Aernemergenland - My first black-and-white regional fantasy map!

[Wired]

This is coming along quite nicely Wired! Great work so far.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Thank you!

Strange, some things you only see once the image has been exported from Photoshop. The gras symbols looked relatively fine in PS, but here they look too large and (a bit) too strong. Anybody else seeing this? Should I go with a smaller brush size and, say, 30% less opacity?

[jshoer]

Great! Now that you've established a lot more line art, I'm thinking again about the mountains. The smooth shading doesn't quite match stylistically with the other elements.

Those inset elements really add a lot to the feel of this map!

[Wired]

Great! Now that you've established a lot more line art, I'm thinking again about the mountains. The smooth shading doesn't quite match stylistically with the other elements.

Those inset elements really add a lot to the feel of this map!

Thanks!

I'll try a different layer with simple hard brush strokes for the shading, then we can compare the two.

[Wired]

Pretty much done, except for the cities. I'll still try the different shading for the mountains tomorrow.

That being said, any ideas on how to make the gras look better?

[Ilanthar]

Very nice work Wired. I love the zoomed views. For the grass, I'd use a less dispersed pattern of three little strands maybe.

[Wired]

Okay, this should be more or less the end result.

I added all the names, added borders and roads, added some manual shading to the mountains while reducing the blurred shading there, and I followed Ilanthar's advice regarding the grass. I know The Far Greens look comparably empty, but that is because pretty much everything north of the Auldenweald, east of the Old Blight and beginning with the Quiet Marshes is terra incognita, with travel and adventure reports of daring men and women the only source of information on even the most general features out there.

[jshoer]

Spiffy!

[Diamond]

I've gotta say, I love everything about this map... except the borders.