Tabletia

[Ascension]

Yep, I totally agree with the blockiness of the islands...it's mainly due to the small size of the overall image so only so much variation in the coastline can fit in. I learned a whole heckuva lot doing this and I'm probably going to do more like it just to see where it goes...of course they'll be bigger as well since this was intended to be just drawing practice. Oh. and the font is Tibetan Beefgarden.

[Ascension]

A new version just for me to practice the hand-drawn style, since I'm pretty weak at it. Hopefully my line work is more refined and my coloring more subtle. Very time consuming for me as I struggle and learn but anything worthwhile is supposed to be, right? Drew the continent with a 5-pixel hard round brush and everything else is a 2-pixel hard square (with shape dynamic of size jitter set to pen pressure). The woodcut I can't even remember...started with a pattern of black and white lines, rippled, winded, thresholded, and who knows what else.

[philipstephen]

i dig it.

there are some interesting features on some of those mountains you've got...

from a distance, the lines of them look strange, but zoomed in they are very sweet looking...

i am thinking that will take care of itself as more detail is added on other parts....

nice start!

[Ramah]

Looks great. I especially like the fire on the volcano.
And yes, your linework and colouring are great. Good stuff.

[Vorhees]

as always even when your just doodlein some thing great comes out lol nice work mate.

a Question what size tablet do you have im debating on getting one

[torstan]

Coming along nicely. The grasslands pattern and colours has come out beautifully, and I love the volcano. Perhaps a fade out for the smoke as it gets further away from the volcano? I really like the crevasse with cliffs on the main landmass, and the woodcut effect is great. Not sure it fits with the style of the rest of the image - if one bit's done with a woodcut surely all of it would be, but as this is an experimental map I think it's great.

My one comment would be that your mountain ranges are awfully straight Otherwise, coming along nicely. Why did you decide to use a square brush for the detailing?

[Ascension]

I have an old Intuous 2 seven by nine - since it works just fine and I'm not real heavy into using it I don't need anything bigger or newer. I make long lines and anything smaller would cramp me. I could work more zoomed out but I have a shaky hand and it shows so I work at 200% nearly all of the time. Mostly, I just do rivers and details with it. Plus, in my day job I make stained glass windows so I'm more used to working with big paper (2 feet by 4 feet is the smallest) and big lines. And thanks for the compliment

Well the soft rounds (in brush mode) come out very weak and I have to push really hard. The 3-pixel hard round often turns out to be too fat because I press pretty hard to begin with...but I use that and the 5-pixel hard round for rivers most of the time on other maps. Pencil mode with a .5 blur didn't look right to me either, nor a 1.0 blur (.2 looked okay). Anyway, since the hard 3 comes out too fat for me and the soft rounds are too light I had to find a 2-pixel hard something...all I have is a square. Straight up it comes out jaggy so turn on the size jitter set to pen pressure and I get something that I wanted. Basically it's more like a technical pencil than a standard pencil. If I were to work larger and then shrink the final down I'd probably go with the 3 or 5 hard round...very comfortable with those. But since I'm still learning this I haven't really gotten the touch and feel just yet.

As for the mountains, yeah I can't seem to get something more natural looking...mental block kind of thing so I'm waiting to hit my eureka moment there. I've done them 6 times over the past 3 days, trying different styles (and trying to avoid pre-made brushes in order to teach myself) but they all end up looking pretty much the same and killing 5 hours each...this style goes faster with a simple hatch. If I made them smaller then I could whip through them in an hour but those end up looking like my current hills. If I were to space them out it looks empty to me...still searching there.

The woodcut I have to agree as well, it would look great on an antique style, though. The smoke could use a fade for sure as well as some scatter at the top instead of being pointy - I was just so happy that I got something decent on first try that I didn't want to start tweaking and mess it up Of course, they don't really fit the style either but hopefully it will come together as I add the other areas of interest. I'm trying to create a simple hand-drawn style that I can adapt for adding color to make a painterly style. Much like my satellite style can be adapted to atlas and antique. Kill 2, or 3, birds with 1 stone kind of thing.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback guys. I'll keep pluggin away at it.

[torstan]

I see your point. I stick to a 5px hard round brush with pressure sensitivity for my lines. Not as sharp as your stuff but does the trick for me.

I think your mountains are coming along fine. Looking forward to seeing the next versions.

[Ramah]

I've done them 6 times over the past 3 days, trying different styles (and trying to avoid pre-made brushes in order to teach myself) but they all end up looking pretty much the same and killing 5 hours each...this style goes faster with a simple hatch. If I made them smaller then I could whip through them in an hour but those end up looking like my current hills. If I were to space them out it looks empty to me...still searching there.

I can certainly sympathise with you here. I thought I was the only one that could waste time in such massive amounts. Everyone else seems to whip out a map every third day or so. :S

[torstan]

Ascension, when you say you're looking to make the mountains realistic looking - are you talking about the layout or each mountain individually?

If it's each mountain individually then I'd suggest that you're trying to make them a little too triangular.

Here's some suggestions on shape and style that might be useful. Feel free to ignore though.

Mountains.jpg