To avoid making yet another Inkscape island, I thought I'd try something new. I've started on a river estuary map, showing a few villages/towns along the coastline (still a very early WIP). Because the villages are top-down style, I felt my usual triangle mountains wouldn't work because of the different perspectives. I thought I'd try a caterpillar mountains style instead.

Now I am very lazy and also can't draw very well, so there's no way I'm drawing all those little lines by hand. But Inkscape has my back, so I was able to create what I have fairly quickly. But... but... I dunno.... I've never done caterpillar mountains before, and I don't know if I'm going about it in the best way (I may yet bin the idea completely!)

So, my questions ...

1) Does this look like a pile of poop? If so, any suggestions on how to improve?
2) How about shading? I've only done the top right hills, and just used very subtle dark to light shading as elevation increases. Does this work, or is there something better I could try?

I don't even know if I'll continue with what I have, as I'm having major doubts. I've looked at a few other maps (for example, Warlin's incredible work) but I think his style is probably way out of my league. I'm really looking for something relatively simple, that hopefully doesn't look like crap.

Any thoughts/advice would be very welcome.

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