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Thread: Continent of Irshy

  1. #1

    Wip Continent of Aeviheim (formerly Irshy)

    What began as a quickly fudged map using other peoples' brushes and a lot of mistakes has turned into a lot more work entirely. Once I found this forum, and browsed some of the most amazing fantasy maps I have ever seen, I became dissatisfied with my own creation. It wasn't good enough, not nearly as good as what it could be, if I put the effort in like so many other people had for their maps. The members of the Cartographers' Guild have inspired me to do better with my, admittedly first ever, map.

    So, please regard this work with a grain of salt and the knowledge that I'm rather new to this whole cartography thing. Having said that, I'm definitely looking for constructive criticism on this map so I can make it better (cue river police?).


    Without further ado, attached are some bits and pieces that I have been working on over the past 3 days (about 22 hours spent on all this so far, not including reading the many useful tutorials of this website).

    The purpose of this map is as an aid to a LARP campaign that I will be running 3 years from now, after the campaign that I'm currently running. It will be a sword and sorcery game, but I wont go on about that further than to say this is a map for medieval fantasy purposes. The map will be A2 size when I'm finished, so I can print it out when I'm done with it, for myself and for anyone who wants to order prints from the game. I'm working on the landscape at A1 size so that the landscape has detail, and will shrink it to A2 before adding the icons and names.

    The continent preview is a much shrunken version of the draft landscape plan. The grunge brush streaks in grey represent a crude height map, and the green is roughly the forest distribution I'm aiming at. I've only given cursory consideration to tectonics, climate, and rainfall at this stage because it's a single continent, rather than an entire world, and the main intended audience of the map probably wont pick up on errors in such things.

    The mountains, hills, and land forms are inspired by the amazing map of Colorado at The BIG Map Blog, and the Imperial Worldmap of Arden right here at the Cartographers' Guild, and a few photos courtesy of google image search. I drew my own land forms mostly because I wanted mountains and hills that looked more realistic than the standard issue iconic representative fantasy map triangles for mountains (I have nothing against them, they're just not my style). The buildings are somewhere between generic basic buildings and Nordic architecture (there are also a few more in the works). The trees were referenced from photos, and while I'm not terribly pleased with them, I figure they'll do the job (although I may redo them before I use them).

    Having done all this, I figure it's time I give back to the forum that I have lurked on and learnt so much from, so I'm sharing this with you all. For anyone who is interested, I have turned all of the sketches into photoshop brushes. Should anyone want them, I'll upload them in another post.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by Tetrajak; 11-06-2012 at 04:27 AM. Reason: Setting name changes, thus the continent name has changed

  2. #2

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    Looks great so far! I love your mountains, very nice style.

  3. #3
    Community Leader Lukc's Avatar
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    I agree, very pretty mountains! And towns!

  4. #4
    Guild Novice narogi's Avatar
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    I like your mountains and trees. Those are pritty cool symbols for a Sword and Sorcery setting.
    Till I lack the proper drawing skills I am still using other people's brushes
    So I would like to ask for Your permission to occasionally re-use your symbols for my maps.
    I still don't know, when (or wheter) I will actually draw those maps, I am still stuck with designing my hobby setting and gathering my strenght for the task
    "Be Yourself - everyone else is reserved already..."

  5. #5

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    Thanks for the positive comments, everyone! Hopefully the map will look decent once it's been composed.

    Narogi: Yes, you have my permission to use the symbols that I've created, so long as it's non-commercial and you attribute your use of them. I've attached the photoshop brushes to this post, so feel free to download them; they have the full-resolution land forms, as well as a few extras I drew last night.
    Attached Files Attached Files

  6. #6
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Schwarzkreuz's Avatar
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    Fantastic!
    Rep+Rate this. You realy got me rethinking at some important points in mapelements. It will be a pleasure to follow your next steps, I am sure.

  7. #7
    Guild Journeyer Guild Sponsor Klaus van der Kroft's Avatar
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    Wow, I really like those brushes. They remind me of Heroes of Might & Magic III, one of my favourite games of all time. I can only imagine the excellent maps you'll be making with these.

    Great work!

  8. #8
    Guild Artisan Katto's Avatar
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    Really fantastic brushes, but I can't use them with PS 11. I've downloaded them twice, but there is a program error when using them. Does anyone else have this problem too?

  9. #9

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    Thanks for the positive feedback, I'm glad you all like the brushes!

    I've begun placing the mountains, but am not pleased with how they look when the map is reduced to a smaller size, and realise that when I shrink it again to make the web version, that they will be tiny. Therefore I'm going to use the full size brushes on the A2 size canvas to prevent the web version mountains from looking like just a bunch of rocks. Once I've completed the mountain ranges, I'll post a WIP picture.

    I will also be drawing some more large (but not gigantic) mountains to add to the brushes, mostly to increase the variety. I'll upload the newer brushes once I've done this. When I finally finish this map, after which the brushes may change even more, I'll create a thread in the resources forum and share them there.

    Katto: The brushes were made in PS CS3, so may not work for you in PS 11. Sorry, I should have said so earlier.
    Last edited by Tetrajak; 02-27-2012 at 06:28 PM.

  10. #10
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Schwarzkreuz's Avatar
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    Tetrajak, I am also inspired bye your work and have recently redone my complete Citybrushes. Your versions are much more convincing than what I had build up before. i hope you dont mind that I maked my own versions based on your concept?

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