Igosolti, Land of Many Mountains

Here's my latest mapping project, just trying out a whole bunch of techniques I picked up from surfing around this forum. The map was made with very little backstory in mind, just a bit of general creation legend. But I plan to develop on it a lot, so the names and countries are mostly just to showcase how they look.

My biggest peeve about it are the labels; they dominate waay to much in my opinion. But if I try lowering the opacity or removing the glow, they just can't be read. Very frustrating. Any tips/CC are appreciated. My second is that it is not nearly large enough a resolution (also a part of the label problem) - a mistake I will not be making again.

Made in Photoshop, btw.

Hey nice :)

I do agree with you on the labels, they're a bit big. Try playing with the blend option, or maybe give it a thin stroke and set the fill to 0 so that the words become like outlines of themselves. Have a play, have a fiddle and you might find a good look by mistake, happens to me all the time.

-D-

I like the general feel and look, its very nice :D I supose the color zones are diferent countries or empires, but maybe it's a bit saturated, at least for my tastes. Most of the map is has a color quite plain and the color zones are very highlighted. Maybe it's just a matter of adding a coulple more of countries to fill all the land portions.

The mountains and hills are very clean.

And for the labels... I like them. It's just there are so many of them! That's why I think they "dominate" the map. Try make them a little shorter or put less of them and I think it will be an imprivement.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Janherbergh

I like the general feel and look, its very nice :D I supose the color zones are diferent countries or empires, but maybe it's a bit saturated, at least for my tastes. Most of the map is has a color quite plain and the color zones are very highlighted. Maybe it's just a matter of adding a coulple more of countries to fill all the land portions.

The mountains and hills are very clean.

And for the labels... I like them. It's just there are so many of them! That's why I think they "dominate" the map. Try make them a little shorter or put less of them and I think it will be an imprivement.

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Well that's the thing, I prefer that everything that can have a name does, so most of my maps end up with way too many labels :P.

And I tried to make the colors as desaturated as possible without being dull - I guess I'll have to play around with the setting a bit more. I could just have black borders , but that's just so boring and then I couldn't color code the nation labels (which helps distinguish them). But I don't plan on filling the whole map with countries - in the basic outline of this world that I have in my head, non-human races don't have the same type of countries. So I don't know - is it too much to have those little patches of color?

I really like the overall look and feel of the map. Specifically I really like the colors and how they all interact...very nice.

When it comes to the labels, I think it is just a case off too much packed into too small a space. For a map this size, I think fewer labels would improve the overall map. If you were to make a larger map you could accomodate more labels, but as is I think the map is just too small for that many labels.