[Award Winner] A Hand-drawn Primer

[Ascension]

11. Create a new layer. Here we are going to start our forests. Draw something "foresty" - roughly rounded but with lots of little bumps around the edge. Try to keep the shapes away from rivers and mountains. Also make sure that the shapes are fully closed...no open spaces. See Pic 11.

12. Grab the Magic Wand tool and click on the area outside of the forest. Select - Modify - Expand = 2. Select - Inverse. Create a new layer. Grab the Paint Bucket tool and fill then deselect (ctrl + d). Move this layer below the tree outlines. See Pic 12.

13. Apply your favorite layer style of Pattern Overlay. I like Gauche at 400% Also give it an Inner Shadow but make sure that the shadow comes from the opposite direction of your light source....here my light source is at 120 so my shadow is at -60. If your pattern is too dark then put a Color Overlay of white on it as well and mess around with the blend mode and opacity until you get something in a medium to light gray. See Pic 13.

14. Click back on the tree outline layer. This part is probably the hardest part to get right but once you do it will be like riding a bike. Just draw a bunch of little arc shapes around the inner edge. With that done go back and fill with more little arc shapes to create some roughly rounded shapes...I use my pattern on the layer below to guide me. See Pic 14.

15. Create a new layer and set the opacity at 20%. We now change to the 20 pixel soft round brush tip. I brush in some shadows with black and some highlights with white on this layer. See Pic 15.