That's a very nice looking image. The hilly bits are great but my eye keeps wanting to apply some sort of hand-drawn, quasi-ISO pattern fill for the forest...draw up a rather large forest full of trees and cut up some chunks to make a pattern out of. Then you can reuse over and over and erase the edges of the shape to fit the trees...or just make it into a brush instead of a pattern.
My 2 bits.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
I agree that a little more detail in the forest wouldn't go amiss, however it really depends on what scale you are going to read the map at.
I'd recommend playing with blending modes to integrate the colours into the map. I generally duplicate every colour layer. The bottom of the two layers is set to overlay. The upper layer is normal at 50% opacity. I do this for outline lines too. It helps with the hand-drawn watercolour feel.
Looking great - and that is a very nice parchment background.
Originally Posted by Ascension
Thanks guys. At this point, I don't want to get into individual drawn trees, perhaps for another project. And I want to be careful to not use textures that make this say "this is computer generated". This all started when I created a selection, stroked it, and then ran a displacement filter on during lunch. I liked the look of the line so darn much (the smudge, the variable thickness, etc) that I threw some color into it to make a forest canopy. Then you guys gave me some advice, so I dropped down some mountains (and will be adding more). Then everyone said the canvas was too over-powering and I had been wanting to do an old paper style map, soooooo...... here it is.
I plan to bring the mountains up most of the side of the forest and.... I have no idea from there... Perhaps make a second mountain chain below the first with a largish pass between the two... I will also play around with some textures to see if I can get something a bit more tree-like without messing up the feel I think I am heading toward.
My Finished Maps
Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
My Tutorials:
Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
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Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Well its looking great for something that started out as a lunch time doodle! definitely interested to see where this goes to.
On a side note, I'd be worried for anyone that did a google search for the tag you placed on this thread. Pulp fiction has a lot to answer for.
Thanks!! I am sure you know that I am interested in trying your mapping style, so after I put in the color, I wanted to figure out a quick way to get some (for lack of a better word) "lines" into it. So I stroked the outline with high jitter and the confetti brush(followed by displace)... as you can see... I don't like that anymore. Question I have for you.... do you manually create all those little squiggly lines when you do your forest or is there a trick I am missing out on?
My Finished Maps
Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
My Tutorials:
Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
----------------------------------------------------------
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
I manually put in the squiggly lines I am afraid. No trick to those maps, just time with a pen. However as long as you have a pen and a few minutes, it doesn't take too long to put them in.
Small (hugh time wise) update....Not sure where I want to go next after adding in some mountains.... suggestions?
My Finished Maps
Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
My Tutorials:
Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
----------------------------------------------------------
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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