Athenya, City of Hope and New Beginnings

[mearrin69]

Nice. Your outer buildings and fields look amazing. The inner buildings look a little out of scale with the rest however; and harsher because of the stark coloration. Only other comment is that the color noise you've added to the outer buildings could maybe be a bit finer...so there's not an even gradation over large sections of buildings. You might do it by adding another noise layer and erasing out parts of the two so that you get some variation. Looking forward to seeing this one progress. Yeah, it's huge. What's your population estimate?
M

edit: BTW, I love the "crop circle" thing you've got going on with the roads. Looks cool. Reminds me of the Inspired cities in Sarlona (home of the psionic dreamlands dudes in Eberron)

[simpfan1]

@tilt: I originally had a scale of 13 miles in mind, but Im not sure if it fits that scale anymore, and lord knows Im not redoing it to make it fit that :p

@mearrin: yeah, the inner blueish buildings have been giving me a lot of trouble. I just noticed that some of their angles are really choppy, so Ill probably redo them...again.

[simpfan1]

I think Im done.
I know there are flaws, but I think its a good enough representation to fit my needs.
After I have some experience and get a hang of the tricks, Ill probably come back and try to get the kinks worked out.
Now I just need to figure out how I want to go about labeling things...
right over the map? a key? hmm, didnt think this far ahead xD

any ideas?

[LonewandererD]

Holy crap, now thats a city, a mighty fine city! I'd give you rep now but I'll save it until the very end where you really deserve it . I smell a cartographer's choice...

-D-

[simpfan1]

A cartographers choice on my first city map would be like...amazing lol

[tilt]

that really depends on how many labels you need, every label takes up space and covers some map, so the more the "coverier" ... so if you need a lot, go for a key on the side. If you don't need a lot put them right in there - theres lots of space and since the buildings "look alike" then it doesn't matter some get covered up

[simpfan1]

Yeah thats what I was thinking, there arent too many places that need labels. Just a few specific buildings, each ring, and neighborhoods. Funny, in the RP I made this for, the largest city has the fewest places to see, but the smaller cities have the most.
is there any tutorials on borders? Like for around a map? If not I can try and make one myself or just leave it alone. Ive stared at this map for so many hours in a row now just fiddling with bevel/embossing, I dont know if I want to work out a border too xD

[tilt]

well all good maps have borders, scales and a compass rose
the border sort of finishes off the map ... but it doesn't have to be elaborate a simple line can do it ... but try looking around in the finished map section and see different types of borders - personally I'm rather satisfied with the one I made on my Mountain Realms map ... also like the "real" border on Immolates WoT map.

[Sharpe]

Nice. Your outer buildings and fields look amazing. The inner buildings look a little out of scale with the rest however; and harsher because of the stark coloration. Only other comment is that the color noise you've added to the outer buildings could maybe be a bit finer...so there's not an even gradation over large sections of buildings. You might do it by adding another noise layer and erasing out parts of the two so that you get some variation. Looking forward to seeing this one progress. Yeah, it's huge. What's your population estimate?
M

edit: BTW, I love the "crop circle" thing you've got going on with the roads. Looks cool. Reminds me of the Inspired cities in Sarlona (home of the psionic dreamlands dudes in Eberron)

I couldn't have said all that better myself!

[simpfan1]

Stealing compass now