Lands of Legend?

[damonjynx]

Ok. Here is a test sheet for doing mountains in, I guess you'd call it a "painterly" style.

For the base layer I used a spatter brush with a dark green foreground/brown background and colour jitter along with some slight tweaks to the other brush settings. For the mountains I used a low opacity, soft round brush with the blend mode set to overlay.

Black for the shadow, white for the highlights. shadows were done initially with a large brush, then a thinner one for the ridge line. I then did an even thinner white line for the highlights and used a Guassian blur filter at about 3-4px a couple of times.

Bear in mind, I don't really have much of a clue about what I'm doing, I'm just trying out some different stuff because my "artistic" skills are somewhat lacking. Of the 3 samples I prefer #1. What do you guys think?

[Rongar]

I like Rognar's style in his challenge entry, though I've no idea about how to re-create it!

Me neither.

No seriously, my way of working is so unorthodox and un...methodical, that I always end up with different results. I can tell you that quite a lot of texture work is involved, though. But if it's a somewhat realistic atlas style map you're aiming for, why not give Ascension's or Tear's tutorial a whirl?

Ascension's tut
Tear's tut

You wouldn't necessarily have to follow them step for step, you can alternate and throw your own ideas into the mix as well.

As for your question; I prefer #3, it pops out from the background, a bit like a bump map. I think the ridges could be a bit more distorted, though. They're too soft for my taste.

[damonjynx]

As for your question; I prefer #3, it pops out from the background, a bit like a bump map. I think the ridges could be a bit more distorted, though. They're too soft for my taste.

So by distorted do you mean more like a ragged/rugged shape to them and less linear? I know they're fairly straight, I was mainly try to work out how to do them. I've only a mouse ATM and top down mountains in the "Torstan", "Thomrey" style are beyond me, mine look like #$%^!

Glad you liked my challenge entry. Though it looks and is fairly simple, it took me ages to get the line work to a point I was happy with before I scanned and PS'd the rest. I must have re-drew (is that a word?) both maps a half-dozen times at least I reckon.

Cheers, for the suggestions and links for tutorials! \m/

[Rongar]

Yeah, I meant they could be more ragged. By the way, there's also the fuzzy caterpillar style for mountains. I'm not the biggest fan of that style, to be honest, but I *think* they are easier to do.

[damonjynx]

Update:

Thanks Rongar for the links to the tut's. I'm using Tear's Saderan Tut (repped and rated it!), which for PS users, is freaking awesome. I'm actually using an older version but I'm familiar enough with it now to work stuff that maybe a little different in the newer versions. Anywho, here's my new version based on the tutorial. All but done with the ocean bit of the tut, just got to add some final textures.

### Latest WIP ###