Thread: June/July Challenge Entry: Trade Routes of a Maritime Empire

Nice so far!

Hey, I have a question for you about that frame. I was trying to make something like that just the other day but I couldnt figure out how. Is there a quick way to create a black and white checker style frame like yours?

If you're using photoshop (these might work for others such as GIMP, though I've never used it before):
1. Make a new 200x200 image and fill the backround with black.
2. Make 2 100x100 white squares, one in the top left corner, other in the bottom right corner (they should meet at the center and create a simple 4 square checkerboard).
3. Save it as a pattern (Edit -> Define Pattern)
4. Fill your canvas using the patten, then just crop away (I select the whole thing, contract the selection, invert the selection, delete (this gets rid of some of the outside), invert again, contract a little more than delete the inside.

You can make you initial pattern bigger or smaller depending on how...checkery you want the border.

For the inner one I simply inverted the colors.

Thanks! I got that to work and added a nice patterned frame onto a map I'm working on.

Here's a tutorial for neatlines and graticules in photoshop.

I didn't really know what else to add to this, so I put in all the names for the various towns and ports, added some mountains to break up the trade routs on land, and put in a giant vortex in the middle of the sea to break up a few of the sea routes.

### Latest WIP ###

Maybe add some kind of symbols/icons that note the type of goods available at various ports/etc.