Thread: Map of Aden

That is a very good map!

I like the style, colorful but with moderation. Very clever and stylish use of fonts and text effects.

But I agree with you on the forests, they are not up to the same good standard as the rest. I suggest that you use the same basic symbol work a bit on it and make the forest "float a bit by using shadow or some kind of glow effect.

Overall a very good map to present and sell a world overviev.

A fine map indeed! Interesting mountains, very nice coastlines.

About the forests, you can use a fuzzy-grunge brush in Photoshop (or GIMP) and paint with some dark green color. Then try to give a fine black outline (1-3 pixels) and maybe an outer glow or shadow.

Originally Posted by Kenru

This is the first map ive ever done for a world named Aden im working on. Im fairly proud of it, the only thing that really bugs me was how to better represent forests. Also I really wanted it to have a old parchment theme but I ended up with this very colorful one. Any critique is requested! Thanks

Welcome to the guild Kenru! Very nice start. Be sure to post more samples as soon as you can and don't be afraid to post your works in progress also. Post early, post often I always say.

Joe

Thanks for all the great feedback, it feels great to get some input. However, can any of you link me to a sort of Tree tutorial? I'm not entirely sure of how to fix the problem. Maybe I should use some Preset Brushes to better represent them?

Well, what I'm talking about should be something like this. (This is my map and it's shameless advertising, I know. There are guys that do it better...)

You can use the brush and the layer style in the attachment, provided you have Photoshop.

I really like the style; it's internally consistent, and does what it does without any fuss, a bit 90's retro? Good map, all in all. You forgot to high-light the small patch of mountains in the south. :]

Originally Posted by Naeddyr

I really like the style; it's internally consistent, and does what it does without any fuss, a bit 90's retro? Good map, all in all. You forgot to high-light the small patch of mountains in the south. :]

Yea, I like it also. Though it is way out of scale, that's ok by me as long as all of the elements are out of scale since it's more of a representational view anyway. As for the trees, I like them (since they have tree trunks) except they blend in. It took me a few minutes to figure out that they were tree "silhouettes" so to speak. You could keep those trees by giving them a small black outline and see how that looks. Or, if you really want to get a bit more fancy, just color in the trunks with a brownish color to help them stand out in addition to the above.

Joe