Thread: Almasy Tactics - Worldmap - WIP

Very nice. Curious when your sketching, do you keep your left hand on the cntrl-z and undo a lot? Or, those mountains for instance, are those just quickly sketched? Do you ever have a hard time with keeping the perspective natural looking? I love your work D, I'm striving to be that good. Thanks for sharing this!

That's really great work. I love the oversized elements like the mouth in the sea. Fun to see how you build it up too. I always do the line art first and then colour later, but I like the colouring first and then working in the lines. I guess you've done the lines for the coast first and then used that as a selection/mask?

Look great so far. Did the developers just hand you a map of all the areas and their links to each other, or did they already have a basic map in mind?

That is really great. I'm with Torstan on the question of the order in which you do things: Do you start with lines or color? I've been going lines but maybe that's just because if I want to draw anything good I have to do it on paper and then scan it. Might change once I get a tablet some year

wow thanks guys ... euh questions... ok I try give some anwsers
- for this one i got a rather detailled map where landmass and terrain types were already placed.
- i used the provided map for the main shape that i did a small perspective projection on it (I loaded it in sketchup and changed angle until I had something with ok composition and still showing everything. I rather had some more perspective but the map ddint have the right shape for that so this was as far as I could go. Then I added some basic cubes so I get an idea on how perspective behaves all over the map (both in size and angles). I put that skethup model in a reference layer in PS to use when I'm lost in perspective
- I then create a layer called landshape (tracing the reference) and on a colors layer i put basic colors as a reference to the terrain that is needed.
- I first create a testlayer on which i do little sketches of things i want in and see it they are usable. if i have some components the way i want it, then i start drawing in on the actual line-layer.
- from there i basically start 2 streams... 1) linedrawing (on a new layer) and 2) value + landcolor + sea-color (on 3 separate layers). The land-color + value layers are clipped on the landshape layer so I dont have to worry about mixing sea and landcolors. I draw and color in parallel because ... euh well... I think sometimes things that look good in B&W look bad in color... but mainly because i like to change between repetitive tasks and want to keep in tough with the final product
- when I draw lines (usually rounded brush with 100% flow/opacity) i have my pencil in my right hand (cause am righthanded and have the button the pencil set to eraser (so i rarely use ctrl-z, but basically draw, erase, draw erase etc until a line is ok)
- my left hand switches between the zoon-control on the wacom and the bracket keys (brush-size) on the keyboard (i zoom in/out a LOT to check if perspective and size is all-right. usually every 30 seconds or so i just zoom-out and stare for 10-15 seconds to the overal picture before i get back into details). I use a lot of differernt line-sizes (although my wacom is pressure sensitive and i also use that for line-width)
- when sketching each line is placed, and replaced until i got it right. some lines have been drawn over 10 times while others are right the first time i place them... some are still not right but yo got to stop at some point I guess

ok, loads of text, i guess we all do things we are used to and there's no best way ... i hope this is of any help to anyone
Cheers!

That's fascinating, DJ, thanks for posting a bit of your process. The map looks fantastic, I'm sure your clients will be thrilled

I love the tip on using Sketchup to check your perspective. I'm currently planning a iso dungeon for the lite challenge but didn't think of that. It's all eyeball which as you know, can get out of whack at times...next time I'll try your idea.

Thanks explaining your workflow, I think it helps those of us who are newer to digital art even though as you mentioned we all tend to stick with what we are used to. It's always good to be exposed to other ideas.

excellent tip about sketchup. I'm going to try to experiement some with that myself.

My wacom pencil buttons are set to brush size, and my left hand is on cntrl-z, E (eraser) and B (Brush). But I may try to set the pencil buttons to eraser since it seems that is what I toggle between most of all. You've got a great style - thanks for sharing those tips.

looks fantastic djespek - and thanks for posting about your work flow - always good to see/hear how people work.