So, here is a first try for colouring, using a water colour brush. I think this should make the mountains look less streaky.
As others have said, the mountains look awesome. I personally think that the one without the shading is better, but that's just my two cents.
So, here is a first try for colouring, using a water colour brush. I think this should make the mountains look less streaky.
I've worked on shading and highlights, the mountains look now less like stripes.
It's still way too striped to my tastes. I'd try some global light on the the highlited mountain side (with just a slight emphasis on the more proeminent edges) and enhance a global shadow on the shaded face (that would at least avoid the symetric striped effect).
Another attempt to solve the stripes issue and probably the last one.
This looks really nice, Sapiento! I like the icons a lot, they really show the different styles of the cities. The forests and hills look great too.
In my opinion, the thing that makes the mountains look striped is not so much in the coloring but in the contour lines. Those that extend down from the ridge are very evenly spaced, so when they are shaded and highlighted they give a geometric appearance. Personally, I don't think that's a bad thing. But if the stripes are bothering you, my suggestion would be to make the mountain contours more random
The numbers of sides ridges lines makes basically the striped effect. That's just enhanced with the strong contrast between shades and highlights. On Peter Fenlon's work, the shadows and lights are more subtle and lighter so the striped effect doesn't pop up that uch, as far as I've seen.
I don't want to copy Fenlon, just use his work as inspiration.
I understood that, I just wanted to point out that the "many ridges style" on his maps works because the shades/lights are very light. Adapting it to a more heavy shade/light work might be an issue, regarding the striped look. Anyway that's some personnal taste, if you like them as they are, go ahead, the overall map looks great as usual.
Last edited by - Max -; 03-12-2014 at 09:26 AM.