WIP: The Dragonspine Region

[Simon33600]

A player of mine asked me a few weeks ago to start a second campaign and, foolishly, I accepted...
What I have in mind is a mixture of Skyrim and A song of fire and ice, coming together to make little copyright infringement babies, a land with pseudo-vikings, dragons and frost-rimmed undead stirring backs from their long slumber...

Anyway, I took a step back from my usual tactical battlemaps and started mapping the region tonight, and here is where I am at:

DragonSpine Region.png


Clearly, my mountaintops need a lot of work. They are all flat and boring right now...
The ground is also a bit homogenous, I guess I'll need to get myself a icy texture...
My shore could also use some detailling, tiny hooks and coves, I guess...


It's a lot of work, and something I have essentially no previous experience to speak off... so advices will be most welcome...

[Simon33600]

So, I was quite unhappy with the results and decided to basically start from scratch (although, I did use the previous map as a guideline as the general layout was not too terrible...

DragonSpine Region.png

I think I need to redraw the rivers basically from scratch and it's still not very good; but I think it might end up a serviceable map...


Clearly not something I have any expertise or talent with...

[Midgardsormr]

You do have some good things going here, but there is quite a lot that needs some work. First, let's talk mountains. Right now, it looks like you have worms crawling around under your map; you need to get those bevels under control! As you mentioned with the first map, you have a problem with the peaks: very steep sides and flat tops, when what you want is pointier peaks. Now, either you're beveling a very thick line, or your bevel is so strong that the tops of the mountains are getting clipped off because the peaks are taller than the bevel algorithm can handle (or you did something else that hasn't occurred to me). The first thing I suggest you try is to adjust the bevel settings much lower to see if you can get the peaks back. Failing that, I'll need to know more about how you got to where you are.

Are you following a tutorial for this? If so, which one? And are you using Gimp? It looks like it, but I could be mistaken.

Okay, on to the good: Your high-frequency coastal detail is pretty good, as is the low frequency. You just need to add a little bit of jiggle in between to get those hooks and coves you spoke of. The color palette is also pleasing. It's fairly standard, which is a good place to start. The textures you've chosen are also pretty good, although you'll want to watch out for edges in your water texture. I can see a vertical line in the middle of the bay; it shouldn't be difficult to correct with a soft patch from another portion of the water texture.

[Simon33600]

Now, either you're beveling a very thick line, or your bevel is so strong that the tops of the mountains are getting clipped off because the peaks are taller than the bevel algorithm can handle (or you did something else that hasn't occurred to me)

Yeah; both actually.
What I did is to select my peaks and fill the same space with white, then gaussian blurred it to use for my embossing.
I actually did it several times to try to get a gradual thickening of the foothills.

Not really a success.

I went back and tried to use a blured version of my peaks to push against.

DragonSpine Region.png

I also went ahead and fixed the line in the ocean, that was easier.