October/November Lite Challenge: The Fraternal Twins

[Neyjour]

The Fraternal Twins (unnamed at the moment ) are a once-lush mountaintop plateau that was split and decimated by powerful magics. A thin connection still remains, but the magics that ripped them apart also altered and shaped their characteristics, creating two environments that are still essentially similar, yet also significantly divergent.

I knew I wanted to make a dual-environment map (sandy desert / rocky barren), but I needed a break from my usual battlemaps (and I especially did not want to make a really large one, either), so this is what I came up with instead.

Next up is adding elements and details/textures. In case anyone is wondering, there will be a cave entrance/exit for each one, connecting to an entrance/exit below. I also need to fix the border, and I want to redo the river as well. And I need to come up with names for them...but I'm feeling a bit brain-dead right now.

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[Bogie]

Love the rock / sand textures, great work!

Welcome to the Challenge!

[Neyjour]

Thanks Bogie!

[Psylence]

Very nice looking! I really like the duality of it all. I really like the detail and texture on the ground! I gotta ask, how do you do that? Is it a ground texture that you're using? By hand? Or what? Because it looks quite good.

[Neyjour]

Thanks Psylence! The "mountains" are cliff photo textures (from CGTextures) that I've just miniaturized to act as mountains. The ground texture on both of them is one of my own photo textures (of soil in our yard) that I turned into a seamless texture. I made them into a freebie pack that you can download here: Sandy Soil

I worked on this some more this evening; added/changed textures, fiddled with the border colour a bit (but still haven't fixed it yet), got rid of an extra drop shadow I'd accidentally applied to the right-hand map (I was wondering why it looked so much darker than the other!), bumped up the opacity of the textures underneath each map and did the same for the trees along the river, did some small adjustments to the overall colouring of each map, tweaked the colour of the title banners, added a few objects/elements, started testing out a few labels, and started testing out where I want my roads to go. I think that's it...LOL!

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[Psylence]

I know that feeling. Every time I think about my submission, and consider doing a bit of work on it, I have to stop and think "Some work? No... It's never that little."

Nice changes! I was curious how you would get into that area, now I see a tunnel. Very cool. I dunno if I like the sand as much though. To be honest, I think I liked it looking a little more Barren a little less Desert, but that's just my $.02 Definitely coming along nicely though I really like the work you did on the twin tombs, but also(and my more favorite) that small alcove to the south west of the entrance tunnel with the scratches/steps on the ground. Which are they by the way? Steps or scratches, I could see it as either. If it's scratches, they kinda look like they came from the boulder that they end at, if they're steps, I think you might need a little highlight or something more to sell their depth(again, just my two cents).

[EricPoehlsen]

Interesting piece, I'm curious to how it will come out in the end ...

[Neyjour]

Psylence - Thanks very much. The entire ground area won't all be sand! I usually start out with a simple base texture, and then begin adding others as I add the objects/elements. And yeah, that little area is supposed to have steps! I feathered the edges too much and didn't use a large enough drop shadow. That's why it came out looking a bit...odd. It's fixed now, and looking all sinister and spooky (or at least, I hope so).

Eric - Thank you.

Okay...more ground texturing and objects/elements. I've done the roads, although I'm not sure if the cobbles might be a bit too large? And more work on the labels. I'll probably add a couple more objects, but for the most part, this one is done.

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[Neyjour]

Halfway done now.

Revised the roads, fixed the border, added more objects/elements, and finally named them both thanks to a fantasy name generator that has mirrored twin names.

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[foremost]

Looking good! I especially like how you did the tower of the voice.

Are these supposed to be elevated mesas, or just zoomed in pictures of the land on both sides of the river?