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Thread: Westcrown - After-the-Fact WIP

  1. #1
    Professional Artist Ashenvale's Avatar
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    Wip Westcrown - After-the-Fact WIP

    Here's a retrospective WIP of a map of the region of the country Cheliax surrounding the City of Westcrown that I did for Paizo's Pathfinder Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils.

    This commission arose as a direct result of the proposed map of a fire shrine that I submitted to Paizo to illustrate my manuscript for my adventure "Beyond the Chain of Fire" in Pathfinder #23. I posted that map in the thread Azer Spire Shrine and Magma Chamber in the Finished Maps gallery. Wes Schneider, Managing Editor and friendly dude, liked the shrine/magma chamber map and, a couple days later, emailed to see if I could do a half-page regional map for Cheliax, Empire of Devils on a rush basis.

    The moral, I guess, is that we need to get our work in front of publishers any way we can, be professional and friendly, and then always, always be available and eager when they call.

    Wes emailed me a draft of the manuscript describing the local area and directed me to the Cheliax map on page 69 of Pathfinder Chronicles: Campaign Setting. The region of the Campaign Setting map that Wes wanted me to enlarge and explore is tiny, maybe an inch-and-a-half wide. The manuscript adds numerous locales and environmental features not on the Campaign Setting map.

    Wes didn't specify the style for the map, so I decided right away to create two maps showing him that I could work in multiple styles.

    The first thing I did was scan the tiny portion of the Campaign Setting map that Wes wanted me to enlarge (image 01 below). I opened the scan in Photoshop and used the Clone tool to paint out the tags (image 02). I used the Text tool to add my own tags, creating each on its own levels so that I could manipulate them later (03).

    All images that I post in this thread , except the first map immediately below, are copyright 2009 by Edward J. Reed, all rights reserved.
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    Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-06-2009 at 02:44 AM.

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    Wip

    Next, I repainted the land and water (on new layers) in my own colors using the brush tool (the first image below, file 04).

    In 05 (the scond image below), I changed the colors of the tags and arced some of them using the Create Warped Text tool that appears when working with the Horizontal Text Tool. I created a selection with the Lasso Tool marking the edges of the coastlines and river banks, saved it, and outlined these coastlines with Edit/Stroke. I blurred the stroke a tad so its edges didn't look overly sharp at turning points.

    I drew each roads with by drawing a selection with the Lasso Tool. I then smoothed harsh turns by clicking on Select/Modify/Smooth. I then stroked each road onto its own layer (Edit/Stroke), and blurred them slightly.

    I made some simple city and town markers using the Elliptical Marquee Tool, and drew a star on Egorian's marker. I created small arrows pointing to small but important landmarks using he Custom Shape Tool.

    (Tip for making arrows quickly: Create a new, empty layer. Make sure your Paths window is open (select Paths in the Window drop-down menu.) Click on the Custom Shape Tool in the toolbox. A drop-down window appears up top. It contains a handful of nifty shapes, including a couple arrows. Click on one, then click and drag your stylus/mouse across your image. It draws that shape as a new Work Path. At the bottom left of the Paths window is a small half-white/half-black circle icon. Put your cursor over this icon and it reads, "Fill path with foreground color." Pick a color and click that circle. Voila! Now left click on the new path in the Paths window and delete the path. The arrow now sits on its own layer. You can resize and orient it like any other image with the Edit/Transform feature, Sweet and fast.)
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    Wip

    I next played with the water. I copied the existing water level into a new file, expanded the new file's height and width with Image/Canvas Size to be about 25% taller and wider, and painted in more water to fill the new, empty ocean space. I filled the empty area where the land would be with my palest blue, so the whole picture plane was filled with color.

    I duplicated the layer. I then broadened the contrast with Image/Adjust/Brightness-Contrast. I then applied a filter using Filter/Distort/Ocean Ripple. I usually reserve the Ocean Ripple filter for larger scale maps like flooded buildings or dock wharves, but thought I'd see how it looked at the regional level. I found the result too dramatic, but copied it over and dropped it under the land layer in the original map file. The result is the first image below (06).

    I next clicked in the opacity box of the Layers Palette of my new, overly dramatic water layer and reduced the dramatic layer's opacity to 40%. This allows the unfiltered water layer below it to show through, reducing the visual effect of the Ocean Ripple swirls and the high contrast. I merged the two layers and blurred its sharpness down with Filter/Blur/Gausian Blur. This created the second image below (07).

    One could certainly argue that this result would feel more appropriate in a larger scale, more close-up map. But I liked it.
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    Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-06-2009 at 02:36 AM.

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    Looking excellent so far! And thanks for the mini-tutorial; as a PS sort-of-novice, you've already given me some valuable tips in just three posts.

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    Next, I attacked the land.

    I pushed back the edges of Barrowood with my Clone Tool, using one of the brushes from the bottom of my scoll-down library of brushes whose icon is a broken circle of dots. I used it at 50% opacity to leave some dark green bleed in the lighter green of the plains abutting the forest's borders.

    On a separate layerm I added color to the central swamps, "The Dhaenfens," with the Brushes tool using a similarly broken brush tip.

    I then duplicated my basic land colored layer, my forest layer, and my swamp layer. I merged them all into one new land layer,

    Next, I copied the new land layer into a new file. I then shrunk the file to 25% of its original scale with Image/Image size. I duplicated the land layer once, creating two identical layers.

    I then "texturized" each layer using Filter/Texture/Texturizer/Texturizer/Sandstone and/or Filter/Texture/Texturizer/Texturizer/Craquelure. I added the most texture to the bottom layer and the least to the top. I resized the image to be 400% larger (that is, back to its original scale) using Image/Image Size.

    I copied both of these textured layers and pasted both on top of the new land layer in my original file. I then erased much of the top, most textured layer using the Eraser Tool with a broken, spotty tipped Brush at 33% Obacity. I made several passes, erasing out some areas altogether, whie leaving some areas, like the swamp, fairly textured. I then did the same with the less-textured layer below. This left some areas highly textured, some less so, and some areas in which the underlying, smooth ground layer I'd started with showing through.

    Next, I created a new layer for hills. I used the Brush Tool at low opacity to add lighter and darker areas overlapping he brown of the hills. I copied this layer out and subjected it to a more limited version of the "texturizing" described above, then copied and pasted it back in the original file.

    The result is the first map below (image 0.
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    Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-06-2009 at 02:36 AM.

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    Wip

    I then followed similar techniques to add more hills to the eastern hills, more texture to the forest, and more contrast to the swamp.

    (I created the additional hills on a separarte layer than the existing hills. This proved wise. I ultimately decided the easter hills drew too much attention and delated that layer, as I'll show two posts dowm.)
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    Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-06-2009 at 02:36 AM.

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    I decided the heightened contrast and drama of the evolving map had begun overwhelming the tags. So I stroked them with black.

    Let me be more specific. I first duplicated all of the separate tag layers and then merged these new duplicate layers into a single layer combining all of the tags. I then clicked my Magic Wand Tool outside the tags area (thereby selecting everything EXCEPT the tags). I inverted the selection to select the tags instead of the empty space around them, using Select/Inverse. I chose black as my Foreground Color and stroked the selection (put a line around it) using Edit/Stroke. In the Stroke drop-down window, I set the width of my stroke as 3 px (if memory serves) and the Location as Outside, so that the Stroke function drew its 3-pixel-wide line outside the existing selection of letters.

    I'd now outlined my tags with black. But the outside edges of the black outline were clunky and sharp in places. So I decided to blur them as follows.

    I duplicated the merged tags layer with its new black stroke, and pasted the duplicate layer UNDERNEATH the existing merged tags layer with stroke. I blackened the letters and strokes on this lower layer. To do this, I used Image/Adjust/Hue-Saturation, and I pulled the Lightness slider all the way to the far left. I then blurred this layer with Filter/Gausian Blur. The soft, blurred edges of this lower level expanded out from underneath the original merged, stroked tag layer above it, seeming to soften the edges of the higher layer.

    I painted in the three waterfalls in white, using my Brush Tool. I built and added a rose compass (too complicated and dull to describe here). And I added more contrast to both the woods and swamp, eachon its own layer. Here's the result.
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    Wip

    As I stared at what I'd hoped was my final color version, I decided the hills on the eastern side of the river were too detailed, drawing too much focuse from other elements. So I deleted the layer adding the last measure of contrast and details to that area.

    And this became my final color version. But NOT my final version . . .
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    Wip

    So there's the first half of this project. But, as I mentioned, I hoped to use this project to demonstrate a bit of my flexibility as a cartographer. So I'd decided right away to produce a black-and-white (or sepia) version of the same map with a more hand-drawn feel.

    I worked on the B&W version (as I'll call it for the sake of convenience) at the same time as the color map, or maybe a step or two behind. After I'd warped the tags in the color version, I saved a version deleting all of the other elements and turned the white tags black, shifting their font to Parchment (which always feels like ancient, cracked lettering to me). I then used the saved selection of the coastline and river banks to stroke a black border separating land from water (see my tricks for stroking a smooth edge, above). I blackened and added the town markers and arrows, and hand drew in some trees for Barrowood.

    I created all of these B&W elements on their own, separate layers, and made all layers transparent so I could later add graphic elements on layers beneath them that would show through. (I've added a white layer below them here so you can see them.) Here's the result of this first series of steps.
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    Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-05-2009 at 10:30 PM.

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    Next, I added a layer below the words and lines already existing. In this layer, I used my saved selection demarking the water from land to select the water areas, and used Edit/Fill to fill the land area with black. Then I reduced the opacity of the black layer to 20%, using the Layer Palette to make the change.

    I then created the swamp's area with horizontal, opaque slashes with the Brush tool (on its own layer, of course!)
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    Last edited by Ashenvale; 09-06-2009 at 02:37 AM.

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