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Thread: The Town of Southrun: Made with Larb's Town Tutorial

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    Guild Master Facebook Connected jtougas's Avatar
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    Wip The Town of Southrun: Made with Larb's Town Tutorial

    I figured I'd give Calan Stonebridge a bit of a break for a moment (as he's currently locked in a dark hold in a ship being rocked by a violent storm.. ) and get back to work on my Kingdom of Shendenflar campaign setting. I've been reworking a lot of old maps of the kingdom over the last 2 years as I learn new techniques. I don't mind that most of the maps are different styles I really just want them to be at least consisent as far as quality goes. It's funny how for years and years I hand drew every map in that kingdom. Cities, towns, the entire kingdom hand drawn on varying sizes of plain paper. They weren't particularly good had drawings but they served their purpose. Now that I am really trying to get Shendenflar together for a possible pdf. I want to create the best maps for it that I can. I decided to make a map of the Town of Southrun. Southrun is a small town (population approx 200) along the banks of the Fler river. It's main function is to serve as a staging area for caravans going north and south. It is also (like most towns and villages along the river) a fishing town. It is a resupply point for the Wolves Fall Castle which is 40 miles East of the town as well. There is also a ferry from the capital city of Riverhewn which sits across the river from Southrun. As you can see there is quite a lot going on in this little town.
    All this brings me to the map. Southrun deserves a good map. I discovered Larb's excellent tutorial and have adapted it so I can follow it in GIMP. I have gotten all my roads and buildings laid out and also the river. This tutorial is so easy to follow I found myself actually enjoying drawing all the little lines on all the roofs. Next up will be trees hand drawn with a mouse. This should be interesting. As always feedback is requested and appreciated.

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    I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....

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    Looks like you're having a world expansion LOL, nice work so far, mousy trees, you need to spring for a tablet MUHAHA

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    That's great, I am glad it is sort of translatable into GIMP. My only comment would be that some of the roof shadows are inconsistent.

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    Guild Master Facebook Connected jtougas's Avatar
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    Wip

    After a few hours of hand cramping I've gotten to this point with this map. I don't have Larb's artistic talent so my trees are basicaly "blobs" of varying shades of green with a very low opacity texture and some highlights and shadows. For anyone that might be interested here is a little background on the way things are named in Shendenflar:

    Places in the Kingdom of Shendenflar are generally named for what they do or where they are. The suffix "run" is a local term for river hence Southrun and Northrun. Southrun being the Southernmost town on the Fler river and Northrun being North of the capital of Riverhewn. In Shendenflar the Fler river is called the "Cold Run" due to it's origin somewhere far in the North.

    Quote Originally Posted by Larb View Post
    That's great, I am glad it is sort of translatable into GIMP. My only comment would be that some of the roof shadows are inconsistent.
    Thanks. Your tut is so well designed that it's easy to make the adaptations to GIMP. I actually started this in PS but I didn't like the way the line tool kept making new rectangle layers for each roof line (I'm sure I was doing something wrong as I am VERY new to PS and I am far more comfortable in GIMP.) GIMP handles somethings different as you can't apply filters to blank layers and then fill them or other wise manipulate them and the outer and inner glows are a bit different. As for my shadows I am hopeless when it comes to that sort of thing. I have a real problem figuring out where things like that are supposed to go and I usually screw it up at some point. Thanks again for a great tutorial !!

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    I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....

    Finished Maps
    Kingdom Of Shendenflar Campaign Setting (WIP)

    Everything I post is free for use and redistribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence, except where noted otherwise in the thread.

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    Community Leader Bogie's Avatar
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    Town map is coming along nicely!

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    One of the things I do when making maps where light and shadow matters is draw a little light bulb and some arrows indicating light direction. That way I don't forget (because I usually do otherwise).

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    Guild Master Facebook Connected jtougas's Avatar
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    Wip

    Quote Originally Posted by Bogie View Post
    Town map is coming along nicely!
    Thanks Bogie.



    Quote Originally Posted by Larb View Post
    One of the things I do when making maps where light and shadow matters is draw a little light bulb and some arrows indicating light direction. That way I don't forget (because I usually do otherwise).
    You'd think after ALL the encounter maps that I've done I'd have a better grasp on lighting. I think the problem is that while I'm working on this I'm thinking of all the stories and adventures that have happened in this little town. Thanks for the tip I've applied it and at least now my shadows make sense.

    As you can see I've removed all the trees for two reasons: 1. they looked a bit like green fruity pebbles and not so much like trees. 2. The shadowing was off and it made the whole thing look "wrong" I'm hoping to correct these issues for the next update. The good news is that the building shadows and shading are now making sense (I hope) I have the light direction coming from the bottom right of the map (Southeast) as if the sun were rising. (This is based on the planet of Oerth from the WoG which is Earth-like in it's rotation.) As I said above this little town has seen more than it's share of adventures since the creation of the setting. In fact the first time my character from my long running campaign set foot in the kingdom it was in Southrun. (There was a long and ardous journey through the Land of Iuz (this is very pre-Greyhawk Wars) and the Wolf Nomad Lands. Anyway before I get all carried away.... Feedback is requested and apprciated.

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    I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....

    Finished Maps
    Kingdom Of Shendenflar Campaign Setting (WIP)

    Everything I post is free for use and redistribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence, except where noted otherwise in the thread.

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    Guild Master Facebook Connected jtougas's Avatar
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    Wip

    Tonight's update: I added new trees and shadows and am pretty happy with the way it looks now. I'm going to add a border and label this tomorrow. I'll also add a scale (after I look up and see just how big Southrun is, it's been a while.) As always feedback is requested and appreciated.

    *EDIT* After looking at this I'll probably crop some off the top as there's just a lot of nothing up there that kind of detracts from the map.

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    I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....

    Finished Maps
    Kingdom Of Shendenflar Campaign Setting (WIP)

    Everything I post is free for use and redistribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence, except where noted otherwise in the thread.

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    Guild Apprentice gbsilverio's Avatar
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    Pretty good, the changes in the lighting and trees really made a difference!

    Do you plan other changes besides the border and labels?

    See ya!

  10. #10

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    Looking good JT, nice job adapting Larb's tutorial. I look forward to seeing this completed.

    Cheers,
    -Arsheesh

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