La Marche de Kanoba (WIP)

[Abu Lafia]

No need for putting it to the trash in my view! The shading looks very good and gives a lot of depth. On the "shade side" of the mountains the light and shade is better recognizable than on the "bright side". If you'd tune down the base color of the mountains a bit, i guess the shading on the bright side might come out better. I personally like the way you made these mountains, i also know about the impression they look like zebras, but the shading is quit subtle so it's not a big deal in my view XD
Keep up the great work!
Cheers,
AL

[ThomasR]

Thanks a lot Abu ! I had already played with the opacity of the different shading layers but hadn't thought of lowering the color layer opacity and I'm much more satisfied by the result. Even so, in my future maps, I won't do that much lines on the mountains, for sure. Too much of a pain in the ass to shade and I prefer the flowing shadows you get with simpler mountains. Here's the adjusted map :



The change might not be obvious but the mountains blend way better in the map and, as I'm sometimes mixed up in my layers, lowering the opacity of the mountains helped selling the glacier (which was on the same layer ... obviously a well planned mistake).

Next step, after some tests, shading of the riverbanks, the forests and the terrain.

Abu, thanks again from the bottom of my wrists, your fresh look on this helped me a great deal.

[Abu Lafia]

It's always great to see how little adjustments can alter the look of a map so much. Indeed, the mountains blend way better into the whole map now, i feel they look less "alien" to the rest of the landscape. Glad i could be of some help with the hint.

[Diamond]

This is looking fantastic. I love the mountains and the transitions between them and the different forest types. The hard work you're putting into this is definitely paying off.

[ChickPea]

It's looking great Thom. I see no zebras!

[ladiestorm]

this is looking phenomenal! I love the color palette you are using. And your drawing of the mountains and forest look great! I also like the transition from evergreens to deciduous.

I can't draw worth a flip, so I maybe shouldn't say any thing... but as I was looking at this, I did have one thought about the forests. Evergreens grow EVERYWHERE. I don't know if it's something you can work out, and maybe it's just a thought that you could implement on your next map, but the transition is just a little... too clean... if you understand my meaning. I mean, when I look at tree lines, or forests, especially in the spring and fall, I see evergreen trees mixed throughout the deciduous trees. It would have been great to see some of those evergreens among the others.

Maybe something to think about for next time. Overall, I think it looks fantastic!