Thread: WIP - Xamel region of Demetia (continent)

So I found another tutorial by RobA for an alternative way to create mountains, and I like the way those mountains look much better than the original method in the "regional maps" tutorial.

Here's what I've done with that second mountain method:


It's getting closer, but I'm still not satisfied with it. The mountains turned out pretty well, I think, but the forests look better in my previous post than they do in this one. Plus, I got a strange kind of ridge around the mountains that isn't supposed to be there...so I think I did one or more of the steps wrong. I'll have to go back in and try again, see if I can get a smoother result. Still, it's coming along.

Try adding a layer mask with a fade-out around the edge of the mountain part. Adjust it properly and you should have the mountains "bleeding" into the plains and the edge vanishing.

@Juggernaut: thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, I didn't see your post until now, and I've already redone it!

I tried another pass, I think what I did wrong before had to do with the selection part of the steps...I didn't feather the selection when I should have, maybe, or I didn't turn the selection off when I should have. At any rate, when I re-did it this time, I didn't get that ridged effect. I also triple-layered the colors on the forest, and added both a texture bumpmap and a bevelling bumpmap, to make the forest pop out a bit more.

Here is my final effort as far as mountains and forest go:

Continuing with RobA's tutorial...started putting towns, seaports, and fortified outposts on the map. Next will be placing Keep/manors, and placing major roads.

Work on this has been slowing, due to other responsibilities, but finished placing towns and roads. In the future I may use a slightly different method for roads, and/or use different types of lines to indicate different types/sizes of roads. But for now I'm sticking with this just so I can get this finished.

Well, this map got set aside in favor of a lot of other things (namely, me deciding to go back to school part-time). But I got laid off in March and so I have a lot more time on my hands, until I find another job. So I decided to try and get this thing to a more finished state.

I started adding labels, but then realized that I actually hadn't done any sort of worldbuilding in this area at all. My original sketch (from the Stone Ages, lol) had a few dots marking possible cities, but absolutely no names! I spent about two hours digging up some references and ideas so I could come up with names for everything.

This is where it currently stands:


I have the title banner up, a space for the legend, and some of the geographical features and towns named. The method I'm using for the map comes from RobA's regional map tutorial (Using Gimp to Create Artistic Regional RPG Maps). For some reason, even though I used the same steps for all the labels there so far, some came out clearer than others. So I will probably have to go back and re-do some of them.

Once I get everything labeled and the legend done, I'll be putting a compass rose and scale bar on it, then possibly a border.

Sadly, I'm not really sure if this map is the right size or not. Moving forward, I plan to do a continental map of Demetia, as well as a world map (I already have a sketch of the continents to the west of Demetia). Once I've done that I think I will be able to get a better idea of the overall size of the continents, which will then give me the scale for the regional, area and local maps.

Any comments, ideas, etc. are welcome!

wisemoon

Here is the map, which has title, legend and compass rose finished. Now I just have to put a border on it and it will be done.

Any comments, suggestions, etc. are welcome!

So here is my final, finished map. I didn't like the compass rose in the previous version, so I made a new one. I labeled the rest of the towns, castles and ports, and added neat lines and a border treatment.

Will be posting the finished map in the Finished Maps thread.

Nice map. I don't particularly like the "bulky" mountains though, but that could be just me. Good work.