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Thread: [WIP] World of Flammarion: The Known World

  1. #1
    Guild Journeyer Guild Sponsor Klaus van der Kroft's Avatar
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    Default [WIP] Flammarion: The Known World

    (I'm not sure if I should keep all my related maps in the same topic or use different ones when they are parallel works. If I should join them up, just give me a heads-up and I'll delete the topic, merge them together and spend some good minutes thinking about what I've done!)

    Hello again!

    Some weeks ago, I made a map for a new setting I'm working on (directly related with this one: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...he-Holy-Empire). Initially it was supposed to be a quick thing intended for a roleplaying campaign I'm currently running, but as ideas started to pile up, I started thinking about making a more detailed version.

    So today I had some spare hours and pressed the "Image Size: 500%" button and started working on it.

    It is still on a very early stage, and I have to admit I'm really new at making properly detailed maps on Photoshop, so any advise or criticism is more than welcomed.



    (click on the image to download the full map. 5mb)

    So far I got the landmasses and some labbels for islands and some important water bodies. The plan is to use an abstract symbology for the features (such as drawing the mountains and key landmarks rather than using a more realistic look), although I'm not sure what would a proper balance be to avoid the map becoming too overloaded/hard to read. Should I draw only the larger features (mountains, hills, forests, etc) and leave stuff such as towns as symbols (dots, stars, etc), or would it be proper to draw some important towns as miniature icons (tiny castles and such) while leaving less important ones as tiny dots? I'm torn between trying to do a very detailed map in terms of information (with every single location labbeled and marked) and testing my hand at doing something more artistic.

    What's your opinion?

    Thanks beforehand for taking your time to check the map!

    Latest Updated Version:

    Attachment 55753

    Attachment 55754
    Last edited by Klaus van der Kroft; 06-29-2013 at 02:44 AM.

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    Guild Expert Eilathen's Avatar
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    I like your continent shape a lot. And i for one am more for "towns as symbols" but i definitely want to see where the mountains, forests and rivers go etc. . Be that as it may, i am very much looking forward to what you will come up with.
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    Guild Apprentice miinstrel's Avatar
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    The continent does look nice. I think it depends on how many forests, mountains, etc there are in this region. If those are only going to cover 50% of the map then sure, go ahead and hand draw all the towns. Personally I would probably draw at least the larger cities as castles or something else to denote their prominence.

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    Professional Artist cereth's Avatar
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    Those are some nice landmasses you have there. (Hey, that would make a good pickup line )

    Seriously though, I like the colors and the shape of the continent so far.
    "Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government."

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    Guild Journeyer Guild Sponsor Klaus van der Kroft's Avatar
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    Thanks for all the kind words. Much appreciated!

    I just finished a climate overlay, intended to assist in the future drawing (since a lot of the world is yet to be developed!). I'm not very knowledgeable in weather patterns and such, so any help on improving it is more than welcomed.

    The reason the climates run from left to right rather than up and down is because the world is flat and the sun is a burning disk being hauled by flaming titans. It used to traverse the sky across the diametre of the world, but after an ancient civilization attempted to catch it and accidentally dropped one of the titans onto the ground, the sun changed its course and now runs sort of tangentially across the right side of the map. Hope it ended up reasonably adapted!

    You can click on the map to download the full-size version.




    Quote Originally Posted by cereth View Post
    Those are some nice landmasses you have there. (Hey, that would make a good pickup line )
    Let's get some subduction going on your tectonic plates, honk honk! <Gets thoroughly slapped>

  6. #6
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    Nothing like a little tectonic innuendo to drag a conversation into the gutter!

    Love the shape detail of the landmass and look forward to the future on this project. I torment myself with climate so I'm of little help in this case, LOL.

  7. #7
    Guild Journeyer Guild Sponsor Klaus van der Kroft's Avatar
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    Thank you very much, Veldehar.

    Please accept my apologies for the slow updates. It has been a crazy time at work (although of the good kind of crazy), and not having a fixed work schedule means *all* my hours are work schedule.

    I'll hopefully get some progress done this weekend!

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    Community Leader Lukc's Avatar
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    It looks good, and shaping up well. I'd just mention that I don't think the capital K's on your font are very well kerned and would benefit from some manual manipulation. Cough cough.

  9. #9
    Guild Journeyer Guild Sponsor Klaus van der Kroft's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lukc View Post
    It looks good, and shaping up well. I'd just mention that I don't think the capital K's on your font are very well kerned and would benefit from some manual manipulation. Cough cough.
    I am but a man, and such understanding escapes me!

    How do I fix that? (the font is not of my authoring by the way. The name is Blackadder ITC).

  10. #10
    Community Leader Lukc's Avatar
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    Well ... fixing the font is hard. Fortunately fixing the individual instances is a bit easier. The problem is with the font itself. "kerning" is basically the spacing of the individual glyphs and the capital "K" glyph has a long, descending right leg, which leaves an empty looking space between it and the next glyph. It would look far better if it was tucked closer to the next letter.

    For example, it looks like it says K_arganat and K_inshar.

    Unfortunately, aside from fiddling with the letter spacing settings in photoshop or gimp for the individual K glyphs, it's probably a waste of time worrying about it just for a map

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