Thread: World Map WIP - Comments?

I can easily upgrade the border glow. I had intentionally turned it down to go more "safe and subdued" but honestly wasn't sure. Originally I had it about 20% darker. As for the empire name plates... how large would you go? Would your opinion be different if they were the only names to be on the map? I haven't decided if I am doing each province in the empires on this map or if that will wait for continent specific maps. I was thinking to just keep the world map at higher level and do just the empire names. I want them visible and readable but not distracting. Is it the size or the color that is distracting?

Again, thank you for the input. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

The final result is really good. Color borders glow are clear enough to understand it's about borders when you read the country names of the same colors...

I think you achieved a good result in this 2nd round map! Good work!

Originally Posted by Khaalis

I can easily upgrade the border glow. I had intentionally turned it down to go more "safe and subdued" but honestly wasn't sure. Originally I had it about 20% darker. As for the empire name plates... how large would you go? Would your opinion be different if they were the only names to be on the map? I haven't decided if I am doing each province in the empires on this map or if that will wait for continent specific maps. I was thinking to just keep the world map at higher level and do just the empire names. I want them visible and readable but not distracting. Is it the size or the color that is distracting?

Again, thank you for the input. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

I think darker might be better for what you are trying to achieve. Also if your planning on labeling this map the empire names being that large might be a good thing. It will differentiate between regions and cities.

Just my opinion... I think you should go a tad bit brighter with the borders. The purple, especially, on the west coast, seems to disappear. The country names seem a little too bright and large, and I think it takes attention away from the actual art you've done on the map, but if you are going to add more labels and city names, I think they could be okay. Beautiful map! I can't wait to see more of this.

Thank you for the comments. I have decided NOT to add any further empire data on the map for fear of defeating the purpose of the topographic style. I'll use a different style to map each nation and its divisions, cities, etc. With that said, I have made changes to the borders to make them stand out more and to empire name plates to make them stand out less. How do these changes work?

Also , here is the first shot at a region map for one of the empires. Thoughts?

I think you've got it with the empire borders and labels now. and your region map looks good as well although the color of the labels and the "hard" shadow feel a little out of place. All in all (and I'm repeating myself here ) This is a great piece.

Thanks jtougas. Do you have any specific recommendations for tweaking the name plates? Is the red too bright? Should I drop the shadowing altogether?

Also, do you have any recommendations on how to take a region from this map to use as the base for a new map? For instance, say I want to take a specific region to make it an entire map. Should I just drop a new layer, fill it with white, magic wand it and copy it into a new project?

Thanks again for all your support in this. Its made my first experience here much better than I expected it to be.

Originally Posted by Khaalis

Thanks jtougas. Do you have any specific recommendations for tweaking the name plates? Is the red too bright? Should I drop the shadowing altogether?

Also, do you have any recommendations on how to take a region from this map to use as the base for a new map? For instance, say I want to take a specific region to make it an entire map. Should I just drop a new layer, fill it with white, magic wand it and copy it into a new project?

Thanks again for all your support in this. Its made my first experience here much better than I expected it to be.

I think that the red name plates are fine but you might want to lower the opacity on the shadowing (or add a blur to the shadows to "soften" them a bit) If you can grab a chunk of the map with the "magic wand" tool that's how I would do it (it doesn't always like the anti-aliasing however) if you can do that and then re-size the new image you'd be well on your way.