Reply With QuoteLooks great!
Thaldar - first map.
Hello,
This is actually my second time introducing myself(see: http://www.cartographersguild.com/me...hi-canada.html) Stuff happened and I had to get away for a while(as well as get a new account because anytime I attempted to recover my password it told me the answer to my random question was incorrect), but yeah, hi. So here's a much more developed version of the very simple map I posted some months ago now that I've gotten time to work on it. I used the Saderan tutorial ^_^
I know there's a lot that can be done to improve it(and I look forward to comments on such), but I'm really pleased with how it turned out given that this was my first time creating a map with photoshop(or any program). The next thing I want to do is create a political map version of it. So far, I haven't had much luck since I'm not all that sure how to go about it.
Looks great!
Welcome back to the Guild Pasch. Nice execution of Tear's tutorial. I really like the shape of your land masses.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Nice. Good shape and color
Great start! As for how to put people in the picture, imagine yourself a roving band of settlers - barbarians, colonists, whatever. Ask yourself where you'd like to stop and settle, what you would eat, produce, and so forth. Where would some natural barriers be between groups - big impassable rivers or ranges, deserts maybe. Where would there be particularly high populations, and what surpluses and shortages might there be. Since its your place, if you don't see an answer you can make one up to make things more interesting. Such as - maybe you'd like that delightfully convoluted set of inlets and lochs to be a hotbed of trade... Well, juggle the latitude til it would be an okay place to grow a lot and sail a lot (can't learn to build sailing ships if the lochs are iced in!). (But then if you'd rather your people be fur-clad ice rigger-innovators, shove the whole landmass far enough n or s to gen the ice.). Artificially create some needs - over here coal, over there iron ore, limestone elsewhere. Self-sufficient states are boring.
Political borders would make some sense (ridge line, river) and would sometimes be arbitrary (geometrical perfection or random wiggles). If your people are fractious and varied, maybe there's a mix of dozens of statelets. If all are uniform, maybe there's but one or two political units. Or if you favor the odd ravening conquerors in your domains, maybe there's a zillion subdivisions of onetime independent units, now melded into one massive empire. See my drift? Tell a bit of a story, and the geography follows plausibly.
Mechanics? Use thin lines for borders, so as not to obscure much of that nice terrain. If you have discontinuous domains - enclaves, enclaves, colonies, etc, consider color coding by rims of color on the boundaries, to cut down on the needed text. Dots do well for cities on this style, and/or simple shapes, with or without outlines. There's a great tutorial on label placement linked to in the sig of _______ (mind blank - somebody'll know).
Last edited by jbgibson; 11-28-2012 at 11:57 PM.
You have lots to be proud of, that map looks really great. I especially love the coastlines, they look very convincing. Have you drawn them by hand? I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next with this already beautiful map.
Thanks for the tips. It's really the technical stuff that I need to figure out for borders. Lorewise, I've got an early-industrial fantasy setting in mind where I want to explore, realistically speaking, what relations would be like between species that lived hundreds of years but didn't experience time differently, like elves, and humans.Political borders would make some sense (ridge line, river) and would sometimes be arbitrary (geometrical perfection or random wiggles). If your people are fractious and varied, maybe there's a mix of dozens of statelets. If all are uniform, maybe there's but one or two political units. Or if you favor the odd ravening conquerors in your domains, maybe there's a zillion subdivisions of onetime independent units, now melded into one massive empire. See my drift? Tell a bit of a story, and the geography follows plausibly.
Mechanics? Use thin lines for borders, so as not to obscure much of that nice terrain. If you have discontinuous domains - enclaves, enclaves, colonies, etc, consider color coding by rims of color on the boundaries, to cut down on the needed text. Dots do well for cities on this style, and/or simple shapes, with or without outlines. There's a great tutorial on label placement linked to in the sig of _______ (mind blank - somebody'll know).
I drew them on photoshop using a mouse.You have lots to be proud of, that map looks really great. I especially love the coastlines, they look very convincing. Have you drawn them by hand? I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next with this already beautiful map.
Last edited by Pasch; 11-30-2012 at 09:41 PM.
It seems then that you are very skilled and observant. You cannot imagine how often I get frustrated with my coastlines! ^^ Can't wait to see more from you!I drew them on photoshop using a mouse.
You can try cloudclusters for setting up the coasts.
realy great works !!
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