26 September 2015

A map of Venthir and Char Mathi

I've always had problems with mountains. Nothing personal, and it's not as though  I have a personal vendetta against them, it's that that I've always had trouble drawing them. Or to be more accurate, I've never been happy with the way I depict them. Since my maps are designed to be maps that were made in the world of Elyden, I try to (at least passingly) design them to echo the style of the region or period in which the map is intended to have originated.

Now since Elyden's current timeline is something akin to the real-world's industrial revolution (at least around the Inner Sea - many other more distant regions have managed to cling to a more classical culture), some styles of mountains do not 'fit in' those styles are the more traditional mountains like those found in fantasy maps, which I've also has some experience making. I like those mountains, but they don't fit in. instead I've been experimenting with other styles, most notably the 'marching caterpillar' mountains, as seen below:



I'm happy with these though admittedly they're not as attractive as the more fantasy-style. Problem is though there are photoshop brushes that mimic this style, the only way I was happy was by doing them manually, one stroke at a time... time consuming, but i must admit I prefer the end result, particularly around the corners, which are a lot less random than a jitter brush.

What do you all think? Keep in mind this is still a WIP, more to show off the mountains than anything else.

 

2 comments:

  1. The problem with the way you have used "marching caterpillars" is they look more like slopes, or cliffs, on the boundaries of plateaus. The only way for the terrain to have developed like this is if it were a *very* old world, where the mountains have been significantly worn down by billions of years of erosion. There's nothing wrong with that concept, but I'm not sure that's what you were going for.

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  2. Thanks for the comments!

    Well the world is 1 billion years old, though was created, rather than slowly formed so we could assume they're older than that for the sake of comparison. Though i think i get what you mean about the plateaus, which aren't meant to be the immediate assumption. Perhaps setting them closer together like classical 'hachure mountains'?

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