New Haven

[Keedo]

Here's a slightly larger update to my map. This one is noticeably different. I was basically happy with the coastline and city wall, so I started playing with the water and land textures a bit. The water texture I made with GIMP using RobA's tutorials as a guide. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it is definitely better than the basic blues I had before. For the land, I simply made a copy of the coastline, moved all of the copy's nodes inward, changed the colors, and then blurred both coastlines to create a beach effect. Obviously, I have not done this to the islands yet, though I did blur their shores a bit. Let me know what you think.

[RobA]

Have you seen this thread on a canal city I started using Inkscape?

I can zip up what I have and attach it if you want to see how I approached things...

-Rob A>

[Keedo]

Thanks. I checked out the thread, and it's given me some ideas (especially for how I'll handle the harbors). You don't have to zip it up though. I prefer the trial and error approach. Though I definitely appreciate advice and suggestions. Your tutorials have helped me out immensely.

Here's my latest update. I added another layer of color to the coastline so that the shores of the river wouldn't look so "beachy". Also did some work on the terrain colors of the islands. I am not putting too much detail to the terrain just yet since the buildings will cover most of it up eventually. Also added roads to the islands and added a little forest made of Dridon's trees to the uppermost island. I'll probably tweak the forest some once I start adding buildings. In addition, I made the stone bridges and their guard towers larger so they'd be more noticeable.

[Midgardsormr]

The interior glow on the land looks quite nice. You may want to consider doing something similar in the sea to indicate shallower water, keeping in mind that those are deep-water harbours, of course.

I'm liking the seawalls, too; very nice touch. I am thinking there ought to be a lighthouse in or near this city.

[pyrandon]

Keedo, this is coming along wonderfully. I suggest you tone down (i.e., desaturate) all your colors a bit. I think the longer you keep them "neon" like this, the less you will be impressed with your wonderful efforts so far.

Keep it going! Keep posting!

[Keedo]

Yeah, it is a little bright. I am noticing especially that the stone bridges still don't stand out enough either because the terrain is too bright or the bridges themselves are too bright, or both. Eventually, I'll mess around with adding some texture to the walls and maybe a slight texture and/or shadow to the bridges to help them stand out. As for the terrain within the city, most of it will be swallowed up by the buildings. In its finished state, there will be very little noticeable terrain within the city walls except on the islands. It is meant to be a densely populated city with narrow streets and alleyways, especially in the southern section which will mostly be tightly packed apartment-style buildings and the kind of buildings (not sure the technical term) where they are built on top of other buildings sometimes to where there are maze-like pathways under and between them, but no real roads. There will also be some "suburb" villages outside the walls near the city gates. Well I think I'm starting to ramble. lol I'll probably post another update later tonight. I just got home from work.

[Keedo]

OK, here is my update for today. No major changes this time. Added some color layers to the western island to indicate where the hills on it will be. Also made the major roads for the southern and eastern sections. Put in two black shapes in the southern section to indicate a pair of chasms that were not filled in by the river after the earthquake (see my "Unofficial Map Challenge" thread in the Mapmaking Requests forum for details on that). I may combine them into one chasm later, and will of course add detail to them at some point so they are not just black shapes. I figure there were undoubtedly many smaller chasms created by the earthquake that were filled in with dirt during the reconstruction, but these two large ones were too deep and wide to be filled in, and they will also be connected to a ruined section of the sewer tunnels and my labyrinth of caverns (though those will not of course show up on this map).