How To Draw Fantasy Maps Mountains

How to Describe Stippled Mountains

Mountains are possibly the virtually important characteristic of a map. They play a pregnant role in dictating the climates of dissimilar regions, and they act as natural barriers to separate nations and regions.

There are many ways you lot can draw mountains on a fantasy map, only this method will walk you through how to utilise a traditional stippling technique which brings a bit of a Victorian aesthetic to your modern fantasy cartography.

All of the brushes I will be using for this tutorial are available in Map Maker Essential Brushes pack for Procreate & Photoshop.

1: Sketch the Shape

This may seem unnecessary, just by just drawing a line where you want the mountain range to exist will often salvage you time in the long run. It will let you to focus early on placement and limerick rather than getting lost in details and having to redo them when you recognize a trouble.

Effort to use a natural flowing shape too rather than something with abrupt angles. This is the commencement step is making your mount ranges feel more than realistic.

two: Sketch the Mountains

Again, y'all want to keep things very simple at this point so that you lot can focus on limerick. Yous don't need annihilation fancier than triangles of varying sizes placed along your sketch line. Anything more than this and you may become too attached and unwilling to erase even if it'southward in the wrong place!

You besides more often than not want to put the tallest mountains forth the middle of that line and have them taper into the mural from at that place. Having all of your mountains the same size is a common mistake that tin can exist hands remedied.

3: Depict the Basic Line Art

At present that you lot are happy with the shape of your mount range, y'all can brainstorm calculation in the actual line piece of work that will define each mountain. If you are working digitally, just create a new layer above your sketches and begin to describe the concluding line work.

For this item style you lot will want the shape of the mountains to have multiple secondary peaks and look a little bumpy. The peaks or bumps should be sharper and more dramatic on larger mountains, with them gradually smoothing on smaller mountains or foothills.

four: Add Lines to Give Depth

Your mountains should have a fairly jagged edge to them, so now you tin add some uncomplicated lines to split up each point from the main mountain. This will give good depth and sell that rocky feel nosotros are going for.

5: Add Temporary Ridges

On a separate layer or with a pencil you can now depict a temporary ridge which connects the mountains to ane another. This step is optional, but I find it helpful as it helps me be more than consequent in making sure my ridge line has a overnice organic shape.

6: Draw Stippled Lines

Using private dots (stippling), y'all can now add some uncomplicated lines down from the ridge of each mountain. Make sure they don't meet at the ridge or you lot'll end upwards with a harsh edge. A characteristic of this style is that the ridge line connecting the mountains is not defined by a line, but the absence of i.

Shading with stippling and and each private dot is known for being an practice in patience. While I relish that at times, I have simplified the process by creating a stipple castor in Procreate to speed upward my workflow. This allows me to draw a line which appears as randomized dots.

7: Deepen the Shadows

If you are new to stippling, you are essentially shading with the density of dots. The more dots at that place are in an surface area, the deeper the shadows.

You can brainstorm adding dots on the lower side of each line y'all added in the previous step. And so describe some more nearly the top of the ridge equally well, only go on them pretty loose to prevent too harsh of an edge.

Be sure you add more stippling to the shadowed side of the mountain and keep information technology pretty minimal on the side where the light would be hitting. Direct light tends to wash out details because it fills in the shadows.

8: Paint Basic Shadows

The nice thing about the stippling is that you actually could be done without calculation any other colour or shading. But, if y'all desire to add together an actress pop you can employ your eyedropper tool and grab a colour from the background newspaper texture. And then simply darker it a scrap and lower the saturation to become the colour you lot will shade with.

I am using a textured brush and painting on the adumbral side of the mountains and blending into the landscape. You desire your deepest shadows to exist near the peaks and catamenia down from there. Y'all tin see that just this goes a long style to helping the mountains to really begin to stand out.

9: Add together the Highlights

At present that yous have added your shadows, you lot can add together a bear on of highlights to the opposite side of the mountains. Once more I would pick a color from the background texture and lighten it up a scrap. I wouldn't use pure white though because it will cause the mountains to look unnaturally reflective.

Makes certain the brightest highlights should be near the peak of the mountain where light would be hitting most straight. You can so begin adding highlights forth the ridge line that connects the mountains to one another, and and then down the side of the mount.

Mountains were the characteristic I had the most trouble learning in the beginning, but with exercise they are probably my favorite characteristic to draw. Y'all will find that they really practice set up the tone for your maps and dictate where rivers go, when deserts grade, and they often heavily impact the geopolitics of the world you lot are creating. Taking the fourth dimension to effigy out where to place them tin can go a long way in creating a believable map.

Bonus Tip - Copying

If y'all are having a hard time getting the shape of the mountains correct, I would highly encourage y'all to re-create one of these images and literally trace it over and over until you become a feel for it. There'south zero wrong with copying for the purpose of learning; because one time you sympathise the principles you lot can have them, conform them, and really make it your own.

If you plant this helpful I would appreciate information technology if you lot pinned this to save for afterwards and to share with your friends.
Give thanks you, and I look forward to seeing you map your story!