That style looks really neat. I like the shape of the island you have, looks natural. Can't wait to see how this turns out!
This is one of the smaller islands from my Shattered Isles map, zoomed in. I'm going to try to do the detail map emulating the style of Nicholas de Fer's Martinique map from 1704. I'm attaching his map, as well as what I have so far, which is my zoomed-and-detailed coastline and the sea shadow around it.
I'm working totally in greyscale for now; I may color it later, but I'm not sure.
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
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My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
That style looks really neat. I like the shape of the island you have, looks natural. Can't wait to see how this turns out!
That's a fabulous map. If I can ever do mtns like that I may just wet myself. I'm afraid that I've got to cite him for that Iambette river - doing all sorts of funky stuff. Heh heh.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Gorgeous reference map and those mountains are just fantastic. Can't wait to see how you get on, Gidde!
@ BookOwl: Thanks! I think so too. All of this guy's maps are simply gorgeous, but a Google search will yield the following about him (paraphrased from I don't remember where): "Known for his beautiful, yet horribly inaccurate maps." haha.
@ Asc: I know! There are at least 2 pretty gross river violations here And yeah, I pretty much share the sentiment about the mountains. If I can do a rough approximation, I'll be happy
@ Ravells: Thanks! I can't wait either lol ... I was going to wait until the next challenge got announced in case I could kill two birds with one stone, but just couldn't wait. Guess I'll have to do two maps
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
I'm looking forwards to this.
Thanks, Naeddyr, hope I don't disappoint!
So, after 4 tries on the rivers, they still don't look like deFer's and I quite honestly hate them, but I'm moving forward for now because I just couldn't do rivers again yet. So instead I moved to mountains, and although these don't really look like his, I'm keeping them anyway, I think, because (imho) they look pretty stinkin' cool anyhow. Of course, I could also be suffering from stare-at-rivers-for-too-long brain drain, so if they actually look like crap, *please* tell me. After I did the first one and had a "holy crap, did I just do that?" moment (at which point my oh-so-loving husband looked over and said "did you draw that mountain?"), I drew a few more to make sure it wasn't a fluke, then decided I better post em for comment before I went nuts with 'em all over my map (this island is very mountainous).
//Edit: For the record, usually hubby is very supportive. It was just exceedingly ironic timing for that particular statement
Last edited by Gidde; 02-02-2011 at 09:05 PM.
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
Very nice Gidde! All 3 mountains look great, but the biggest is the best of them. The 2 smaller ones kind of remind of armadillos. That's not bad, but they could maybe use a tiny bit more random cragginess. But then, I probably only noticed because there's still so few mountains
I know from experience the rush that can be had from realizing that it's possible to draw awesome looking mountains, so keep going
As for the rivers, I think maybe darken them even more, and try to make them a little narrower. Right now they look very dominating, and I think that as they are now, they might continue to dominate even as you add more to the map.
Last edited by moutarde; 02-02-2011 at 09:29 PM.
Thanks moutarde! I'm hoping the armadillo-ness will fade as I make more; we'll see As for the rivers, yeah, that's why I hate them. My first rivers were not smooth enough or fat enough... so I smoothed them and widened them and they were too fat and too smooth >.< Then I went back and drew more skinny ones, and hated them more. That's when I said "to hell with rivers" and decided to do something else for a while. I figure that with too-fat rivers, it should at least kinda force me to leave room for deFer's cool-looking banks.
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
They look great, more 3d shaded rather than basic hatched but great all the same.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps