Yet Another Middle Earth

[Steel General]

The forests are definitely look better to me.

I think my issue with the mountains now is that the highlights are very bright. You might consider lowering the opacity or maybe using a different color... food for thought

[Gidde]

I'm starting to see a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel on this one. Did most of the labels (Mordor labels have to wait for later for final polish), and lowered the opacity of the hard light bump layer a bit on the mountains. Does that look better? I'm trying really hard to resist the urge to redo the mountains yet again. >.<

Anyway, still to do:

-- Blacken the Plateau of Gorgoroth and add lava
-- Swamp textures
-- Roads and the path of the fellowship
-- Border/Compass/Cartouche

I'll probably also touch up the sea layer a bit, the surf doesn't look right to me.

[Ascension]

The labels really make that pop.

[Gidde]

Thanks

Blackened Mordor, and since that was so much fun I decided to do some hand shading of all of the mountains. Added the roads as well, and the compass.

Still to do: Lava, Swamps, Border, Cartouche, and symbols for towns/ruins/etc.

[Ramah]

You also added shadows in your forests and they really look the better for it too. I really like your trees now. The mountains pop out more too which is cool.

As Ascension said, the labels really make this map come alive. I've been watching your WIP on this and wondering where you were going to go with it and I can finally see something of your vision I think. It's looking really good.

The only thing I'm still not sure about personally is the palette. I'm not sure I like that green you have for the land. That's just me though.

Looking good.

[Gidde]

Thanks! I forgot to mention the forest shadows

The palette was chosen to complement Mom's wall paint, so not much can be done about it ... but I may do a color adjust of the whole thing and save a second version for viewing on a screen.

[Gidde]

Well, I believe this is actually finished.

I decided to forgo the lava (because I just can't get it to look right) and the border (since it will be matted and framed anyhow).

Any last suggestions before I move it over to the finished area?

Edit: It looked silly with the blank space where the dedication is, so I decided to upload the version with the dedication on it. It's silly and mushy, but it's also in elvish, so no harm done

Edit 2: Closing out the WIP thread and posting in the Finished Maps forum.

[Lathorien]

how did you burn the rivers into the ground? I know in photoshop to use a bevel but I haven't figured out how to do it in GIMP. Nice to see another GIMP mapper keep pushing what can be expected from the program (for mapping) instead of switching to Photoshop and using Ascension's or Pasis's tutorial.

[Gidde]

Thanks!

I made a channel of the landmass with the rivers cut out (so that they're black on the white land) and then put a bump-mapped overlay on the land layer using that channel. GIMP's bump mapping is the biggest reason I use it over photoshop. For some reason it's much easier for me to use than the lighting effects in PS.

[Lathorien]

*face palm*

omg so simple, can't cut the rivers down? raise the land around them...