Val Nevan

[Jaxilon]

Yes, this looks really promising.

[Blaidd Drwg]

Thanks, peeps ^^

It is indeed mostly a matter of planning and patience and much less of having drawing skills.
I've thought of using a grid, but since the buildings' orientations are always different I thought it wouldn't really pay off. Also: I'm not terribly good at photoshopping and I'm not really sure how to get rid of the grid. And the paper I'm using is quite good, and I realy love drawing on it

Here's another update. Small in terms of square inches covered, but large in terms of time spent/wasted
I now regret drawing the castle first. It was supposed to become the 'center piece' of the city, so to speak, but I'm afraid it will look very shabby when compared to what I imagine to be the wizards' school ... Nuts



EDIT:
the city is situated on a hill, with the castle at the top on a steep incline. The rest of the city is supposed to gently slope upwards towards the steep part with the castle. I'm not sure how to draw that, so any advice you good people could give me, would be very welcome indeed!

[Seraphine_Harmonium]

Some programs have grids that you can turn on and off. In GIMP for instance, you can just go to "View>Show Grid" and it pops right up. Then you just repeat that to turn it off. I expect that Photoshop has something similar. Djekspek has also pointed out that you can download Isometric grids too, and pointed to this one

[Larb]

Besides a bit of shading on the right side of the hill, you could draw the buildings closest to the castle cutting in to it a little. That should give the appearance of an incline. Also if the city slopes up, everything is going to be slightly stepped in spots.

I just quickly drew an example of what I meant. Apologies for defiling your map but you'll see what I mean!

[Blaidd Drwg]

Some programs have grids that you can turn on and off. In GIMP for instance, you can just go to "View>Show Grid" and it pops right up. Then you just repeat that to turn it off. I expect that Photoshop has something similar. Djekspek has also pointed out that you can download Isometric grids too, and pointed to this one

Oh, I know The trouble is, I'm doing this on real, old-fashioned paper. I've tried drawing something like this with photoshop, but it's not the same. Even with decent brush settings, I miss the feel of real paper
Maybe I could try using tracing paper with a grid underneath, or beter yet: a lightbox. Thanks for the link! I'm sure it'll be useful then

I just quickly drew an example of what I meant. Apologies for defiling your map but you'll see what I mean!

Haha! Well, I still have the original
But that's great advice! Thank you

[Seraphine_Harmonium]

Then the best I can say would be maybe get a transparent right angle tool if you don't have one already. It wouldn't be a full grid, but you could make sure each angle was right, and be able to see through to the image underneath.

[Blaidd Drwg]

You mean like one of these?
It works, but I think I've misjudged the scale. Most buildings are just 3-5 millimeters high and that makes it very easy to screw up. I just hope that all the little mistakes won't stand out so much when it's done

[Seraphine_Harmonium]

It works, but I think I've misjudged the scale. Most buildings are just 3-5 millimeters high and that makes it very easy to screw up. I just hope that all the little mistakes won't stand out so much when it's done

They don't even stand out now. I can't find anything that is glaring. Maybe one wavy roof, but anything else I could see being intentional.

[Blaidd Drwg]

They don't even stand out now. I can't find anything that is glaring. Maybe one wavy roof, but anything else I could see being intentional.

I agree, now that I'm used to it. I was hoping it would work that way, and it does, as long as you don't take a good hard look at each individual building

Latest update. I did a border first. Maybe not the wisest decision, but I needed to do something different fort a while.
And then there's the cathedral ... I think I've overdone it. It was meant to be big, but not Albert Speer big. I got so hung up on drawing the thing (octagonal groundplan in isometric projection, aaaargh), that I lost sight of the bigger picture. I think I'm just going on with it and if I still feel it's to fracking huge when the pen drawing is done, I will scale it down in photoshop before I start colouring.

Thanks for the kind words, motivational rep and advice so far! You've been a great help

[Lyandra]

This is going to look awesome when you finish it Already it looks spectacular. Keep going!