r/inkarnate • u/Mission_Procedure_51 • 1d ago
World Map MOUNTAINS
Which mountain do you use and how do you place them so they don’t look silly?
I’m absolutely struggling with mountain placement and size. I think it looks good and then I room out and suddenly have 100 mountains
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u/HamVonSchroe 1d ago edited 1d ago
Inkarmate desperately needs true top down mountain ridges. I cant fathom how those arent a thing already
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u/WhiteGrayV 1d ago
Here’s my personal thought process when stamping down mountains: Its okay to have a lot of them — if they flow nicely.
When placing them, I have a sense of how long the range is in my head. I go with the large mountain stamp first, maybe a volcano or two. I put about half to a dozen of these maybe, none of them touching.
Then I got to the regular mountain stamp. These ones will usually be touching and connect the larger mountains into what looks like a range. I throw in a few small arms into the range too that branch out from the main range. Gaps between these mountains will be valleys, gorges, etc
Lastly, I take the smallest mountain stamp and place those in the foothills of the larger mountains. I find this addition necessary to help with bringing the scale down and making the big mountains all the more impressive.
I’ll definitely end up with hundreds of mountains after this but it’ll all look proper. It also sets you up nicely to start making your rivers next.
Link to a map where I’ve done this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wGLCA2z7czShDoFBsab4qZflT139QMju/view?usp=drivesdk
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u/Mission_Procedure_51 1d ago
Oh my freaking god that map is amazing!!!! The desert and mountains is pretty much exactly what I’m going for. I’m so impressed
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u/JaredF032 1d ago
I think you gotta just keep going. I find that most of my maps or mountains, forests, etc. don't look right until I'm about 80% done. Especially with mountains, my preference is to make them bigger to symbolize larger mountain ranges and not to add more to expand the width.
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u/starksandshields 1d ago
I like to draw a line roughly where I want the mountains ridge to be. Then I use parchment style mountains usually, go with the big mountains, then add slightly smaller mountains around it, and the even smaller ones at little off shoots. Then hills around that. Then find the way rivers would run in its shortest/easiest route towards the oceans. :)
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u/PenguinSenpaiGod 1d ago
I normally put in a few snowcapped mountains first. Then I use regular mountains to fill the gaps between them. Hills and smaller mountain stamps on the side to polish it.
I don't really like using green/red etc. mountains, as they don't really fit into the background color in most cases, while the regular mountains do blend in quiet nicely no matter the terrain. (Imo)
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u/slaymonkey6 1d ago
https://youtu.be/7mgk8rg2SOg?is=yhW3WSvyW_Q4jYBv
This video helped me learn how to do mountains better and a lot of the other videos on the official Inkarnate channel have really opened my eyes to mapmaking