Following Pardner John’s suggestion, I’ve been playing with Photoshop. Definitely more painterly. I’m not sure I’ve gotten the hang of the layer-thing, but my effort at making a topographical map of Dis is more respectable than my disastrous efforts with Illustrator.
And while there’s still a lot to be said for pen and paper (or acrylics and paper), I really liked the duplicate feature which allowed me to just copy the little black towers instead of having to redraw each one. Nice to have the map features all neatly labeled, too, instead of having to decipher my chickenscratch. Still, I don’t think I’ll be joining the ranks of the digital artisans anytime soon.
E J Frost 
Wacom Tablets
Don’t know if you have one, but they make it even more painterly. You’ve gotcher stylus and tablet and it’s touch sensitivo.
You might want to play with your brush flow and opacity. Also, Lynda.com has great video tutorials for Photoshop. Not that I’m saying you need help or anything.
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Re: Wacom Tablets
Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.
No, I took the suggestion in the loving, supportive manner it was intended. Ahem.
I don’t have a Wacom tablet, or anything that cool. I have MacBook with a standard touchpad. Which made drawing anything other than a straight line kind of interesting.
Brush flow and opacity, no ideas what those are. I tried to do a pattern on all the green patches, but I was clearly doing it wrong because it didn’t work. Photoshop has tutorials, which I blithely ignored in my creative frenzy. Are you telling me to reign in my creative zeal in order to learn the rules? Pfft. Don’t kill my joy, man.
Seriously, thanks for the pointer to Lynda.com. Their free tutorials look great!
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