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My coastlines looked like a toddler drew them until I started using a sponge

I was trying to draw the ragged coast for my pirate island map and everything looked too neat or too random. After three failed attempts, I grabbed a cheap kitchen sponge, dabbed it in watered-down ink, and just pressed it along the paper edge. It gave me that perfect broken, natural look in about five minutes. Now I use it for every map that needs a worn shore. What's your weirdest tool for getting a specific texture right?
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2 Comments
angelaellis
angelaellis1mo agoMost Upvoted
Oh that's brilliant, I've been there with the too-perfect coastlines. My weird one is using an old toothbrush to flick paint for star fields, it just gets that random scatter you can't do with a brush. The sponge trick is way smarter than my first idea, which was just scribbling wildly and hoping for the best.
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joseph448
joseph4481mo ago
Sponges and toothbrushes, really? @angelaellis, you both sound like you're prepping for a craft project instead of making maps. It's just some lines on paper, why get so fancy about it? What's wrong with a normal pen?
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