How to Draw Marshes & Wetlands
One of the most iconic locations in The Lord of the Rings has to be The Dead Marshes. Marshes have such an iconic look with their pools and streams weaving between tall grasses over a vast landscape. They can be a place of life and biodiversity or a place of threat and danger like they were in Middle Earth.
To draw a marsh I find it best to begin with a basic river shape and build it up with additional streams and pools. In this tutorial, I will break down the process I use so you can add some marshy wetlands to your fantasy maps.
All of the brushes I will be using for this tutorial are available in the Map Maker Essential Brushes pack for Procreate & Photoshop.
Sketch the River
Begin by sketching a simple line to get a rough idea of where you want the main river to appear. Use a sweeping, horizontally dominant stroke to make it appear like it's in an isometric perspective.
Sketch the Shape of the Marsh
With a rough idea of where the main river will be, you can now use that as your guide to ink in some shorelines. You will then want to add some smaller rivers and pools that come off from the main one. Generally, rivers don’t split; but marshes work a little differently due to the shallow water table. This means the water tends to split and spread out everywhere Forming pools around higher points in the ground and vegetation.
Draw Additional Pools
You can start adding some pools of various sizes all around the river. It helps to add small groupings of them to get a more natural look. As I said before, marshes form where the ground is saturated with water. So small pools will form all around a marsh even if they don’t appear to connect to the river directly.
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Add in the Details
The next thing to do is draw in some simple tufts of grass all around the marsh. Have fun with and let the grass overlap the edges of the water as well to give more depth to the illustration. Anywhere it overlaps you’ll want to erase the line art of the river so the grass reads more clearly. To give more depth to the land surrounding the water you will want some detail to give the shoreline height.
The main idea is that anywhere there is a corner on the shoreline you can add a couple of lines that begin at the edge and curve up the shoreline to give the impression of the shoreline being elevated above the water. Try to imagine the natural shape of the terrain and how the land would slope down toward the water.
Detailing the Water
Now you can add some light detail lines to the water itself. Keep the lines subtle and imagine you are drawing the direction the water is flowing. Water doesn’t generally flow in straight lines, especially where it would be moving more slowly like in a marsh. So make sure the lines bend and curve around to give a more natural feel.
Block in the Colors
With all your line work done you can now move on to color. The colors you use are up to you, but I opted to go for more greenish-yellow hues. Create a new layer for your color below your line work and above your paper background.
If you are working digitally, you can use the eyedropper tool and select the paper background, then shift the color toward the greens. Then just darken it a bit and paint in the colors for the land.
For the water, just darken that color a bit more and lower the saturation to give it a cooler appearance. This gives the impression the water is reflecting the ambient blue color from the sky.
Paint Basic Shadows
Create another layer above your color layer and set the blend mode to "Multiply." You can then use the same colors from the previous step to add shadows along the shore and in the water. Imagine the direction of your light source and where something like the shoreline would cast a shadow. Keep them subtle at this stage as you will darken certain areas in the next step.
Adjust the Opacity Slider
I often will paint in shadows on their own layer and then adjust the opacity slider until I get the look I want. This is a quick way to make this first pass of shadows less heavy-handed.
Finish the Details
Create a new layer above your previous layer and set the blend mode to “Multiply.” I like to build up the shadows gradually as I go. Beginning with a larger brush and slowly working down to a smaller brush for the details. So now you can decrease the size of your brush and add some dimension to the shorelines.
I didn’t want all the shadows to be too soft, so I switched to my Weathered Liner Brush from The Map Maker Essential Brush Pack to paint in the details because it has a little rougher edge. At this point you want to build some contrast so the marsh really pops on the page.
Paint in the Highlights
The final step is to add some highlights to the marsh and make it pop. Just create another layer and set the blend mode to "Screen." I recommend using separate layers for the land and the water so you can adjust the opacity if your highlights get a little too intense.
While there are some highlights painted on the land, they are more subtle. Water is a very reflective surface so your strongest highlights will appear on the water as it reflects the sky. As you did with the shadows, use the detail lines as a guide and just place them on the opposite side of the line.
If you found this tutorial helpful be sure to follow MapEffects on Instagram and tag me with the map you create and I may feature your work. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing your map!
Josh