How To Draw Maps Like Tolkien

How to draw a river in detail with Inkarnate, the fantasy map program? Here are some tips!

After explaining how to employ the various groundwork and foreground levels and how to color h2o and soil, permit'due south move on to something slightly more advanced! inkarnate (which we talked about here) has a lot of potential and, equally you will come across, it can exist used both to draw maps on a very big scale, and smaller maps.

All the same, the small-scale maps, like that of a city and its environment, present difficulties other than large-scale ones. In fact, they require more details and greater attention to the naturalness of the details.

Today, in fact, I will explicate how to depict a river on a modest scale, always using Inkarnate!

It should likewise be specified that the map that we will outline in this article will exist the ground for the more detailed i, in which we will explain how to create the map of a village.

The places that nosotros will design will appear in our campaign for Pathfinder, The book of invasions , which we accept presented hither and whose setting we presented here. The book of invasions can be found on our Patreon!

Groundwork and foreground: how to trace the river with Inkarnate

Starting time of all, we specify that, for this tutorial, we will employ the paid version of Inkarnate, which allows you to make larger maps and has more than tools.

Even before starting, it is important to define the levels of background e foreground: how much of your map will exist covered with h2o and how much volition it involve from the footing? In our case, having to draw only ane river, nosotros must look a predominance of country over water. So, I would recommend filling the map with the foreground of earth, setting our "trowel" at the tiptop left with the driblet-downwardly card in add.

At this betoken, you lot must draw the river, which is obtained past subtracting the world: always remaining on the icon of the trowel, choose subtract from the get-go drop-downward menu.

A affair of grid: long live the hexagons!

However, now y'all accept to choose whether to depict the river with a circle castor, or with a foursquare or hexagonal one. Personally, I find it more comfortable to work, at to the lowest degree initially, with hexagonal brush: having a reference grid helps me maintain the proportions of the map.

To define the width of the river, and in general the scale of the drawing, information technology is important to set the size of your brush by adjusting its Size. Using the hexagonal grid, the size of the individual hexagons can as well be useful for adjusting with the map calibration: the smaller the hexagons, the more than territory will exist included in the map. To change the size of the hexagons, you must go to the penultimate icon on the left, that is the one that controls the grids.

To represent this river, we will need one medium scale. So, in the upper bar that appears, set up the Size at 55, which will requite us medium-sized hexes.

At the centre of the map, therefore, subtract hexes to form the river, returning to the trowel icon and selecting substract. In this case, the river's path will see a sharp fundamental curve, such that the river about surrounds and makes an island a piece of country. We volition then make this piece of state raised and host the gnomic village of An Inse, which looks almost like an island surrounded by a river.

Scazzuolate via quegli esagoni! — Scrub those hexes away!

Let's refine the banks: add together and subtract!

At present that we accept the path of the river, nosotros must refine its banks and remove the woodiness of the hexagons from them. This procedure will accept identify in two parts: 1 of subtraction of foreground is one of insertion of foreground .

First, set the trowel to subtract, in shape circular and size relatively infinitesimal: Size 20/25 is optimal. In fact, we are outlining the banking company of a river: information technology is not too linear and a piddling precision is needed, simply nosotros must non make information technology too rough banks (it is not a mountain stream!).

With your trowel, gently follow the edges of the hexagons, subtracting ground for smooth the corners. Apply a slight horizontal wobble to your mouse to make this smoothing slightly irregular - it's okay it'south a plain river, but it's non fifty-fifty ruled out! If you lot have a fiddling shaky and shaky hands, don't worry about the swing: you are already doing it very well!

Sgranocchiate quegli esagoni! — Munch those hexagons!

Afterward this step, yous volition have a river with irregular edges but, you will find, with the very concave sides, as if the river had found very little resistance while munching them away with its current. This is good, only non too much: calculation convex surfaces also gives the design more than variety and realism.

Then, set the trowel to add together, always circular in shape and with one size slightly less than what you used before: for instance, I will drop information technology from 24 to 22. Now pass it on the parts of the banks that seem too directly or too gnawed and harmonize the line.

Limiamo gentilmente gli angoli! — We kindly file the corners!

At this point, do you think you accept added besides much land and narrowed the river too much? No problem: re-gear up decrease and gnaw the bank again, so add together soil and remove it over again until everything seems coherent.

Remember that the river's course is adamant by the obstacles it encounters. Consequently, if you lot make it curve around an obstacle forth ane side, make sure the other side follows the bend and widens to compensate.

Con un corso più coerente, inseriamo gli ostacoli del fiume! — With a more coherent course, let'due south insert the obstacles of the river!

The obstacles that shape the river

Now, having made a river with many bends, we must enter the obstacles that give it this somewhat tormented form.

Going to the icon, on the left, of the gods tool (the one with the castle), select the element "Select object". In the long serial of objects that volition announced, towards the beginning you will observe the cliff, ie the cliffs, the terminate of a vertical drop. These cliffs will help us to give the idea of raised ground that acts as an obstacle to the river.

I dirupi di Inkarnate! — The crags of Inkarnate!

Select the cliffs that well-nigh they adjust to the shape you have called, then, later on selecting them by clicking on the icon Select at the top, change its size by adjusting the size stairs. Retrieve that this measurement will too determine the tiptop of your elevation proceeds; for this map I chose an average scale, threescore%.

Place all the cliffs along the border of your obstacle, not worrying too much if the edges exercise non always coincide perfectly. Add soil where it is needed and remove information technology where information technology is in excess. In some cases, try to keep some ground under the cliff to create a small-scale beach.

I bordi del fiume danno tutto un altro aspetto! — The edges of the river give a completely different await!

How to apply the colour?

At present allow's motility on to soil and river coloring. Theoretically, the river would also be fine in its structure, simply adding some detail shade of color will also give it more realism. The filigree volition non be needed for this chore, so yous can also remove it by going to the grid icon and setting the opacity to aught.

Since this map will be the base for a city in our Irish countryside, nosotros will get to the brush icon and, keeping the already selected foreground, we will take the brightest green in the palette (BIOME-04), coloring the whole map similar this.

At this indicate, to make the different consistency of the rocky slopes from the rest, we select the BIOME-02 palette, a slightly more subdued greenish colour. Keeping a Softness it's a Opacity of 1, nosotros trace the edges of the gradients. To brand them instead lower banks and, supposedly, dirty, y'all tin can use a more bawdy palette, like the LAND-04, taking care to diversify the thickness of the sides. To speedily outline the small area of embankment that we had set earlier, we can use the color LAND-05, with an Opacity medium, to give it a yellow complexion.

At this signal, nosotros can also add some details to the color of the river water past selecting groundwork in the first drop-down menu.

Offset, select a dark blueish (OCEAN-01-Blueish-05-SL) and, decreasing the Opacity to about 0,25, trace the center of the river. This will add depth to the watercourse. To increment this depth, we volition go to past contrast lighten the edges of the river, where the h2o is supposed to be lower. Keeping the same Opacity, select a light blueish (Sea-01-Bluish-01-SL) and trace the edges of the river, on both sides.