Thread: Tannin-An Island Nation in Arnan WIP

I redid a lot of stuff after seeing a couple of maps thatcaught my eye. This is what I have now. I think it's a huge improvement myself. I still have most things to name and I really haven't decided what to do with the empty spaces between roads. BYW, this is a super religious area, made up of mostly abbys and monastaries, hence all the crosses adorned to the top of my building icons. The island is roughly 80 miles across at it's widest parts...I forgot to mention that up there...

Another update...I've labeled everything and finished up the empty space. The Vineyard factors in to the back story of this area, which I may or may not post when the map is finally finished. Anxious to know what you guys think.

I'm not really all that good with words (but I play one on tv) so instead of trying to describe what I'm thinking I decided to do what I do best...draw it. First, I just added some dots n dashes to the forest to liven it up, then I used a low opacity airbrush and added some shading and highlights. Second, I went and made the mtns bigger and shaded them. The problem with them is that they're spaced too far apart so instead of grouping them I just made em bigger by extending the slope lines. The other thing with them is the flat bottoms, I rounded them off. Next, I tweaked the water color to more blue instead of the slight lilac, then I added some wave lines and highlights in the river (forgot to go around the coast). Fourth, I covered up the rust fields (these are supposed to be vineyards and therefore green) and made some squiggly bushes, colored them in, then shaded and highlighted them. Last, I made simple brown lines for roads and, on a layer underneath, I went back with a fatter simple line black road to serve as an outline...using the tablet helped get the random fat and skinny parts. Making the black road fatter allows me to just draw one line instead of outlining the roads...I tried that but it looked dumb and took a long time. For the text I just added a fat stroke of the underlying green - keep it simple and non-obnoxious.

Oh wow man, that does liven it up a lot. I have a tablet as well, but it's def not one of the good ones (read I got it from Walmart for 30 bucks), so I don't have nearly the control over my strokes as you do, that or I just need to get better used to it. I really like the way the vineyards turned out, that's kind of how I envisioned them except that I couldn't think of how to pull it off. I also like the way you did the mountains and I have always thought something was a bit off with them, you did the trick on that as well. For the trees, I was trying to emulate the ones here, but again, was unable to really pull it off due to either my terrible tablet or drawing skills or quite possibly a combo of both. I will continue to work this map given the intruction you have given me as I think your changes make a huge difference. I appreciate the time you took to show me what it was you saw in my map, as I know that you didn't have to spend any time doing that at all...Again, much appreciated. Now let's see what I'll do with the "lesson"...lol

lol, I keep trying to scroll down on the screenie you posted...

Heh, yeah, I keep doin that, too I did it that way so you could see my layers, whether that helps or not, I dunno. The secret to shading is turning down the opacity in the brush (not the layer) and just go over it a bunch of times until it looks good. The secret for lines is learning how hard or light to push...oh and practice. The thing about tablets, no matter how good or bad they are, is just getting comfortable with it...took me forever and I still fight it at times and I'm just a hack compared to some of the tablet masters here. In the end we all end up forcing ourselves to learn it somehow. Coyotemax did everything with his (like playing solitaire n other non-drawing stuff), I made myself make a map start to finish with no mouse, Gamerprinter and Sapiento are so prolific that they had it under control in about an hour, Ramah is a cyborg so he's a natural, I think Torstan threw his mouse away, and Djekspek does everything with his (like comb his hair or drive his car or cook dinner). Kidding guys, love ya.

That map you posted is a great map, I don't know why it never got a Feature...maybe we should rate it and give it a boost. The forest has a pattern overlay of something (or possibly a bump map or low-height textured bevel) and a low opacity shadow. They are very slight but give it just a bit of "oomph" without being distracting. If you need any help, just ask, I'm sure someone can jump in anytime I'm not around.

I think I may have the style for the mountains down now, but there's no way I'll be able to do it on only one layer like you did. My shadows aren't coming out quite like yours, but I found that if I smudge and blur the shadows a little, it comes out near to yours...I'll post again when I have the whole range done.