Tirantia WIP

[Coyotemax]

As the title says, however I think I'm almost done. I was envisioning this as sort of a steampunk genre, it's too modern looking for full out fantasy, but not modern enough for today If I do that again, I'll likely find more appropriate art to toss in there.

Played around with Ascension's antique map tutorial (you're a total genius) but I wasn't nearly so faithful to the original style this time. It'll still be recognizeable, but after I went through word for word, I went back to change and tweak things once I understood how everything would work and the layers affect each other (mountains being the biggest difference - most of the mercator style maps i've been looking at have this style of mountain, so I went with it). I kept a few realworld antique maps at close hand to compare styles as I worked on them (I could come a lot closer to accuracy if I spent another week on this - but I have another project planned instead now that i've learned from this one)

I have to say, I have a whole new healthy respect for those of you who come up with hundreds of place names per map. That was probably the longest and most tedious aspect of this project, I was ready to give up and say "ok good enough" a few times

For the first time I have a serious complaint about PS7 - I can't get text to follow a path, that would have really helped with the rivers. Still, I've been able to replicate everything else I've come across just fine, so it's hard to justify the cost of upgrading for that one single feature

Any obvious glaring errors to be seen before i call it done?

[ravells]

Beautiful map. I find labelling in photoshop an absolute pain. Much easier to label the map in a vector program like inkscape (where you can create all the labels on one layer (or as many as you wish) and edit/move each label independently without having to lasoo them.

[silverhead]

Very, very nice. The antique map look is perfectly achieved. And the detail of the guy's portrait adds to it :-)

WRT hundreds of names, I guess a good random generator is helpful. I don't know if you've already used one; I would recommend http://direpress.bin.sh/tools/name.html, that generates both person and place names.

[Steel General]

Fantastic job!

I'd rep you, but it seems I need to spread some more love around first.

[Coyotemax]

Thanks for the positive feedback! I have noticed 2 things that need to be fixed though, the grid lines through the drawings need to be removed, and there's one river that looks like it goes over a hill

I played with some random name generators, but I spent more time trying to get the names to feel right than i did just making them up as I go. I used a few basic conventions, most towns are named after geographic features or primary industry, and some after founders, etc. plus a good smattering of obscure and foreign ones. i think I got a typical cross section in there this time around, though I imagine it could get to the point where I just start copy/pasting random words

Ascension's tutorials make mapmaking easy

I think i'm getting closer to developing my own style though. Plus I'm starting to develop a good selection of saved gradients and brushes

[Karro]

Man, that's a pretty cool looking map. I like the very subtle colors and the slightly worn look.

[Ascension]

Fantastic stuff, man. Emeril would be proud for you "kicking it up a notch" and so am I. The countries are subtle and I like that and the ocean has some subtle color as well. The grunge-ing looks fab too. Love that Sea of Gojira...rawr. Need a sea of Moths and maybe a Port Ultraman Keep up the great work. I, too, have to spread some love before bonking you again.

[Gandwarf]

Excellent map. You can be proud of it.
Repped!

[someguy]

I love this map. It looks great.

[Coyotemax]

Thanks for the great comments.. I suppose I'll call it done then

(I seriously couldn't have done this as well without the kind of feedback i've gotten on previous maps too, so thanks to everyone on the site, ya'll are the greatest)