I think the thing with them is not shading them too much, and most mountain pines have long trunks before any of their branches start. Keep them roughly triangular and flatten out the bottoms... conifers lowest branches often branch straight out, well, actually most of their branches do.


Drawing pines and cedars from a top-down standpoint isn't something I would suggest unless you develop a technique for showing them that is simpler and still conveys the idea that you are looking at coniferous trees. I've done up a couple of the kinds I draw, as well as one where you might show lonely pines on hills...
To do the top-down pine in the middle of the picture, you first start wout with radial lines from a center point. 5 or 6 should do. Ink all one side of the branches first, turning the paper as necessary, and then go back and do the otherside, tapering the 'needles' outward as you end the branch. If it looks a little like Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree, go in and a few more branches. Don't start these from the middle, but from where the lines stop from the surrounding branches. Inking from the same spot will tear your paper and/or create something akin to a black hole rather than a tree.


With jungles you basically want some jagged looking leaves. Below I give several varieties of what you can try with jungle trees. Start with the outline and then just randomly fill in some triangles... I usually stick to one central triangle then put one on each side at an angle... repeating the pattern as necessary. Same for the top-down jungles as well. Just experiment and see what looks good.