Reply With QuoteGreat updates, the rivers are beginning to look pretty good.
Also, I have to agree that overall, stylistically, this map is looking great! Good luck!.
your map is looking pretty sweet...
and the rivers are getting better... though they still need a bit of work...
...but don't be discouraged. you have a unique and gorgeous style of map making that deserves much praise.
i did not really get how rivers worked until i read a lot of posts and advice on it here at the cartographers guild...
they start from little streams in the mountains... which join up to make the river wider... but once they join up, they do not split again...
attached is an example of what i am talking about...
good luck... your map is coming along great!
Last edited by philipstephen; 07-03-2009 at 09:07 AM.
Great updates, the rivers are beginning to look pretty good.
Also, I have to agree that overall, stylistically, this map is looking great! Good luck!.
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Will look into it and update as suggested!Originally Posted by philipstephen
your map is looking pretty sweet...
and the rivers are getting better... though they still need a bit of work...
...but don't be discouraged. you have a unique and gorgeous style of map making that deserves much praise.
i did not really get how rivers worked until i read a lot of posts and advice on it here at the cartographers guild...
they start from little streams in the mountains... which join up to make the river wider... but once they join up, they do not split again...
attached is an example of what i am talking about...
good luck... your map is coming along great!
thanks mate, i believe this is going to be the standard way i will do my maps for a while
Re rivers: Think of it this way. Rivers should be similar to trees. They start at the ocean/sea with a single trunk(unless there is a delta, but that's just a special tree formation). As you get further and further away from the base (the ocean), the tree splits into a few very large branches. Each of these splits into some medium branches and the medium branches split into tons of little tiny branches. These tiny branches, most of them anyway will start in the highlands or mountains and as they flow down (from the top of the tree to follow the analogy), they join larger branches until there is a single branch(the trunk) going to the water outlet.
Of course, this really depends on your scale and level of detail you want on your map, so you may not really put in 200 streams, but the general idea remains the same regardless. I typically like to put in between 3-8 streams/feeder rivers coming out of the mountains for each river that empties into a sea/ocean on most regional scales. With the apparent scale of your map, which appears to be 1000+ miles or more in size), I would stick to the low side and go with one main trunk and perhaps 2-4 tributaries joining into each of the trunks.
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i can try to do that, do you think i should scale down the size of the rivers n the map... they seem pretty big to me, what do you think?
I think on a map like this, with this sort of hand-drawn semi-isometric style, you're not going to get perfect accuracy with regards to the width of rivers and whatnot. So, I think it's perfectly in keeping with the style to have the rivers be a bit wide.
What I would think would help, though, is for the rivers to narrow a bit as they get closer to their sources. I don't know if this would be too hard, though.
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I agree with Karro, the river mouths are a nice width to compliment the style of the map. I see your using PS, do you have a tablet? I think the biggest issue I have is the style of the map vs the river sizes. ie, make the branches that feed the main rivers smaller in size either using a smaller brush or tablet pressure sensitivity. Since this is a really articstic style map though, I would not spend more than a few minutes tweaking the rivers, perhaps using no more than 3 brush sizes total (that includes the main river trunks you already have in place)
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 really like the look and feel of this hand drawn style. looks like you have the same issues i'm having with rivers!!!! rivers rivers rivers.....
i've started playing around with tributaries and river widths. i'll let you know what the community thinks. if i get any tips, i'll send em your way
Marc
like this? didnt do all the rivers... just giving it a test drive...
Yeah, those rivers are great.
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