Oh wow guys!

Has anyone else checked out the new ambient lighting setup? You can set the ambient light (in this case dark blue) when you pick the colour of the shadows in the finalize effect.

The answer to that one is practice.

I assume you are hand placing the trees, rather than using any of the Symbol fills or Symbols in Area command.

Hand placed trees always look more natural, as long as you don't think about it too much and just do it. The more you think about it and the more care you take the more it looks like a forestry plantation with everything in regimental rows.

Having said that, try overlapping the trees to hide the trunks in a thick forest, and try not to leave spaces that are too regular in other places. Trees often grow in groups or small copses, so try grouping 3 or 5 together in little patches, but in a semi-haphazard way. Do the dense forest first, and then the woodlands around them, so that there is a gradual gradation from thick forest to savannah.

Hi Everyone! :D

In this week's Live Mapping session Ralf will present the free monthly symbols by Mike Schley that Profantasy have been releasing since June, by using them in an overland map.

Come along and join in, or watch later :)

I can paint, draw, and even sculpt reasonable looking trees out of wire and modelling clay, but I'm still crap at watercolour.

You, on the other hand, are great at it - even when there are no actual watercolours in sight :)

I had a bit of trouble with the text, when after concentrating on the look of the font, exploding it so I could fill it, and then getting the arrangement just right, I realised I'd missed out the T in Christmas! LOL!

But I did it again, and it looks much better now :)