Tabletia

[Ascension]

I have an old Intuous 2 seven by nine - since it works just fine and I'm not real heavy into using it I don't need anything bigger or newer. I make long lines and anything smaller would cramp me. I could work more zoomed out but I have a shaky hand and it shows so I work at 200% nearly all of the time. Mostly, I just do rivers and details with it. Plus, in my day job I make stained glass windows so I'm more used to working with big paper (2 feet by 4 feet is the smallest) and big lines. And thanks for the compliment

Well the soft rounds (in brush mode) come out very weak and I have to push really hard. The 3-pixel hard round often turns out to be too fat because I press pretty hard to begin with...but I use that and the 5-pixel hard round for rivers most of the time on other maps. Pencil mode with a .5 blur didn't look right to me either, nor a 1.0 blur (.2 looked okay). Anyway, since the hard 3 comes out too fat for me and the soft rounds are too light I had to find a 2-pixel hard something...all I have is a square. Straight up it comes out jaggy so turn on the size jitter set to pen pressure and I get something that I wanted. Basically it's more like a technical pencil than a standard pencil. If I were to work larger and then shrink the final down I'd probably go with the 3 or 5 hard round...very comfortable with those. But since I'm still learning this I haven't really gotten the touch and feel just yet.

As for the mountains, yeah I can't seem to get something more natural looking...mental block kind of thing so I'm waiting to hit my eureka moment there. I've done them 6 times over the past 3 days, trying different styles (and trying to avoid pre-made brushes in order to teach myself) but they all end up looking pretty much the same and killing 5 hours each...this style goes faster with a simple hatch. If I made them smaller then I could whip through them in an hour but those end up looking like my current hills. If I were to space them out it looks empty to me...still searching there.

The woodcut I have to agree as well, it would look great on an antique style, though. The smoke could use a fade for sure as well as some scatter at the top instead of being pointy - I was just so happy that I got something decent on first try that I didn't want to start tweaking and mess it up Of course, they don't really fit the style either but hopefully it will come together as I add the other areas of interest. I'm trying to create a simple hand-drawn style that I can adapt for adding color to make a painterly style. Much like my satellite style can be adapted to atlas and antique. Kill 2, or 3, birds with 1 stone kind of thing.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback guys. I'll keep pluggin away at it.

[torstan]

I see your point. I stick to a 5px hard round brush with pressure sensitivity for my lines. Not as sharp as your stuff but does the trick for me.

I think your mountains are coming along fine. Looking forward to seeing the next versions.

[Ramah]

I've done them 6 times over the past 3 days, trying different styles (and trying to avoid pre-made brushes in order to teach myself) but they all end up looking pretty much the same and killing 5 hours each...this style goes faster with a simple hatch. If I made them smaller then I could whip through them in an hour but those end up looking like my current hills. If I were to space them out it looks empty to me...still searching there.

I can certainly sympathise with you here. I thought I was the only one that could waste time in such massive amounts. Everyone else seems to whip out a map every third day or so. :S

[torstan]

Ascension, when you say you're looking to make the mountains realistic looking - are you talking about the layout or each mountain individually?

If it's each mountain individually then I'd suggest that you're trying to make them a little too triangular.

Here's some suggestions on shape and style that might be useful. Feel free to ignore though.

[jfrazierjr]

Ascension, when you say you're looking to make the mountains realistic looking - are you talking about the layout or each mountain individually?

If it's each mountain individually then I'd suggest that you're trying to make them a little too triangular.

Here's some suggestions on shape and style that might be useful. Feel free to ignore though.

I agree. While mine are still a bit more equalatiral triangle shape than not, if you notice on my Baldimar map, that I use quite a bit of different shapes throw in. Perhaps I should add some that are a bit more wider that flatter...