Mardarin W.I.P

[Yandor]

So I decided to take that style of mountains and just give it a go on a little bit larger scale, this is just after I rendered the mountains and began coloring (didn't copy the mountains from multiple images and blend together like I did with the Lormarin's Pass, it took a very long time to copy parts of mountains in) so I thought I'd get one that looks half decent from the actual rendering. What do you guys think? of just the general layout, I know its very mountainous and thats fine for this map.

p.s. don't pay any attention to the Green, it was just a guide line for coloring the mountains. And I'll eventually bring it into a "flat" border.

[Yandor]

So I realized that when I last was making maps I kept a ton of styles and things from older tutorials here (Thanks guys!) so I just clicked a style and through in some trees, also messed with the river idea, just a little snapshot, wondering if it all fits. Any comments, tips or anything would be wonderful!

[Coyotemax]

I love the trees and mountains! the rivers seem a bit forced, perhaps if you had them taper more as they go uphill? As they are, they cut in rather harshly.

Darn fine start though! *impressed*

[Yandor]

hmm yeah I hear ya, Coyotemax... Now just to figure out how to make it a bit better, I'll mess with the tapering some more, but any ideas on how to make a decent river, when your working with something like this? (Pic #1) I was using those dark "canyon" things as a guide and had a gentle layer blend but as Coyotemax said the rivers seemed a bit "harsh" (Pic #2 uploaded again) and me doing a bit to soften the rivers but don't know how good of a job I did... (Pic #3) I uploads pic 2 again so you can compare them. Oh and I did adjust the forest a little bit (in Pic #3). But yeah, any help would be fantastic! Thanks!

[Coyotemax]

I see you're using photoshop.. what effects are you using on the rivers?
The middle pic has better forests (lighter and better transition up the slopes to my eye) but the rivers in the third one blend a tad nicer.. (they may or may not have come out in the order you expected, i have the same probs with uploads, heh)

[Yandor]

Well I've gotten a little farther, its amazing on how distracted I can get, but I was wondering if maybe I've gone a little too river crazy? Eh I donno but there are still a good hand full of rivers I plan on making, but tell me what you think, any advice would be wonderful!

Also thanks again Coyotemax, your advice did help!

[Yandor]

Well I added a little bit more to the map, not a ton but I decided to take the map to the boarder of the image or however you want to say it, I haven't finished the other side but I'll get done here soon.

[LonewandererD]

Looking good, but the settlements (i'm guessing that's what they are) look a little flat compared to the rest of the map, maybe adding a drop shadow, stroke or some sort of bevel may help. I'd rep but i need to spread it around some more first.

-D-

[Midgardsormr]

Nice forests!

The forest-filled plateaus look very flat. There is no sense that the slopes of the mountains continue down, or any variation of elevation in the forests at all. You need to add some shaded relief to the forested areas to counteract that. New layer, fill with 50% gray, set to Overlay, and use the burn and dodge tools. Check out my Mennin's Hallow map for an example of how I did it with that same forest technique at a somewhat larger scale:

[Yandor]

Hey thanks for the help guys! I finished the extra mountains and things to fill out the corners of the map, I tweaked the forests a bunch... for whatever reason I didn't like the color, didn't seem to fit in my opinion, but tell me what you guys think of the new color. Also messed with the "town" or settlements and added some more in, also put in a path... Still have a bunch of rivers to add, but its coming a long slowly but Any ideas, opinions would be great! Thanks!

p.s. Midgardsormr I tried to do as you said... donno if it really came out too well but yeah