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Thread: Highthrall Cityship

  1. #1
    Guild Apprentice Janden's Avatar
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    Wip Highthrall Cityship (Metropolis)

    So I've made a few excellent city maps by completely wiping old city maps (Dublin, Berlin, etc.) and adding my own names to it. This is my first attempt at doing a city map from scratch, and I'll be sharing the process with you here. If it turns out awesome, then perhaps I'll do another one with a tutorial. At any rate, here is the first portion, which consists of the background and the coastline.

    highthrall-1.jpg
    Last edited by Janden; 06-16-2012 at 04:59 PM.

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    What is that last grey bar on the coast line? At first I thought it was a wall but it's a little irregular to be a city wall.

  3. #3
    Guild Apprentice Janden's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by angellus00 View Post
    What is that last grey bar on the coast line? At first I thought it was a wall but it's a little irregular to be a city wall.
    Yeah, the innermost wall is just the coast. It's thicker because I wanted to be able to see it better when zoomed all the way out. The image is about 5000px wide at full size. The straight parts along the shore are docks and such.

  4. #4
    Guild Apprentice Janden's Avatar
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    Wip

    So I changed the coastline to make it more simple and easier to see, then added some gradients to the ocean, plus a river. My next step is to add roads. I'll start with the larger ones that seem to have no purpose, as cities tend to come from settlements, and the first roads are usually built out of convenience or with specific terrain considerations. The planned roads are built after those, so that's how I will add them to the map.

    highthrall-2.jpg
    Last edited by Janden; 06-16-2012 at 03:49 AM.

  5. #5
    Guild Apprentice Janden's Avatar
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    Wip

    This is the last minor update I will post, I just wanted to show the progress of how I do the roads before I show a version with all the roads in there. Once I finish the roads I will go through and add buildings and landmarks and such.

    highthrall-3.jpg

    I did the first of the smaller roads with the pencil tool because I can use the SHIFT key to go through and put them in really fast. The major roads that I did (the large black ones) I used the line tool and just warped them to get the curves (because I hate the pen tool). After that, that district you see on the bottom there was done with the pencil tool until I discovered the line tool was much faster and it looks better. I also added the bridges on there, which I used the polygonal lasso tool.
    Last edited by Janden; 06-16-2012 at 03:49 AM.

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    How large is this map? If the river is to scale, and if it is a significant river, then the city will be enormous.
    Last edited by feanaaro; 06-16-2012 at 01:47 PM.

  7. #7
    Guild Apprentice Janden's Avatar
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    Wip

    The full-size version is 5000px wide. I haven't decided on the scale, yet, but yeah, the city is going to be enormous.

    *EDIT* - I mistakenly saved it while it was reduced to a size of 1800px wide (so I can save snapshots of the progress) and I made too many small changes while it was at the smaller size to undo back to where it was high resolution at 5000px. This is actually the second time I have done that, one other time was with another humongous map. So looks like I'll be working from a smaller size from here on out.

    highthrall-4.jpg

  8. #8
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Blaidd Drwg's Avatar
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    This is looking hugely ambitious and pretty. Keep it up!

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    Guild Member Thesslian's Avatar
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    I saw cityship and was expecting a city on a big ship. Guess I will note that down as things I will have to make. Map looks nice so far.

  10. #10
    Guild Apprentice Janden's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thesslian View Post
    I saw cityship and was expecting a city on a big ship. Guess I will note that down as things I will have to make. Map looks nice so far.
    Oh. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that, yet. That would be a cool project. I use the word Cityship in all my books because I just think it's cool. And obviously this is larger than a township, haha.

    And thanks for all the kind words, guys, I'm actually having a lot of fun with this particular one.

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