Assault on Trenth. City and surroundings

[Dain]

Hi guys,
I've started to map a city for a HARP adventure of a friend of mine.
First time I do such a thing digitally and with colour, so it's very time consuming. Still trying to figure out how to do things.

I've got a basic idea of what I want, but nothing written on stone. If you find something definitely wrong or that can be improved, please comment
You'll find a basic B/W sketch of where I'm heading and the beginning in colour.

There's one tricky question I'm thinking all the time. How do you choose the scale of the map? Do you follow a guide when starting a map?
When I started, I used specific settings to match a A4 good print (300ppi, 3508x2480 resol). The thing is that everything is quite small and wonder what will that be once printed.
I know that sometimes, the scale doesn't apply on buildings, but on lands, just because it make the buildings pop up and easier to see/ identify.
Do you guys calculate something prior to draw anything?

Cheers

[tilt]

Hi Dain, looks like a good beginning you got there... and lot of work left too. The land seems to be hoovering over the river so I would remove the drop shadow. Concerning scale, its always a question of the region size - take a real life example and use that for comparison. If an A4 printer is what your have access to, then there is no need to go bigger than you did (unless you wanna print on several pieces of paper). When I choose the scale for my Mountain Realms I was thinking about how long it should take to travel from one side of the map to the other - and then calculated backwards with 50 miles/day on horseback as a scale. In the city Breakwater I'm working on now I began with one scale - then after having placed a lot of buildings - I scaled down, and now I'm thinking about scaling down some more... I'm concidering how big my houses are and recalculating after that.
So scale is always tricky, and you are allowed to cheat - and if a player calls you on it - SMITE HIM! *lol*

[Dain]

Hi guys,
Here is an update of the map. I changed many things in terms of layer styles settings and hope it's for the best
I chose a big scale but I'm not really sure how to fill the north and west of the map. Don't want to add too much forests and open ground would be boring. Any ideas?

Comments are welcome, as usual

[ravells]

That's looking really good. The hedges might be a bit big, but perhaps they've been drawn big because they are important in some way? I have to say though, that I think your original hand drawn map rocks, it's got a vibrancy and character to it which is very hard to reproduce with digital maps.

[tilt]

very nice.. .I'm with ravs on the hedges/thin treelines - they are rather thick if you compare them to a house. Out here where I live in the almost country there usually is a single line of trees between fields (if any) - and they often stand far enough from each other that farm equipment can pass without problems. Sometime you can have a road there instead

[Dain]

Looks fantastic!

Thanks, I try to push myself as hard as I can. Let's hope you'll think the same once the map is really finished

Looking awesome, dude. Maybe too much wave on the river? And, we want docks!
M

Thanks mate,
Yeah, a lot ripples on this water ... must be very windy around there, not good for holidays
I'll try to modify the weather

[mearrin69]

Wow. I'm really digging your fields. The houses are a little colorful, but I don't think it detracts too much - might knock them back to see how it looks. Agree with Ravells: I love your hand-drawn map. Fancy digital maps are pretty and all but a little RPG map scrawled grid paper...or a napkin...always takes me back.

Not opposed to the huge hedgerows either. Check out the hedgrow insanity that took place during WWII. I reckon those hedges were pretty thick...believe even the tanks had trouble getting through them (though that may have been ditches too). This is going to look pretty sweet when done.
M

[Ascension]

You always come up with something cool and new so I'm sure this one will kick as much as the others.

[Jaxilon]

Hey this is great. Those fields look so sweet. I'll have to remember to check this again whenever I get around to creating some myself. I like what you are doing. Sorry, nothing to add other than that for now.

[Dain]

Another update, I'm getting closer to the final version now.

Thanks to the advice of mearrin, the weather has been changed and we have a far less windy region. No more ripples since they used to bring shiny/ glossy effects that didn't match well with the rest of the map, more .. let's say matt. I believe it has now a lot of contrast and gives ideas of depth when you look at them at 1:1 scale. Yet, I'll probably do something more about them, not sure what though.
The city is there now and houses follow reliefs rather than a more classical modern pattern. Despite they are all square based (a basic brush) I like them. I just try to refrain myself redoing the entire city with rectangle brushes. What do you think?
I've also done docks (don't pay too much attention at the texture, it's temporary) and 1 "barely OK" ships. I'll add some more along the piers and sailing, hopefully with a better aspect.

Is till need to work on the cast shadow of the cliffs and some small things here and there
Hope you'll like it.